Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I welcome Colette McMaster, grade 5; Elaine McCrory, grade 6; and Michael McLean, grade 7. You are very welcome. I ask you to take up to 10 minutes for your presentation.

Mrs Colette McMaster (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): Thank you, Mr Chairman and Committee members, for the opportunity to provide you with a briefing on the proposed farm business improvement scheme (FBIS). I am supported today by Elaine McCrory, who leads on agrifood policy, and Michael McLean from the rural development division, who leads on the whole-farm needs assessment survey exercise that we plan to launch. I will start with a brief outline of the progress in developing the proposed farm business improvement scheme. I will then hand over to Michael, who will talk about the whole-farm needs assessment survey.

As the Committee is aware, in its report, 'Going for Growth', the Agri-Food Strategy Board recommended a £250 million FBIS. The board asked for a scheme that will improve competitiveness and productivity in farming through upskilling, knowledge transfer, advice and capital investment. As officials outlined previously to the Committee, a proposed FBIS is an important part of the draft 2014-2020 rural development programme (RDP). The proposals for a farm business improvement scheme in the RDP include a package of resource and capital measures to support sustainable growth in the farming sector.

On 14 October 2014, the Committee received an oral briefing on the draft RDP before it was submitted to the EU Commission for approval. At present, DARD is waiting for the Commission's formal comments on the draft programme. On receipt of those comments, DARD officials will work with the Commission to make any necessary changes to the draft RDP. We anticipate that June 2015 will be the earliest possible date for EU approval of the RDP, and officials will return to the Committee during its forward work programme to provide an update on the EU approval process.

Meanwhile, work is under way to develop the necessary business cases for the proposed FBIS. A draft strategic outline case (SOC) for the FBIS was submitted to DFP in January 2015, and we are engaging with DFP officials to finalise that SOC. Subject to approval of the SOC, we plan to complete outline business cases (OBCs) to cover the range of measures in the FBIS, and each outline business case will explore in detail the need for the FBIS sub-schemes, their objectives, options, costs, benefits and other issues. The business case process will conclude on the best way forward for each proposed sub-scheme within the FBIS.

In rolling out the proposed FBIS, we plan for the early focus to be on making advice and support available to farmers to help them clearly identify their needs and make the right decisions about developing their business. Importantly, the whole-farm needs assessment survey exercise that we are about to launch will help farmers to start thinking about how they can develop their businesses sustainably and prepare for any future capital investment. The whole-farm needs assessment will give farmers an opportunity to inform DARD of the barriers they face in meeting their business objectives, and this in turn will help to shape the scheme development to best meet the needs of farmers.

I will now turn to funding the DARD actions to deliver the Going for Growth commitments: £2 million of resource funding and £2 million capital funding has been allocated in DARD's 2015-16 budget. Subject to the necessary EU approval and business case approval, these initial allocations would help begin delivery of the proposed FBIS in 2015-16. Much of the funding for the FBIS and other agrifood industry support will be capital, and so will be drawn down for the longer term beyond 2015-16. DARD will bid for additional funding as required in-year, and in future years depending on industry demand.

At this point, I will hand over to Michael McLean, who will say more about the planned whole-farm needs assessment.

Mr Michael McLean (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): Chairman and Committee, I welcome this opportunity to present the whole-farm needs assessment. You will be provided with a final copy of what we hope to issue, and I will go through that in a bit more detail later.

As Colette said, we see this as a tool to assist farmers and growers in assessing their business objectives and needs over the coming years. I will go through the key benefits for farmers and also how it feeds into DARD needs. It provides a structure to enable farmers to plan in advance, and that really instils the principles of business planning practice. It also identifies barriers to change and tests the market in assessing the appropriate type, level and timing of government support needed by farmers to meet those business objectives. That includes non-capital needs and capital investment. It also allows farmers to consider their potential requirements that need to be thought of in advance of any project, such as planning legislation and health and safety. Critically, it will assist DARD in developing a baseline of need for farm business investment and improvement through non-capital as well, thereby enabling us to design further a scheme that best fits with the needs of farmers.

