Environment and Rural Affairs Department Offices (Closures)
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S1M-2289, in the name of Mr Brian Monteith, on the closure of Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department offices in Stirling, Dundee and Forfar. The debate will conclude without any question being put. Members who want to speak in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons as soon as possible.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament regrets the decision of the Scottish Executive to close its Environment and Rural Affairs Department offices in Stirling, Dundee and Forfar; notes that this decision has been taken for financial reasons to reduce annual running costs at a time when the department has admitted to a £66 million underspend in its budget and that it will mean the transfer of staff to a centralised regional office in Perth, and deplores the failure of ministers to consult with the local farming communities on the closure of these offices.
I record my thanks to the Parliamentary Bureau for selecting my motion for debate today. I thank also the members from across the political spectrum who registered their support for my motion.
I am pleased to see the deputy minister. I thought that he might have to catch a train to Ibrox. I have no intention of catching that train tonight.
My purpose in lodging this motion and seeking a debate on it was to establish more accurately the minister's reasoning for announcing the closure of the offices in Forfar, Dundee and Stirling and their operations' relocation to a new office that is to be built in Perth.
As is often the case, the more the background is researched, the more questions are thrown up. I hope that tonight's debate will enable members to ask questions to which the minister will give candid replies.
Members will be aware of the good work that is done by the SEERAD offices' staff in administering agricultural support schemes and carrying out checks and claims—including checks on farms. The Stirling office, for example, administers about 10,000 claims each year, which cover schemes such as livestock movement licences, arable aid applications, beef claims, slaughter and suckler cow premium claims, and organic aid, habitat and farm woodland premium schemes.
I am not against change that is proved to be necessary and that produces a service improvement or unignorable savings, but I do not believe that the closure and relocation of the SEERAD offices meets those criteria. I am fully aware that the Dundee and Perth offices' leases end next summer, but that is not the case in Stirling. It is insensitive and rash to relocate all the staff and functions to new offices in Perth whose construction has not even commenced. It is clear that there was time for prior consultation and it is deplorable that that opportunity was not taken.
Even if the minister's arguments were convincing—so far they have not been—and foundations were being laid, which they are not, the rationalisation, for that is what it is, is wrong-headed. Instead of retreating to a more efficient bunker, the SEERAD service should throw away its producer-oriented approach and adopt a new culture that seeks to serve its customers: the farmers.
I quote from a letter that I received from a farmer from Balfron, in rural west Stirlingshire:
"We are very much against the closure as it is a very busy office and serves us well with our ever increasing complicated paper work."
He goes on to say that if the closure goes ahead, for
"advice and assistance with forms we will have to travel to Perth using more fuel with very expensive fuel tax. I thought a Scottish Parliament would allow us to keep our local Hospitals and other services."
The letter goes on to say that the £100,000 saving from the closure is only a drop in the ocean compared with the outrageous cost of the new Parliament building. That is how farmers see the issue—I have plenty more, similar, letters.
Until such time as technology makes paperwork redundant, farmers will continue to visit their local offices, particularly because they will have to deal with a huge volume of documents. Although it makes sense to move towards electronic returns—the technology exists—the reality is that the majority of farmers are over 50 and do not welcome the prospect of becoming computer literate.
One major concern, particularly for farmers in west Stirlingshire, west Perthshire and east Fife, is the additional travel times involved in getting to Perth. As one farmer wrote:
"The closure of the Stirling office will involve us in an additional return journey of seventy miles to conduct our business affairs."
I presume that the minister knows that many farms are one or two-man operations and that increased travelling times as a result of the move will have a big impact on farm businesses.
As I have said before, consultation was sadly lacking prior to the announcement of the closures on 10 August. In October, a real opportunity properly to examine the decision on the closures was missed when the Executive established its agricultural working group. As the working group was charged with
"advising ministers on the means of ensuring better advice to farmers"
and
"ensuring a more joined-up approach to agricultural and environmental policy",
it seems bizarre that it was not allowed even to consider the provision and location of the area offices not only in Stirling, Perth, Dundee and Forfar but throughout Scotland.
In response to my parliamentary questions, Mr Finnie said that the closure decision was the most "economical" and "efficient", but do the projected savings of £110,000 a year take into account relocation packages for staff? If they do not, those savings will not be found. When I visited the Stirling office, it was clear that many members of staff will require relocation packages. I submit that the situation will be same in Dundee.
