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Section I: Introduction
Background and Terms of Reference
22. The Sea Fish Industry Authority ( SFIA or 'Seafish') is a levy funded non departmental public body established under the Fisheries Act 1981 to serve the interests of the UK sea fish industry. Based in Edinburgh and Hull, it has an annual turnover of £11.5m and 117 staff.
23. The four Fisheries Ministers in the UK invited us to undertake a review of the Authority, looking at its roles, responsibilities and funding. The review was one of a programme of periodic reviews of non-departmental public bodies undertaken under Cabinet Office guidelines. Our full terms of reference are at Annex A.
24. We are a team of two: Priscilla Russell of DEFRA's In House Policy Consultancy ( IHPC) and John Martin, a former Scottish Executive senior civil servant.
Work programme
25. Our work programme was guided by a Steering Board, made up of Fisheries' Directors for the four sponsor Departments, and the Chairman and Chief Executive of SFIA. The Steering Board met three times: in May to consider our terms of reference and work programme; in July to consider our consultation paper; and in November to consider this report. While the Steering Board guided our programme, we are alone responsible for the content of the consultation paper and this report.
26. We started work in late May 2005. We issued a consultation paper in mid-July, briefly describing the activities of the SFIA, setting out some of the issues, and posing some specific questions. The paper is available alongside this report. It was sent to over 300 stakeholders, and made available on the web-sites of the four sponsor departments.
27. There were 50 responses to the consultation paper. Marianne Croker, a member of IHPC's team, undertook a question by question analysis of the responses, noting the numbers commenting on particular issues and the content of their response. Her report on the responses is also available alongside this one.
28. We benefited from full day presentations about SFIA activities at both the Hull and Edinburgh offices, and visited the SFIA head office in Edinburgh on a couple of other occasions. We are very grateful for the assistance we were offered by SFIA board members and staff at all levels throughout this exercise. We had informal discussions with some 25 stakeholders (including 4 Board members) and (see paragraph 34) with Rosemary Radcliffe. In addition to the formal Steering Board meetings, we also had very constructive discussions with sponsor Departments' officials on a number of occasions.
Structure of this report
29. As our work on this review progressed, it became increasingly clear to us that there were tensions and contradictions at the heart of SFIA's constitution and funding, and that these needed to be exposed and resolved before many of the issues raised by our terms of reference could sensibly be decided. We concluded also that these were issues which needed to be considered and resolved by the four sponsor Departments in discussion with SFIA management and the industry, rather than dealt with definitively and conclusively by ourselves in this report.
30. The structure of this report reflects that thinking. Immediately following this introductory section, section II is about the need for a fundamental reappraisal of the role of SFIA, focusing on the tensions between the demands of the fishing industry and those of the sea food industry, the market distortions inherent in the current levy arrangements, and the weaknesses arising from the Authority's dual accountability to Ministers and to its levy payers. Section III then follows the structure of our consultation paper, describing the broad tenor of the consultation responses to the issues we raised, noting cross links to the issues raised in section II and offering relevant conclusions.
Concurrent Review
31. Our work was undertaken concurrently with the Review of the Agriculture and Horticulture Levy Boards undertaken by Rosemary Radcliffe. While we have cross-referred to Ms Radcliffe's views at various points in this report, because of the timing we have not directly addressed the question of how far her conclusions apply also to SFIA. In particular, we have not dealt with the issue of how SFIA might fit within the three tier new model structure she recommends, and whether SFIA might benefit from institutional change of this kind. These are questions which sponsor Departments may wish to consider further when they have reached a view on the various issues noted in paragraph 30 above.
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