I will say a bit about the form. It is important to note that it is not an application form, and no preference will be given to farmers for completing it. We are expecting, however, that farmers who begin to complete it will understand quickly the benefits of the process. It is really about helping farmers to plan the direction of their business and think about their investment, training and support needs. This idea was hatched over a year ago. We have already significantly road-tested earlier versions of the form, which has evolved; the current version is about the forty-fifth. We have tested a number of farmer workshops across our three colleges. We received really good feedback and have taken on board comments all the way through. We have also engaged with a wide spectrum of farming organisations and banks that support channelling farmers' ideas and instilling the concept of good business planning focus.

The form has a simple, portable document format. It is a mainstream method of collecting information, which means that it will be more efficient for us to collect the information electronically. We feel that it will be exceptionally easy to use, which has been evidenced by our tests and pilot schemes with farmers. I have to apologise because what I have here is the electronic version of the form that you would see generally in landscape on the screen, so it will be a lot larger. We will have a hard copy version of it as well. I will go through the key areas of the form. I will be flicking to the second page overleaf. That will show the simplicity of filling in the form by ticking boxes around identifying, most importantly, the business objectives and what the barriers to investment might be.

There is an extensive list, but it is easy to capture information, which will provide a wealth of information for us to establish the need. It will get the farmer thinking about their needs and challenges.

At the top of the next page under section 3.4, we are signposting those non-capital measures. We want those who have maybe not participated before to be aware of other potential support schemes. Some are under farm business investment schemes and other areas like diversification. This lets them think about their training and non-capital needs.

The Committee will be aware of how we promoted health and safety training through the Farm Safety Partnership, awareness sessions through Focus Farms, and the need through the new Farm Safety Partnership action plan to mainstream health and safety. The FarmSafeNet tool was deployed last July. We want to promote health and safety and gain awareness through completion of that tool.

Other sections of the form deal with equipment expenditure. Section 5 is about capital expenditure on construction. You can see the wealth of information we are going to collect on finance and the scale of buildings, for example, in key areas of housing, handling, nutrient storage, feed storage, roofing and protected growing structures. It is split across sectors and the scale of construction investment.

We profile that at the end of that section across the years and ask, "What would you do with grant assistance and how would you progress without it?" That leads into how they plan to measure the success of the grant aid, which is a question we ask in any business planning. It is important that farmers realistically channel and assess the measure of success for any proposed project.

They look at the funding impact and whether, for example, they will progress to a larger scale more quickly and to a higher standard. They also assess the range of impacts. The Commission will very much be looking to measure not just outputs but impacts, and to get farmers thinking about those when they are business planning. For example, they could be thinking about whether it is about increasing animal health performance or through the effective storage of their crop.

The form is to be emailed through DARD. We have set up the processes and procedures to do that. As we receive them, because of the tool we are using, they will be automatically collated and the results will be available immediately. We will be able to check the distribution geographically across the sectors to make sure we have a representative return.

We hope to promote this electronic tool through the DARD website. There will be a range of assistance there in the frequently asked questions section, in guidance and through links to more information. It will also be promoted through our stakeholders, who were engaged in the process and its design. They have agreed to promote it through their PR, using things like text messages, publications and so on. We plan to monitor that and have that information at our fingertips.

We would like to encourage farmers who are planning to make changes to their business to complete the survey over the coming days and weeks. It is an opportunity for them to consider and tell us about their business needs and objectives, and to inform our scheme's design.

Mrs McMaster: Thank you, Michael. As Michael said, we encourage farmers to consider completing the survey. It is designed to help farmers assess their business needs as they plan for the next few years and, in turn, the information from the survey will help us to shape the development of the FBIS to best meet the needs of farmers.

We are happy to take any questions that you might have on the process of developing the FBIS and the whole-farm needs assessment survey.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): OK. Thank you for your presentation. Will the survey be sent out to farmers, will it just be online or what is the situation?

Mr McLean: The form will be accessible through the website and can be downloaded. We are trying to encourage its electronic submission. However, a hard copy version will be available on request, and we have set up email addresses to handle the queries for those who want it.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I think that it could be useful. There are some slight dangers. You need to impress on people to be fairly accurate in what they intend to do. You want to get a fairly good and accurate assessment. I think that it is important that farmers realise that they should put on the form what they realistically intend to do. I am not so sure how you ensure that farmers are realistic.