The argument that the local offices are being closed for financial reasons does not seem to stand up to closer scrutiny, particularly when one considers the mammoth underspend—totalling almost £67 million—in the minister's departmental budget in the past year. One farmer told me:
"I fail to see how it can save money overall if SEERAD staff have to come from Perth to visit farms and we have to travel from here to Perth with queries."
As we now know, an options paper was presented to the minister and his colleagues, who chose to rationalise the service in a single new building in Perth. When will the move to Perth be made? As I have said, the leases run out in the summer, and there is genuine concern that the new Perth office will not be ready when the old Perth and Dundee offices have to be vacated. What additional cost will suddenly be borne if new facilities are required or an extension of existing leases has to be sought through negotiation?
I would also like the minister to comment on the impact on jobs. According to the department's own figures, 58 jobs will be transferred from these three offices to the new Perth office. Does he agree that it is a touch ironic for the Scottish Executive to talk about the dispersal of civil service jobs and then to centralise the jobs of its rural affairs offices?
We need a change in culture. If the minister can make it stack up, he should by all means consider locating core personnel in one office—but why not adopt ways of taking the service closer to the farmers? That is what any business would do. I have two suggestions in that respect. First, one or two of our hard-pressed local post offices, strategically located in the rural areas, could be used formally to register claims for agricultural payments that require only submission, not discussion or inquiry. Secondly, we could establish a surgery-type service in which SEERAD officers attend the local marts, accepting applications and offering advice on the spot. That would take the officers to the farmers. Modern technology that allows, for example, the scanning of application forms would ensure that any information required from the back office could be provided at minimum cost.
Today, the minister has a chance to play Santa Claus and bring an early Christmas present and some seasonal cheer to the farmers in the communities that I have mentioned by announcing a rethink on the closure of the three local offices. Accepting the approaches that I have outlined or similar ones would show that the minister not only understands the concerns of the farming community, but is willing to go against the bureaucratic mindset and provide a service that is designed to meet the needs of customers, not of accountants.
We have a reasonable amount of time. As five members wish to speak in the debate, speeches of four or five minutes each would be quite possible.
I have received several representations on this issue and have sought the views of local farmers and the local branches of the National Farmers Union of Scotland in my Stirling constituency. As a result, I will confine my remarks to the situation in Stirling.
All the political parties in Stirling Council have spoken out against the rationalisation of the SEERAD offices and I have written and spoken to Ross Finnie about the issue on several occasions.
From talking to farmers and the relevant organisations, I have become aware of the lack of consultation, which Brian Monteith mentioned. In his initial letter about the rationalisation programme, the minister said:
"In the interests of effective control, the service has in recent years been centralised in larger offices, so that the whole of south-east Scotland, for example, is served from Galashiels and most of north-east Scotland is served from Inverurie."
The letter also says that one site gives "more effective control". I ask the minister to explain what is meant by that phrase.
After the north-east and the south-east, it would seem that central Scotland is the next piece of the jigsaw. Perth is proposed as the site of choice for the office, with the Stirling, Forfar and Dundee offices closing. Options have been considered, but I gather that there was no consultation either with farmers or with their union before it was decided that Perth was the most attractive option.
The minister's letter explains that centralisation at Perth is
"the most economical option, as there is little justification for the significant extra costs of retaining a number of smaller offices within a relatively confined geographical area."
Farmers in the Stirling area refute that statement, particularly on the ground of the large distances that would be involved in travelling from Balfron, Loch Lomond and other areas. As Brian Monteith said, some people might have to make a 70-mile trip each way to the nearest office. I was asked to tell the minister that farmers have little time for travelling such great distances at the moment.
It has been argued that Perth is the most convenient centre as there is a major agricultural market there, but farmers in the Stirling area argue that Perth is not a busy market and that few farmers from the Stirling area use it. As there are two markets in Stirling and two abattoirs, Stirling would be by far the best choice. Kildean mart also has NFUS offices and associated shops for farmers.
