SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

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Economic Impacts of a Ban on Hunting with Dogs in Scotland.

6. Gamekeepers and related employment

6.1 Background

The focus of this part of the study was on the direct effects of the Bill on expenditure and gamekeeper employment on farms and estates with sporting interests. Businesses and individuals that manage sport shooting employ a wide range of staff directly, including gamekeepers. They also purchase a variety of services from other businesses, which indirectly contributes to employment.

Changes in fox and vermin control methods will be required under the proposed legislation. However, the likely impacts on game bird populations and consequently on sport shooting are not well established. A detailed consideration of the ecological impacts was beyond the remit of the study, as was a comprehensive investigation into the long-term effects on sport shooting (including effects on hoteliers etc.).

Nevertheless, it was considered important to obtain some estimate of the impacts on direct employment and expenditure, as perceived by landowners. Hence we undertook detailed interviews with a large number of landowners whose activities would potentially be affected by the ban. However, it should be borne in mind that these results are based on individual opinion and there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the responses. We found considerable uncertainty on the part of respondents as to the nature and magnitude of the effects. The interpretation of the impacts of the ban must be seen as correspondingly imprecise at this stage.

6.2 Survey of landowners employing gamekeepers and related staff

The impact on gamekeeper and related employment was derived from a survey of a sample of members of the Scottish Landowners Federation (SLF). The SLF identified a list of 905 members with a current or historically declared interest in shooting sports from their total membership. From the list of 905 members a random sample of 170 members was selected for interview and 118 useable responses obtained (see 1.6).

When the sample information was raised to the population of 905 estates, 330 (36%) estates were found to manage shooting activities and employ staff directly (Table 6.1). Of this 330, 64% were commercial shoots earning income directly, the remainder being non-commercial (private) shoots. The other 575 landowners may have undertaken shooting activity on their land but were not direct employers of staff related to shooting sporting activities.

Table 6.1 Number of respondents with and without direct employment in shooting activities

6.3 Impact of a ban on the use of dogs in game management

Countryside sports use working dogs in a number of different ways. Many of the respondents were unclear as to the implications of the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Bill with respect to the wider use of working dogs. However, as it was clear that terrier work would be banned under the Bill as worded at the time of the study, respondents were asked to consider the impact of such a ban on the viability of their shooting activities.

Landowners were asked how they would undertake vermin control in the event that terrier work was banned. Table 6.2 shows the aggregate mean response with respect to current and proposed changes in vermin control practices. From the survey, 12 % of current vermin control activities were undertaken using terrier work, 70 % shooting and lamping, and 18 % snaring and other methods. The results are compared with a survey undertaken by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association⁷ where it was estimated that some 26% of foxes are controlled using terrier work, 45% lamping and shooting, and 29% snaring.

It was estimated that following a ban on terrier work, shooting and lamping would increase from 70% to 82% as a proportion of total effort with virtually no change in other methods.

Table 6.2 Changes in vermin control methods of landowners in response to a ban on terrier work

Landowners stated that they killed approximately 18,000 foxes on their land each year⁸. It was the dominant view amongst landowners that the shift to alternative methods would be less efficient, as they were not direct substitutes for terrier work, and that this fall in efficiency would lead to an increase in the fox population in the longer-term.

Landowners who anticipated that these changes would increase the fox population, and thus potentially reduce game bird stocks, responded in one of the following three ways:

1. Some landowners said they would increase the level of effort (expenditure) employed in alternative control methods in an attempt to maintain the level of control. This would result in additional expenditure on vermin control resulting in an increase in net expenditure and employment in the economy.

2. A second alternative, particularly for low ground shoots, was to increase the level of effort employed in directly maintaining the bird stocks by purchasing more game birds. This would also increase the level of expenditure and employment in the economy.

3. For many landowners the above options were seen as prohibitively expensive or simply ineffective. These were faced with a third option that was to simply maintain the current level of expenditure on vermin control. It was felt that this would ultimately lead to a decline in the game bird population and reduced shooting activity with a subsequent impact on gamekeeper and related employment.

The following analysis presents the aggregated results for all respondents.

6.4 Direct salary costs and employment

For the population sampled in the survey, there was an anticipated reduction in sporting activity due to a ban on terrier work. In the event of such a reduction it was estimated that some changes in employment would result in the longer-term. The effects would be relatively minimal in the short-term.

Table 6.3 — Table 6.5 summarise the raised (aggregate) employment data derived from the sample of SLF members. As a profession, gamekeepers can be distinguished from a number of other closely related professions including stalkers and ghillies. The impact of such a ban on the gamekeeping profession is likely to be different to the impact on these other professions. However, for a number of employees there may be some overlap in their duties. Consequently, for the purpose of the analysis it was necessary to distinguish between full-time and part-time gamekeepers and full-time and part-time employees that have some gamekeeping duties but who could not be considered to be full-time gamekeeping staff.

Table 6.3 Landowners’ employment: effect of a ban on terrier work on numbers of employees

Table 6.4 Landowners’ employment: effect of a ban on terrier work on annual labour costs

*Mean labour cost based on the number of paid employees in each category, not the mean of the total respondents.