Mr McLean: With the electronic form, we have buttons that can be hovered over. That information will try to reinforce the message about being realistic. There are sections for projected spend across the years. Previously, with the farm modernisation programme, we were not sure whether there was going to be subsequent tranches. We know that this capital investment scheme spans a number of years, so it is a matter of trying to stage them to make sure that we do not get into an underspend situation and that we channel and target that.

Our pilot exercise has shown that farmers have been realistic. We have put calculators in for things like nutrient storage, and we put in the size of buildings where you might need planning permission. It makes them think realistically. There are also categories dealing with things like drainage, and it asks them about benefit and so on.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): In relation to planning permission, 75 square metres is, of course, quite a small building, so that is going to create an issue. In many instances today, there are existing buildings extended to more than 75 square metres, and they probably do not seek planning permission because they are not getting grant aid. That is fairly well accepted, but once they get grant aid, they will have to have planning permission in place. Is there grant aid on the application? There are quite hefty fees for large buildings.

Mr McLean: Planning permission will be required regardless of grant aid.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I understand.

Mr McLean: As planning responsibility moves to councils, we will need to look at what sort of assistance we can provide. However, planning is something that we expect them to consider now. There are other issues to do with construction. For health and safety, there are the construction, design and management regulations that came out in 2007 and which have been revised lately. We hope to guide farmers in that thinking process.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): You said that it will be at least June before you get clearance on the RDP from Europe. If you get clearance by June, when do you hope to roll out the scheme?

Mrs McMaster: We need formal EU approval of the programme and we need to have DFP approval of the business case, and there is a range of OBCs. Subject to that, we hope to open the programme. We envisage that an FBIS would be rolled out in a phased way. As we said in the presentation, the focus in the early stages will be on providing training and support for business planning to help farmers prepare for any capital investment. Any capital element would come after that initial stage. However, all of this has the following caveat: we need to get EU approval at this stage and the business case approval.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I understand that. Is it possible to have it up and running by the end of this year?

Mrs McMaster: Do you mean for parts of the scheme to start?

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): Yes.

Mrs McMaster: We have money allocated in the 2015-16 budget —

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): Must that be spent in 2015-16?

Mrs McMaster: The money has been allocated for Going for Growth activities, so it must be spent because it is part of our budget for 2015-16. We would like to be able to use that money for the initial rolling out of the FBIS, so, subject to us getting the necessary approvals from the Commission and the business case, we would like to be able to bid for that money for that.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): There is one other issue, before I pass on to members — clarity around the 10% top-up for young farmers. There are quite a few young farmers who are under 40 but are already head of holding. Will they be able to receive a top-up?

Mrs McMaster: Like a lot of the questions, we cannot commit on the detail of anything as it is still subject to the approvals of the programme and so on. In the draft programme that has gone to the Commission, we have said that there is potential for additional grant aid of 10% under the capital investment scheme for those defined as young farmers. In the rural development regulation, "young farmer" is defined as a farmer who is under 40 years of age and has become head of holding within the five years preceding the application. The rural development regulation will set some criteria for that.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): It will discriminate against someone who has already been head of holding for more than five years and is still under 40. That is the issue I have.

Mrs McMaster: The rural development regulation, as it is written, is that it will be someone who is about to become head of holding or who has become head of holding within the previous five years, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): That could rule out quite a number of people who are still under 40. It could rule out a sizeable number of people under 40.

Mr Poots: I just want clarity on that issue. Is it that, actually, you can only have become head of holding in the last five years to be eligible for the young farmer grant?

Mrs McMaster: The rural development regulation says that the young farmer is someone who has become head of holding within the five years preceding the application. Yes, that is the way it is defined. In addition to that, the criteria are that the farmer is head of holding and possesses adequate occupational skills and competence. That is an additional aspect.

Mr Poots: Yes, so they have to have done courses.

Mrs McMaster: As part of finalising the schemes, we will need to determine what the adequate occupational skills and competence are. We will do that as we are finalising.