A final, and valid, point is that given all the difficulties arising from foot-and-mouth disease, this is not the time to be considering a move towards rationalisation. A compromise suggested by Niall Bowser, the local NFUS representative—Brian Monteith mentioned his proposal but he did not mention his name—is that if rationalisation goes ahead, a SEERAD official could be present at the markets where offices are to be closed so that farmers can undertake transactions there rather than have to travel all the way to Perth. I would support that if the inevitable happens—although I hope that it will not happen. I hope that Niall Bowser has written to the minister about that proposal, as he promised he would, and I hope that the minister will give us his comments on it.
I argue that the minister should rethink the policy, particularly in this difficult time for farmers. The offices should not be closed and the situation should remain as it is for some time.
I congratulate Brian Monteith on securing this debate. I will restrict my speech to a few remarks about the Scottish Executive's regrettable decision to close SEERAD offices. I will concentrate on the closure of the office in Dundee, about which representations have been made to me. I am concerned about the lack of consultation, which Sylvia Jackson has highlighted. Perhaps the minister could outline what level of consultation there was on the closure of each local office.
The loss of those civil service jobs is a big loss to Dundee—the city with the lowest number of civil service jobs per head of the population. The decision has made that bad situation worse. Many of us have been involved in trying to attract civil service jobs to Dundee and have met with limited success—with, for example, the decision to locate the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care in the city.
The arguments for dispersing civil service jobs as far as possible are valid. It seems strange, as Brian Monteith said, that that policy is almost being reversed. I will plug Dundee somewhat. Its good transport and communication links and the fact that it provides good cost savings as a location for civil service jobs are arguments to increase civil service jobs in the city, rather than to decrease them.
I say to the minister that we need more of the policy of dispersal in action. That action must be speeded up. I hope that he will keep Dundee in mind as he speeds it up. I also hope that he will answer some of the valid questions, which many members have highlighted, about the decision, the process by which it was made and the lack of consultation of relevant groups and organisations.
At the heart of the debate lies the impression that SEERAD is more concerned about the effective control of various agricultural schemes than about providing an efficient service to the farming community. That impression is held widely. The proposed closure of the Stirling, Forfar and Dundee SEERAD offices is causing widespread concern, especially as the local farming communities that will be affected have not been consulted.
I have received representations from National Farmers Union branches and individual farmers in Stirling and Angus. The proposals are a blow that is felt particularly keenly because the farming community is still reeling from the combined effects of foot-and-mouth disease, BSE and the high pound. At such a time, farmers' need for advice and support is especially high. For many in west Stirlingshire and Angus, as much as 70—or even 90—miles will be added to a round trip if services are centralised in Perth.
Farmers have no option but to use the SEERAD offices if they are to access support, for example to pick up labels for consignments of seed potatoes. Farmers are understandably reluctant to post cattle passports because of their importance. I know that it is envisaged that those passports will not be required for beef special premium applications in the longer term—that is the phrase that the civil service uses—but that is not the position now. The phrase "in the longer term" has all the characteristic and ominous vagueness that is typical of the civil service. At the very least, the Executive should postpone the closures until electronic claims and applications can be made and farming is in a better state.
Why has there been no consultation? It is not satisfactory to say that consultation has not been carried out prior to previous closures. Saying, "We will consult on the implementation of the plans once we've imposed them" is not acceptable. I understand that SEERAD says that the proposed closures are not prompted by savings but by the end of a lease on two buildings—in Perth and in Dundee. What, then, is the point in SEERAD saving at least £110,000? The saving may be more. I would be grateful if the minister would confirm the amount and tell us what the money saved will be spent on. What is the sense in that saving when the department, as members have said, has an underspend of £60 million? What is the logic in, as a result, imposing an extra financial burden on hard-pressed farmers who cannot afford it?
There is no consistency in the application of the Scottish Executive's policy on local offices. On the one hand it is decentralising from Edinburgh. The minister's department is a good example of that with the announcement that the Scottish Water headquarters will be in Dunfermline—which, by the way, I welcome. However, while the Executive decentralises from Edinburgh, it centralises regionally.
There are 19 SEERAD offices, if we include Forfar, which, I understand, is primarily an office of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. By my calculation, nine of them are in the Highlands and Islands, four are in the south of Scotland, two are in the north-east—Elgin and Inverurie—but the vast region of Mid Scotland and Fife will be left with only one. Where is the logic in cutting SEERAD's offices to 16 when Scottish Natural Heritage luxuriates in 41 offices throughout Scotland? I am the last person who would want to cut the number of SNH's offices, but if the Executive is going to rationalise, it should have a consistent policy of rationalisation that applies to every Government department and to every quango. It is not doing that; there is no logic in what it is doing and that is why there is so much anger.