Table 6.5 Landowners’ employment: effect of a ban on terrier work on FTE employment

It was estimated that there would be no impact on 82% of the full-time gamekeepers employed, 5% would have increased hours of work and 13% (61) would be made redundant. The redundancies reflected an expected reduction in shooting activity arising from an increase in the fox population. This net effect would be to reduce expenditure by £0.64m. As regards part-time staff, eight would be made redundant, but some employees would work longer hours; the net impact was to increase expenditure by £0.015m. There would also be an impact on seasonal casual and contract employment most of which related to beating, resulting in a further reduction in expenditure on labour of £0.28m.

As with the other surveys the employment data was converted to FTEs. Taking into account increased hours and employment as well as redundancies, the net impact of a ban was to reduce gamekeeper employment by 59 FTEs and to reduce full-time and part-time employment overall by 58.7 FTEs. The reduction in casual labour and contract work resulted in an additional loss of 41.6 FTEs. The overall impact on labour was a reduction of expenditure on labour of £0.91m and a loss of 100.3 FTEs (Table 6.6).

Table 6.6 Direct employment and expenditure effects on landowners of a ban on terrier work

6.5 Expenditure by estates on suppliers

The change in expenditures of landowners employing gamekeepers was calculated for 1998/99. The changes in costs associated with the game shooting activities of the landowners are listed in Table 6.7. When raised from the sample the net withdrawal of non-labour expenditures from the landowners is £1,058,263. The expenditure categories of Fuel and oil, Professional services, insurance and vehicle tax, and Vehicle repairs account for 70% of the total withdrawal.

Table 6.7 Effect of a ban on the expenditures of landowners (1998/99)

The data above refer to the expenditure of landowners wherever they took place. If expenditures are restricted to those taking place with suppliers located in Scotland, then the net effect of the ban on terrier work is to reduce expenditure in Scotland by £1,031,365.

6.6 Indirect and induced impacts

Due to the limited information available it was only possible to derive a partial estimate of the indirect impacts on the suppliers to the landowners. The job losses estimated for the stated impacts were 5.1 FTE jobs and those estimated using the ‘turnover per FTE coefficients’ from Table 4.1 were 13.4 FTEs. The higher figure is the preferred estimate of long-term impacts. This figure forms an element of the total indirect effects. The induced impacts were not estimated⁹.

6.7 Other economic impacts

The reduction in landowner expenditure is based on changes in the quality of game shooting indirectly arising from a ban on the use of terriers to control vermin. The expenditures of participants in shooting would also be affected by any loss in the quantity or quality of shooting on offer. This would not only impact on the income of estates but on the incomes of other suppliers including hotels, restaurants, and specialist suppliers of equipment. It was outside the remit of the study to evaluate any wider impacts of changes in the expenditure patterns of shooting participants.

6.8 Uncertainties in the study

There were two main areas of uncertainty with respect to the impacts on landowners and employment. The first related to ambiguities in the Bill as perceived by respondents regarding the overall impact of the Bill on the use of dogs. In addition to changes in vermin control, a number of landowners expressed considerable concern that there may be other restrictions placed on the use of dogs in relation to managing a game bird shoot which would also make them less tenable. It was widely expressed that as the Bill was currently worded it could be sufficiently restrictive so as to lead to an effective ban on game bird shooting. Clearly, such a scenario would lead to a much higher loss of employment than the scenario examined in this study.

In order to counter this uncertainty, respondents were asked to consider the impact of a ban on terrier work, a clear outcome of the Bill as it is currently worded. However, the ecological impacts of the resulting changes in game management practices (see 6.1) were extremely difficult to predict. Clearly, the resulting impacts on the employment and expenditure are dependent on the uncertain predictions of ecological impact. The predicted changes in fox numbers and the game bird population could not be tested for reliability. The results presented in this chapter should be interpreted in this context.

6.9 Summary

The main impacts on employment and expenditure by landowners of a ban on the use of terrier work are summarised in Table 6.8 and Table 6.9. It was estimated that, overall, the annual expenditure of landowners in Scotland with game shooting activities would be reduced by £1.97m, of which £1.06m would be on goods and services in Scotland and £0.91m on employment. This withdrawal of spending affects employment on the land holdings and has employment impacts on the supply sector and the wider economy, resulting in an overall reduction of 113.7 FTEs per annum.

Table 6.8 Expenditure effects of a ban on the use of terrier work

Table 6.9 Employment effects of a ban on the use of terrier work

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) estimate that there are somewhere between 1000 and 1,150 full-time gamekeepers in Scotland. If it is assumed that the 905 landowners sampled here are representative of the wider game shooting sector in Scotland, then the total of 460 full-time gamekeepers identified in this survey represents somewhere between 40% and 46% of all gamekeepers employment in Scotland. We were not able to substantiate the BASC estimates but they imply that the total impact on gamekeeper redundancies might be double that calculated from the SLF members.

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