§ Mr. LuffTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent discussion he has had with trade unions about closures of his Department's regional service centres. [110180]
§ Ms Quin[holding answer 15 February 2000]: My "right" hon. Friend the Minister is due to meet the Departmental Trade Union Side on 24 February to discuss the report of the Review of CAP Scheme Administration.
§ Mr. LuffTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of his Department's regional service centre in Worcester. [110181]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 15 February 2000]: My "right" hon. Friend the Minister is currently considering the report of the review of CAP Scheme Administration which he commissioned from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) last autumn. The report recommends that the CAP scheme processing functions currently carried out in MAFF and the Intervention Board should be merged to create a new paying agency, and that the IT systems should be redeveloped to enable claim forms to be submitted and processed electronically. Farmers without access to the Internet would be able to submit their forms via third parties. On this basis PWC consider that it will be possible to deliver a significantly better service to claimants and to reduce the cost to the taxpayer of administering the CAP schemes.
The Department is also drawing up plans to align other aspects of its regional activities with the Government Office network, so as to ensure that it can participate effectively in the formulation of policy at regional level.
The future of the Department's Regional Service Centre at Worcester and of the other eight Regional Service Centres, will be decided in the context of these two reviews. Radical reorganisation of CAP scheme processing will only be possible if funding can be made available in the Spending Review 2000.