I look forward to the minister's detailed response to the points that I have raised. I always use that phrase when I write him letters and I usually do not get as much as I would like in return. I hope that I will get more on this occasion.
SEERAD might get away with not consulting the farming community, but the minister and his department are accountable to the Parliament and the chamber and we are determined to hold him so.
I congratulate my colleague Brian Monteith on securing the debate. He, like other members who have spoken, has been lobbied. I, too, have been lobbied by the NFU branch in Angus over the closure of the offices in Dundee and Forfar. I understand that there was no consultation of the local NFU branch by the Scottish Executive.
The office in Forfar is small and consists of only two members of staff, both of whom are vets. That is not so important in the broader scheme of things, but the office in Dundee is important, because it is the local office for farmers in Angus. Local members of the Angus branch of the NFU expressed the view that the decision was taken on purely financial grounds, with no consideration for the additional burden that it would place on local farmers, who are already struggling under the piles of paperwork and red tape that Government bodies have imposed on them.
The closure of the office in Dundee will have a huge effect on potato farmers in particular and on seed growers in Angus. The procedure at present for potato seed growers is as follows. An order comes in and the seed grower telephones SEERAD to give it the particulars of that order. The farmer then has to make a trip to the SEERAD office to pick up the labels for that order. The farmer then dresses the potatoes, bags them up and labels them. A representative of the department then has to visit the farm to inspect the order. There may then be another trip for the farmer for further paperwork. Each visit, if taken from north Angus to Perth, can take upwards of an hour.
The inconvenience of the arrangement works both ways. The farmer and the representative of the department face trips up and down the A90 or the A94 between Perth and Angus to deal with the paperwork. The journeys will take at least twice as long as they would if farmers could make a quick trip into Dundee. In the peak season, a tattie seed farmer from Angus might make two or three trips to the SEERAD office every week. The centralisation of the offices in Perth will be an additional burden on the already overburdened farming industry. The situation is worse for farmers from Arbroath or Montrose, whose choice is to go to Perth or all the way to Thainstone, which is near Inverurie.
The closure of the offices and the lack of consultation with local farming representatives highlights the breakdown in communication between Government officials and local farmers. In previous years, the local staff in the department knew the farmers in the area and there was more two-way communication. In recent times, that has been eroded and the loss of local offices will make matters worse. At the moment, 18 SEERAD offices serve the eight areas and farmers are stretched in dealing with the paperwork. Will the minister say whether the closure of the three offices is a Trojan horse for the closure of more offices and for further centralisation of services? If that is the case, it is deplorable and will increase the burdens on farmers.
I want to take issue with something that Sylvia Jackson said. There should not be competition between different areas for new offices. We should try to maintain the current arrangement of having local offices that are readily accessible to the farming community.
I pointed out that I was representing people in Stirling constituency.
That is a fair point. Perhaps I misunderstood Dr Jackson. I thought that she made a bid for the new office to go to Stirling.
Farmers sometimes argue that Stirling is more central than Perth.
I appreciate that the member has a local interest to consider, but from the point of view of farmers in Angus, Stirling would be a much worse location than Perth, because they would have to travel even further.
I look forward to hearing the minister's response to my comments, particularly on the extra burdens on the farming community and the lack of consultation.
I thank Brian Monteith and congratulate him on securing the debate. I apologise to him as I did not fulfil my duties: I should have signed his motion, but I did not notice it until it appeared in today's business bulletin.
For some time, the Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department and the ministers at its head have argued that there are reasons of economic efficiency for the moves that they are making. The department might argue that—although I think that Brian Monteith made some good arguments to the contrary—but the moves, whether they are efficient and effective for the department, are certainly not efficient or effective for farmers, who will suffer following the reorientation of services.
As we are more than aware, farmers throughout Scotland have put up with a hell of a lot in the past few years. They have been through the mill with BSE, E coli, salmonella and foot-and-mouth disease—the list could go on. After all those problems in the farming industry, the one thing that we should not do is remove services from farmers' communities, where their businesses are based. This is the time, more than any other in the farming industry's history, when farmers need support. To start a process of centralisation, when—instead of that—many more people are required to give help on the ground, beggars belief. The way in which the department is dealing with farmers, particularly in the areas affected by the forthcoming changes, indicates an approach that is not customer oriented, but that stems from a culture of introspection.