Mr Poots: For grant aid, you are looking at 40%. Is that for capital development?

Mrs McMaster: Yes. In the draft programme that has gone to the Commission, we have said that there would be up to 40% grant aid. That is the amount of support that we have put forward in the programme that has gone to the Commission.

Mr Poots: Is that up to 40% plus 10% for a young farmer?

Mrs McMaster: That is, in effect, what that would be.

Mr Poots: If you were heavily oversubscribed, that would allow you to go to less than 40%.

Mrs McMaster: The detail of what the final support will be is still to be determined. At this stage, we have not got formal comments or views back from the Commission on any of the proposals that we have put in. We will be in a better position. We are scheduled in your forward work programme to come back after Easter and we hope by that point that we will have received formal comments from the Commission and will be able to talk more about the sort of response that we have got and how we are dealing with it.

Mr Poots: It seems to be machinery that is generally mounted on tractors and so forth, but we are looking at slurry tankers, obviously, with dribble bars and things like that. You could also talk about grassland. Are you looking at grass-cutting equipment, harvesting equipment and so forth?

Mrs McMaster: In the whole-farm needs assessment, we are asking quite extensive questions about what farmers' needs are in their business. The survey is important, and we are encouraging people to complete that so that we can get information about farmers' needs.

Mr Poots: This is not a trick question: are you not especially sure about everything that you intend to cover at this stage?

Mrs McMaster: That is right. It will be down to the farmer's need and business plan basically. Some items are not eligible for support.

Mr Poots: I can see them at the back. An awful lot of items are eligible for support at that point.

Mrs McMaster: It will be down to the business plan, the scheme and the final details of that, but then it will be down to the individual farmer's business planning.

Mr Poots: I know that it is hard to get an answer to this question from a farmer, but would they have done those things in any event? Would they have carried out this extension? Would they have improved these buildings? Would they have bought this machinery in any event? Is there anything built in there for that?

Ms Elaine McCrory (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development): In the survey, there is a question that is partly trying to tease that out.

Mr McLean: Yes, there is a section on equipment, which you refer to, and around the bottom of the third page, it asks farmers to indicate their projected spend with the 40%. The second one asks how they would progress without it. That is why we talk about the same level of expenditure sooner because that profile is being later or lesser. We will gauge that additionality element as well, and that helps reinforce the need in the business case.

Mr McAleer: I will pick up on the young farmer question as well; you must have been pre-empting me, Chair. One of the questions, Michael, is about completing the assessment. It is not an application form. No preference will be given for completing it. Is it compulsory to complete it? What incentive is there to complete it?

Mr McLean: It is not compulsory to complete it, but the incentive, having tested it through farmers, is that they immediately see the need for it. In a way, there is that vacuum, and the farming organisations have said that a tool like this allows them to think in advance. We touched on the fact that there will be non-capital measures, such as support mechanisms, and so, in a way, we had hoped to use online means to communicate effectively. The questions are already starting to gather up in the industry. They can look and say, "This will help me".

Given that the industry is strongly in support of this, we are confident that we will promote it, monitor it and continue to promote it. Yes, where there is no incentive, this is, in effect, a really useful tool that we have spent a lot of time building up, and there has been a lot of complex work in the background to try to make it as simple and as informative as possible to the farmer. We hope that there will be strong feedback on it and we encourage that.

Mr McAleer: My next point is linked to incentives. I note that, for the likes of the tier 1 project, you can apply for funding of around £5,000. For the tier 1, that involves a registered farm business, business plan and farm safety awareness training course. Do you think that there is any danger that having to participate in and go through that process could be a disincentive if, at the end of it, the grant is around £5,000 or £6,000?

Mr McLean: With the concept of business planning, we would expect them to be proportionate business plans based on the level of risk, the level of expenditure and complexity . We would expect a more simple business plan to go through. We have to look at what the scheme design might look like, but we do not want to introduce collecting more information than we need in order to justify that level of expenditure.

Mr Elliott: Thank you for the presentation. I assume that this is essentially a mini-business plan for all farms. Have you any idea yet about categories where that money may be spent or directed? I think that you said that there was £2 million in capital and £2 million in revenue. Is that right?

