The 'secret' world of the Civil Service (From Gazette & Herald)

The 'secret' world of the Civil Service

DEAR Mrs Beckett, I am a rural chartered surveyor practising in God's own county and my firm has helped hundreds of farmers complete the complicated array of forms to make application for the Single Farm Payment.

Our biggest problem has been unavailability of the staff in your department when clarification and guidance was needed.

There are shameful tales of farmers ringing the RPA for days on end without any response and then, when they get through, your staff did not know the answer, promising to return the call, which never happens.

All that is in the past but the latest twist in the RPA attitude to communications came last week, and it must be totally unacceptable in any country holding itself out to be a democracy.

We got a call from the RPA and, as I was on the phone, my secretary asked for his name and number in order to ring back.

He would give neither and said he would phone again in a few minutes by which time I had made myself available.

He was perfectly civil and his question related to my failure to tick the box as to whether the client's land has been in the English Region.

As the relevant land was in central Yorkshire, I'm not quite sure what other region it could possibly have been allocated to!

However, I wanted to record the conversation on my file and asked the young man, or so he sounded, for his name and the office from which he was speaking.

He refused to give either, claiming that it was now RPA policy not to give out names and telephone numbers.

Despite my remonstrations, he adamantly stuck to this line, apologising for the regulation and stated there was nothing he could do about it.

I am sure, like me, you will find it quite unbelievable that a civil servant, paid for by the tax payers of this country, refuses to reveal his identity.

This comes dangerously close to the methods which were employed by state officials in Eastern Europe before the Iron Curtain collapsed.

It certainly should play no part whatever in the handbook for our British Civil Service. I look forward to an explanation.

Milk price inconsistency

John Fields rang me the other day and mentioned that his Malton milkman apologised last week for having to put the price up by two pence a pint (three-and-a-half pence a litre) and this was due to their suppliers, Dairy Farmers of Britain, who had imposed the increase due to rising fuel costs.

At the same time, from the 1st October, the Dairy Farmers Cooperative cut producer prices at the farm gate by 0.3p per litre.

In recent years, I have totally failed to understand the logic behind the pricing machinations of the dairy processing industry, which always seems to end up with the farmer getting less and less and the supermarkets charging more and more.

One day, as with everything else in this country, those that are in power are going to turn round and find that they have no suppliers left to feed the nation.

New 24-month bone age rule

A daft but costly consequence of abandoning the Over-30 Month Scheme is that in future all animals over 24 months will have to have the vertebral column removed in order to harmonise with Europe!

So for the immediate future, our T-bone steaks off mature animals are going to be unavailable.

Apart from the cost of this paper exercise, there is also a further twist in guidance notes in that every carcase under 24 months of age has now to be marked up with a blue label and all the blue labels have to be provided by, guess who, the butcher.

It seems ridiculous that they couldn't have instead made it compulsory for carcases over 24 months to be stamped up as they would have been fewer in number; but then some officials would have been out of a job.

Ripples of FMD in Brazil

Last week, I reported that the Brazilian Authorities had refused to allow the inspection team from the UK to visit their processing factories; and this week we are told there is an outbreak of FMD on a farm near Eldorado.

I, sometimes, think that our Government are totally potty. On the one hand, Lord Bach has been sounding off that the "future of English beef isn't just important to farming in this country - it's vital".

On the other hand, they let competitive beef carcases into this country that are produced below our standards and patently exposed to dangerous diseases.

This must give a firm message to all members of the public only to buy what they are sure is British.

Paul Stubbins dies after long fight

The Stubbins family are well-known arable farmers in the Pocklington area and Paul carried on the tradition with great industry, flair and integrity.

H E Stubbins & Sons were carrot and potato merchants in our region for many years, and their wagons could be seen from York to the Coast.

Paul was delightful company, enjoying golf and shooting whenever they were available, and it is sad that he lost his last battle at too young an age.

Our sympathies go to his wife, Pauline, and the family.

Plant a tree for Trafalgar

In a recent poll, 20 per cent of people thought that the Battle of Trafalgar was fought in Trafalgar Square. But that could never apply to Gazette readers and I hardly need to remind you that this Friday, October 21, is the 200th anniversary of Nelson's final and greatest victory over the French fleet.

There were 27 ships making up the line of the English fleet, and The Woodland Trust are going to plant a new wood for each one of them.

The first 350-acre woodland on Lamburhurst Farm in Kent is to be called Victory, and the others will follow.

For the rest of us mortals, we could perhaps aim to plant an oak tree in celebration.

In the North East, my Ryton correspondent has found a baker who is going to produce Trafalgar cake, decorated with an English flag and accompanied by a leaflet explaining how we overtook the French.

Light relief

Here are two more titbits from Simon Drew's newsletter:

In Tudor times, mattresses were secured on bed-frames by ropes.

When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "Good night, sleep tight"!

In the ye olde drinking innes, ceramic tankards were fired with a whistle in the handle so that the customer could use it to get service and thus was born the phrase "To wet your whistle"!

An answer to last week's puzzle

The Oxford English answer to last week's puzzle is that the letter 'A' first appears when one reaches 1,000 in numerical sequence.

However, my Thornton correspondent came up with the following:

Your tricky little number puzzle 'At the Market' last week is not likely to tempt the enthusiasts away from their craze for Sudoku configurations.

The quick answer can be found in Arnold Kellett's Yorkshire Dictionary, which reveals that "Onny reet Yorkshermn wad knar at fost 'a' allus cums i yan wen thar's coontin sheeap."

Although a North Country acquaintance (also dyslexic!) insists that number ate comes just after number seven, Pet.

Market report

Forward 130 cattle including 47 bulls 761 sheep including 241 ewes light steers to 129p J L Gray, Grindale, ave 107.2p; heavy steers to 129p J L Gray, Grindale, ave 102.9p; light heifers to 117p R & D Bell, Normanby, ave 91.9p; heavy heifers to 130p A W Hardwick & Son, Snainton, ave 98.6p; light bulls to 119p A W Hardwick & Son, Snainton, ave 101.2p; heavy bulls to 106p D A Robinson & Co, Stape, ave 97.3p; Black and White bulls to 82p N P Turnbull, Gallows Head, ave 78.4p; standard lambs to 101.7p M Hammond, Ebberston Common, ave. 97.8p; medium lambs to 100p D Fussey, Bridlington, ave 94.8p; heavy lambs to 98.9p D Fussey, Bridlington, ave 94.4p; overweight lambs to 92.5p P Robson, Lockton, ave 90.3p; Ewes to £46.23 T G Warters, Boythorpe, ave £28.50.

Updated: 12:25 Wednesday, October 19, 2005