I want to comment on what Sylvia Jackson said about the choice of locations. I, too, could argue that Stirling would be a better base than Perth, but if we pursue such arguments, we are allowing ourselves to be divided and ruled. In the circumstances, we cannot argue for different locations, one against the other. Everyone who represents all the communities concerned should tell the minister clearly and in very strong terms that we do not accept the decision that has been taken and that we ought to reconsider how we deliver services in future.
It is all well and good for the Executive to come out with grand policies on agricultural strategy—I thought that some of that was good and I agreed with some of it, but I also disagreed with a lot of it. In any case, decisions such as the one that we are discussing begin to undermine all the strategic documents that have been produced, because of their effect on farmers in the communities concerned.
Brian Monteith mentioned particular problems in west Stirlingshire. The problems that exist around such communities as Balfron and Strathblane relate not only to the extra travel time or the cost of fuel involved in making a longer journey; when farmers in such areas are not on their farms doing the work that they should be doing, they require to bring in labour—and cover the additional labour costs—so that work on their farms may continue.
Brian Monteith also spoke about information technology and demographics—farmers who are a bit older and who are unsure whether they should enter the IT world and send stuff down the line. Those were good points, but even if all farmers were IT-literate, the decision to move the department's offices at this time would still be a bad one.
There is anger, disbelief and disillusionment in the farming community. If the minister is saying that that does not exist, or that there is not real concern out there, he is burying his head in the sand. I hope that he can come up with answers to some of the questions that have been put to him.
I am grateful for the opportunity to wind up the debate and I thank all members for their contributions.
It is a bit unfortunate, to say the least, that the motion is based on such a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons behind the decision to close the Scottish Executive environment and rural affairs department's offices in Stirling, Dundee and Forfar. We are not closing them simply to reduce annual running costs, as has been suggested; we need a new office because the leases on two of the existing offices—those in Perth and Dundee—will come to an end by this time next year and, for various reasons, we cannot extend those leases. In the case of Perth, that is because part of the building is being demolished to make way for a new development. We have no alternative but to move to a new site.
Will the minister give way?
I wish to develop my point, but I will be happy to take Bruce Crawford's intervention afterwards.
It is as well that Brian Monteith prefaced his remarks by accepting the need for efficiency changes—a move that might well have been adopted by his colleague, who described the closures as deplorable. In fact, I did some research before the debate, as I am wont to do. I noticed that, in April 1988, the Dingwall office was closed and its was work taken over by the office in Inverness. In October 1989, the Cupar office was closed and its work was taken over by the Dundee office. In September 1993, the Aberdeen office was closed and moved to Inverurie. Also in 1993, the Keith office was closed and its work was taken over by the Inverurie and Elgin offices. In 1994, the Glasgow office was closed and moved to Hamilton. In 1994, the office at Saughton House in Edinburgh was closed and moved to Galashiels. More astute members will have noticed that all those closures took place under the previous Tory Administration.
Does the minister accept that there are not many farmers in Glasgow or Edinburgh, but that farmers are to be found in the areas around Hamilton and Galashiels? Many people believe that the moves to which the minister refers brought the service closer to them, rather than taking it further away.
I was making a point in response to my friend Keith Raffan's comments about the need for a consistent policy of civil service decentralisation to deliver a more effective and efficient service to the farmers to whom Brian Monteith refers. That policy was pursued actively by my predecessors.
Perhaps the minister can explain his logic to me, because I am lost. How is the Executive providing farmers with a more efficient service by forcing them to make a round trip of an extra 70 to 90 miles, which will add to their costs? They do not have an underspend but SEERAD has a huge underspend.
I will come to what Mr Raffan describes as an underspend in a minute.
As members know, the emphasis is on more effective and efficient service delivery. I am sure that Mr Raffan would agree that that does not necessitate the customer's coming to the office in every instance. In fact, a better and more efficient service can often be delivered, particularly in the instances to which Mr Raffan referred, either by post or by electronic communication.