Mrs McMaster: On the overall funding for the farm business improvement scheme?

Mr Elliott: Yes.

Mrs McMaster: In Going for Growth, the Agri-Food Strategy Board, recommended an FBIS worth £350 million. We have Executive approval to build into the RDP 2014-2020 an FBIS that is worth up to £250 million, subject to need and to demand from industry. There have been allocations across the various FBIS sub-schemes. We provide a breakdown of that on our website as part of the draft RDP summary.

The capital element is up to £200 million; it is a package of capital and other resource-type measures. A range of schemes in the draft programme is also part of the FBIS. There are European innovation partnerships groups, and the indicative allocation for those is £770,000.

Mr Elliott: What will it mean for the farmer? What type of projects will they be able to avail themselves of?

Mrs McMaster: We are proposing a range of training. In the first instance, we see the focus being to help them with business planning and to prepare for any capital investment that they might want to make on their farms. That training would cover business planning.

Michael mentioned health and safety training. In the signposting, the whole-farm needs assessment part of the survey shows a range of support that farmers may need as they plan over the coming years. This survey is an opportunity for us to gather information about the likely demand or need for that support. This is very important for us.

Mr Elliott: We are really quite a distance from saying what type of on-farm help there will be, is that what you are saying?

Mrs McMaster: This is a step before we firm up on the detail of the schemes; this is to allow us to gather information that will help us to shape the schemes. We want to gather information on farmers' needs over the coming years. What do they see their needs being for resource, support, training and advice as well as capital investment? We want to use that information to shape schemes that best meet farmers' needs.

Mr Elliott: So there is a massive paper exercise before farmers get anything on the ground.

Mrs McMaster: This exercise is designed online. You can complete it in hard copy —

Mr Elliott: An administrative exercise, should I say?

Mr McLean: The form is designed to generate information almost as soon as we receive them. If we get 1,000 or 10,000 applications, we can have the results within an hour. We hope to be able to profile and look at the distribution across sectors and types of spend and have that at our fingertips. It is not a paper-sifting exercise. We hope to have it collated using the most up-to-date tools in the background. As I mentioned, we have spent a lot of time and effort in the background to make sure that it is easy in the foreground to collect the information.

Mr Elliott: That is fine, Michael, but most farmers will want to know what it means for the individual farm.

Mrs McMaster: We are not at that stage yet. As well as European Commission approval, we will need in the Department to get DFP approval for the business cases before we can spend any money. The information that we are hoping to gather through the survey will give us good evidence that we can use in the business cases, so it is to demonstrate what the need is.

Mr Elliott: I have just one follow-up to Edwin Poots. The five years and the young farmer as head of holding — are there any exemptions to that at all?

Mrs McMaster: No, that is a rural development regulation, so there is no flexibility.

Mr Milne: Just on that, are there such things as special circumstances?

Mrs McMaster: In relation to the young farmer definition?

Mr Milne: Yes.

Mrs McMaster: That is the rural development regulation as it is written. I am not aware of any special circumstances.

Mr Milne: I think that this is a very good thing, as it gives the farming community a voice to tell the Department what its needs are. There is also a need to publicise it so that the community knows about it. After the publicity, there will be an application period.

Mrs McMaster: There will — I have to come back to this — after we have the approvals in place.

Mr Milne: The application period will end before anybody has been given any grant money, is that right?

Mrs McMaster: Yes.

Mr Milne: Then, from the applications, you will determine how much farmers will receive, up to 40%. Do you envisage a great uptake and that farmers could end up receiving 10% or 20% from the available pot of money?

Mrs McMaster: The survey will give us a good idea at this stage — I know that it is a snapshot going out now — of what the demand is likely to be over five years, which I think we are asking farmers to profile. It will give a good sense of the amounts of money that may be used or needed in grant support from government if we go through with it. That will, in turn, allow us to inform the bids that we need to make. We already have some money allocated in 2015-16. Looking into the next budget periods, that information will help to inform bids that will go into future budget rounds. We will continue to monitor demand, the money required and so on.