I do not believe that any reasonable person—and I know that all of us in the chamber are reasonable persons—would agree that, when a major investment such as a new building is planned, it makes sense automatically to provide an exact replacement for what existed before. That is why we considered the four options for local offices in the part of Scotland to which Mr Monteith referred.
We could have opted for minimum change. That would have meant no new building and finding alternative accommodation in Perth and Dundee, as others have advocated. However, if we had taken such an approach, we would have failed to take account of experience elsewhere in the area office network, which has shown that a more effective operation can be delivered from a single site. Operating from a single site eliminates the risk of inconsistency between offices and unnecessary duplication of effort.
Sylvia Jackson asked what was meant by the phrase "more effective control". Although staff provide guidance, their main role is to process efficiently European Union grants and subsidies, in order to avoid disallowance. It is essential that that work is done consistently. It is much easier to ensure that it is if staff are located on one site.
We considered to what degree we should rationalise the structure in that part of Scotland. As well as considering the option of combining the staff from the Stirling and Dundee offices and the work that they do with the staff and work of the Perth office in a new building, we considered the option of leaving either the Stirling or the Dundee office open. When we compared those two options, cost was one consideration.
There was a long lead-in time to the expiry of the lease on the Perth office. What discussions were held with the owners of the building about extending that lease? What discussions were held with people next door in the brand new building that houses Perth and Kinross Council about relocating the Perth office to that building?
We would not be in this position if we had been able simply to extend the existing leases. As I made clear, we are in this position because that was not possible.
Cost was a consideration. To answer a direct question that was put during the debate, figures from three years ago suggest that, over 20 years, the overall effect of our decision on accommodation, staff and running costs will be a net saving of about £700,000.
Can the minister tell us whether the accounting takes into consideration the additional cost to the farming community of travelling to and from the office in Perth? Can he detail the consultation that took place with the farming community when the Executive made its decision?
I will deal with the secondary consultation exercise in a moment. My immediate response to Murdo Fraser's first question is that the accounting would not take into consideration additional costs imposed on the customer.
The Executive could have been criticised—no doubt it would have been—by members if we had left one or other of the offices open at additional cost. If we had, members would perfectly properly have criticised us for wasting public money. However, we are being criticised for saving public money—[Interruption.] Mr Raffan seems to disagree.
Is the minister really telling us that he could not find another office in Dundee, with its high unemployment rate and low number of civil service jobs, which he is desirous of increasing? Is he saying that he could not find another lease on another building in Perth? He refers to the lease and then he tells us how much the savings will be. Where is the logic? Who wrote his speech?
Please begin to wind up, minister.
The number of interventions has taken up time, Presiding Officer.
Of the four options that we explored, keeping the Dundee office would have added considerably to the Executive's costs.
On the underspend, there is a distinct lack of understanding—not for the first time in the chamber—about the difference between slippage in capital programmes and on-going revenue expenditure. I am not surprised by Brian Monteith's failure to grasp that, but I am surprised by Keith Raffan's. Only £24 million of the £66 million SEERAD underspend in 2000-01 was related to rural development, as opposed to the environment. By far the largest element in the rural development underspend was attributable to the late approval by the European Commission of Scotland's agenda 2000 rural development plan. That underspend will be reallocated for expenditure over the remainder of the seven-year plan period.
Will the minister give way?
I see the Presiding Officer indicating that I should not take an intervention.
I realise that some farmers may have to make a longer journey to visit their local office—that point was well made by colleagues. However, that is already the case elsewhere, where distances are greater. We must put that point in its proper context if we are to provide a better service for customers when they reach the office. The National Farmers Union of Scotland confirmed that it did not expect to be consulted on the Executive's decision. However, I am happy to discuss the detailed implementation of the decision with the NFUS and other representatives of affected farmers and to revise proposals, as required, to accommodate local preferences where possible.
As I said, the motion displays a lack of understanding—I could say that it displays breathtaking hypocrisy, but I will not—of how the department's area office network operates and of the reasons for a move to a new office in Perth. Accepting the logic of the motion would mean that we should not change our existing structure, despite the benefits of doing so. In response to a question that was asked earlier, we have no plans for further rationalisation, as no other leases are coming to an end. The Executive is committed to change and innovation and to making use of new technology to provide a better service. I am sure that we all support the objective of making progress towards better service delivery. but the motion would preclude that.
Meeting closed at 17:49.