Mr McLean: We expect the non-capital measures to get off the ground first and lead into family key skills and the discussion groups that will help to channel farmers, so additional need will come forward from that as well. It is not the only mechanism; we also have substantial reviews of previous schemes and have built on the lessons from them. That is one mechanism, but there are others. There is also a lead-up, so it will not just be a matter of the capital scheme becoming available without other support mechanisms coming first. That will not be the case.

Mr Milne: Just one other question. Among the farming community, you often hear people say that they have to go through those grant schemes and there is so much bureaucracy and regulations that —

— cheaper without the grant. Will this exercise give the edge to farmers or is it something that they would be better not bothering with?

Mr McLean: We would like to think that it will give the edge, channel their interest and gear them up so that they would not only have the skills but will see that the effort that they put in is proportionate. We realise that we need to bring in simplification as much as possible and try to equip farmers so that they can complete it. We are not putting in more than we need to, but we feel that it is a two-way process. We want the farmers to take ownership of their plan. It is not just about the capital grant; it is about their future development needs.

Mrs Dobson: Apologies for missing your briefing. It may have already been covered. Like Tom Elliott, I share some of the concerns. You spoke about a paper exercise. I suppose that I may declare an interest: my husband is a beef and cereal farmer. You may have already covered this, Colette, but you previously told us — I think it was in October — that the scheme will be directed and targeted at farmers. You went on to talk in detail about the training measures and support that would be put in place to help farmers to make the right choices. What form do you envisage that training taking, and, roughly, what percentage of the total budget?

Mrs McMaster: As to how we see the FBIS rolling out, in the first phase, the focus would be on training and support to help farmers to make the right choices about how they propose to develop their businesses. There are indicative allocations in the draft RDP 2014-2020 that has gone to the Commission, indicating the amount of moneys that are allocated in the draft programme to the various elements. The training element comes under farm family key skills. The indicative budget allocation for that over the period of the RDP is £2·7 million. Support is also proposed through business development groups, for which the indicative allocation at this stage is £22·6 million over the period of the RDP. Capital is the largest element of overall funding in the indicative allocation for the farm business improvement scheme. It is up to £250 million. Those are the indicative budget allocations in the draft RDP that is with the Commission.

Over the period of the RDP, we want to keep the schemes and the needs under review. We can calibrate the scheme as needed to meet industry demand. We are still waiting, as we said earlier, for EU Commission approval of the programme and business case approval of the proposals. Subject to that, when the programme is approved, there would be further opportunities throughout the programme period for modification of the programme.

Mrs Dobson: Michael said that there would be simplification as much as possible; I sincerely hope that that is true, as does every farmer in the country. How will you ensure that the funds are evenly distributed? What factors and mechanisms have you to ensure that that happens?

Mrs McMaster: In developing the draft RDP that has gone to the Commission, we had a lot of discussion with stakeholders about how we would allocate funds. Stakeholders were keen that we did not allocate particular amounts to individual sectors. They were keen that we develop this as a scheme that is open to all sectors. That is how we put our proposals to the Commission; we are awaiting comments from it. We will deal with those when we get them, consider them and take account of them. We may need to come back to this.

Mrs Dobson: Do you have an ideal split in mind of how you would like to see this between the tiers and envisage this happening?

Mrs McMaster: No. We will gather information on need from the whole-farm needs assessment. That will help to inform us as well as to which sectors, where —

— the investments are likely to be and in which sectors, at what time, and for what items, issues and so on. We want to take account of the information that we gather from farmers as well. We do not have a split at the moment.

Mrs Dobson: Finally, you spoke about the new rural development programme as well. What work has been done with the new councils so that local action groups (LAGs) are up and running as soon as possible?

Mrs McMaster: Work has been done on identifying or recruiting to LAGs; there is ongoing work by colleagues in DARD with those structures —

Mr McLean: On the farming side, we are working up the individual business cases. You will be aware of the strategic outline case, which was in the presentation. We are continuing to develop the needs for that. The current programme involved the likes of skills, which you had asked about with regard to what would be in there, the farm family options evolved into the collective skills process. We hope to build on that.

Work continues on the key themes of business planning, health and safety, animal welfare, and online services. In capital investment, you have seen the whole-farm needs assessment, but we are also working on the proportional business plan templates to help us so that we do not ask more than we need to. We are also looking at a vast array of potential investment items and scoring them against Going for Growth, efficiency, animal welfare, health and safety, collaboration, carbon footprint and so on. We are coming up with the tools to make the decisions when we get guidance from the Commission and feedback about need, so that we can assess them when we have better data.

Mrs Dobson: —

—simplification.

Mr McMullan: I congratulate you and apologise for not being here at the beginning of the meeting, so I hope that my question has not been asked. This is a good thing. We have had these before, and we have had the same type of questions, fears, worries etc, but they all worked out. With the two-tier system, you talked about ring-fencing and that maybe we will have to wait and see. How are we fixed for time? If we were to go to the banks with a business case, how flexible would they be? Have we talked to the banks yet about this and about getting money out to people?

Mr McLean: Absolutely; we have talked to the banks. We hope to agree some form of commonality between the questions that we ask about grant aid and those that the banks ask about demonstrating the needs in their business plans. Again, they do not want to ask any more questions than they have to. We have talked to nearly all the banks on that, and we will continue to talk to them as we develop the processes so that there is a common understanding of what is expected across all measures.

Mr McMullan: Will those work in tandem when the programme starts? Is Europe behind in its assessments of the programmes?

Mrs McMaster: We said at the beginning that the earliest possible date that we will get EU approval for the programme is June 2015.

Mr McMullan: Congratulations on that. It will be a good thing when it gets under way.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): I should have declared an interest earlier, as I am a farmer.

I, for one, believe that this could be a very useful tool. It is important that the Department identify where the need is and that we are not all over the place. Hopefully, farmers will give an accurate assessment of what they plan to do over the next few years because it could be very useful and target the money where it is needed.

Mr Poots: I have a couple more questions, Chairman. In tiers 1 and 2, farmers have to do a biosecurity plan, and there are also business plans. Obviously, you want them to be reasonably well done. Will you provide templates for farmers to do that or will they have to get somebody outside their business draw one up for them? That would be an additional cost.

Mrs McMaster: I will pass on to Michael to answer that. Certainly, that is why we want to start with advice and training on business planning. We also want the business plans to be proportionate, so that a tier 1 business plan is not as detailed as it would need to be for higher investment.

Mr McLean: Tier 2 was the only one that mentioned a biosecurity plan. We hope that a lot of interest will be channelled through the business discussion and knowledge transfer groups. There will be modules to look at things such as biosecurity and so on. Again, if there was mention of farm nutrient management plans, for example, there would be support for those as well. We hope that all the support will be there. We talked about the forms that we designed — the proportionate templates — and they will be guided through the process, depending —

Mr Poots: They should be capable of doing it without having to get consultants to do it on their behalf.

Mr McLean: It may be the case that, with the level of risk and the complexity of the project, they may need to avail themselves of that.

Mr Poots: So, for some projects they would have to.

Farming has been crying out for a project like this for years. When you drive round the country and see the rusting roofs, there is plenty of evidence that farming has been struggling for a number of years. I strongly welcome the scheme and commend the staff for their work. The form is relatively straightforward. Given the other paperwork involved with farming nowadays, if you are not capable of completing that form, you are probably not capable of farming, let us be blunt about it. It is a reasonable form that will garner useful information for you, so well done to the staff who have been involved in it.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): In closing, as a farmer, I welcome the fact that we are moving forward on this. It has been many years since there has been a business improvement or farm capital grant scheme, so, as Mr Poots said, farmers are crying out for help on this. I think that it will be widely used. Will you place an ad in the farming papers that these are available? It is important that farmers know and that you get the widest possible assessment.

Mr McLean: Absolutely. The Ulster Farmers' Union texts all its members, and there are other means of communicating. We will be using the papers, and they have agreed to do PR for us.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): Have you a time limit for these to go back in?

Mr McLean: We have to establish a time limit because we want to get farmers' minds focused on what is happening. It is about a month; we are asking for completed forms to be in by 3 April.

The Chairperson (Mr Irwin): OK. Thank you very much.