SUMMARY MINUTES OF THE FIFTY SIXTH MEETING OF THE AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE DEVELOPMENT BOARD HELD AT STONELEIGH PARK ON
THURSDAY, 1 JUNE 2017
PRESENT
Sophie Churchill, Ian Crute, Gwyn Jones, Peter Kendall (Chair), Will Lifford, George Lyon,
Adam Quinney, Michael Sheldon, Gary Taylor, Paul Temple
IN ATTENDANCE: Ken Boyns, Anna Farrell (item 10), Rebecca Geraghty, Tom Hind,
Jane King, Richard Laverick, Tim Mordan, Laura Ryan (item 6), Christine Standley
AGENDA ITEM 1 – APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Apologies were received from Christine Watts. Peter Kendall (PK) welcomed Sophie Churchill (SC) and Mike Sheldon (MS) to their first AHDB Board meeting.
AGENDA ITEM 2 – DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
No new Declarations of Interest were declared.
AGENDA ITEM 3 – MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING HELD ON 28 MARCH 2017
The minutes of the last meeting held on 28 March were accepted as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.
AGENDA ITEM 4 – MATTERS ARISING FROM THE BOARD MEETING HELD ON 28 MARCH 2017
Education Strategy (this item discussed under agenda item 10)
Bridging Document (this item discussed under agenda item 6)
Values
Deferred to the next board meeting in order to have sufficient time to discuss. Action: Values will be discussed at the next Board meeting on 1 August
AgriTech Centres
Richard Laverick (RL) had circulated a paper for comment. Action: Board members to feed back to RL on the AgriTech Centre paper which had been circulated
AHDB Studentship Scheme
RL informed the Board that information had been collated by sector, student, value of funding and nature of study. The Board confirmed that they would prefer to receive the information as top level data. Action: RL to circulate top level data to the Board on the AHDB Studentship Scheme
Potatoes
A number of meetings had been held with CRD and progress was being made with trial data from Sutton Bridge. Action: RL to circulate an update on discussions with CRD
Budget Approval - savings made since the restructure (this item discussed under agenda item 19)
Budget Approval – Manager support for forecasting (this item discussed under agenda item 19)
Cyber security review
A review group led by Michael Archer had been established. A report would go to the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) at its 7 September meeting.
Summary of AHDB Board meeting that can be used for Sector Chairs
Summary minutes that were currently posted on the AHDB website would be circulated to Sector Chairs for consideration as to whether they fulfilled the requirement. Action: Jane King (JK) to circulate a version of summary minutes for comment
AGENDA ITEM 5 – POST-BREXIT FUTURE OF AHDB
Tom Hind (TH) explained that his presentation was intended to stimulate a debate on how we positioned ourselves post-Brexit to make the biggest difference to the industry that we serve. TH chaired an internal group whose remit was to consider the needs of the farming and food industry post-Brexit and where AHDB could meet these.
The work of this group was based on the outcome of discussion by the Board in November 2016. Inspiration had been taken from a number of other countries including Ireland, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, North America, Argentina and Brazil.
TH presented two broad options around governance structure which were discussed by the Board.
After extensive debate, PK summarised that there was a strong feeling from the Board that we should be ambitious, look to grow the organisation to become a greater contributor to the success of the industry. This should be done on a holistic supply chain basis as one organisation. It was recognised that other sources of income would probably be positive and becoming more integrated with supply chains and understanding consumers was the key to future development. The Board gave TH a mandate to return to the November meeting with options and costings for alternative governance arrangements. Action: TH to come back to the November meeting with options and costings on AHDB post-Brexit to enable the Board to discuss further
AGENDA ITEM 6 – MEASURING OUR PERFORMANCE
Investment test
The Investment Test was a mechanism put in place for evaluation/consideration of projects over £50k before they go to Sector Boards for approval, the process had been implemented over the past year. The Board gave its approval that:
1. No proposal should be considered or approved by Sector Boards before it had been considered by an Investment Test panel
2. Proposals may be re-submitted to the panel once. If the project fails the panel twice, it can only be progressed if agreed by the main AHDB Board. Action: TH to amend the Investment Test guidelines
Corporate targets
TH presented several charts and asked for observations around which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we should publish. It was agreed to trial internally first before a final decision is taken on which ones to publish.
Dashboards
Laura Ryan (LR) had led an internal team of PAs and Information Systems (IS) members to review reporting across AHDB departments. As a result, a simple Excel document had been built. The document consisted of 6 heat maps for the sectors and one would be developed for corporate. KPI content would be locked down and the document would go out to Sector Boards later this month. In the long-term software may be brought in to streamline the process fully. The AHDB Board considered this work as a major step forward for the organisation.
AGENDA ITEM 7 – MAKE UP OF AHDB BOARD GOING FORWARDS
TM’s slides summarised reflections on how the AHDB Board had been operating. There were many unknowns going forward dependent on the new Government Ministers. The AHDB Board should prepare for the huge challenges that EU exit (Brexit) would bring. A good board must contain a mix of skills and experience that will enable it to provide effective scrutiny and support. Various possible options were highlighted for debate.
AGENDA ITEM 8 – AHDB STRATEGY AND BOARD MEMBER RESPONSIBILITIES
An active debate was held on how AHDB, Sector boards and committees could work together in the most effective and efficient manner to ensure strong levy payer involvement at all levels of the organisation whilst not making the organisation bureaucratic, slow and inflexible. It was recognised that trust and understanding were crucial which meant that activities, systems and process needed to be effective. It was noted that the governance structure of the organisation will need to evolve as the organisation evolves but this needs to be done collaboratively. The Board gave its approval of the KPIs. It was agreed that AHDB Board members would have wider responsibilities on specific cross-sector matters and would feed back to the Board on a regular basis. Action: PK/TH to share and discuss with board members the ideas of taking on wider responsibilities at the next Board meeting
Item 9 was covered under Agenda Item 17.
AGENDA ITEM 10 – UPDATE ON EDUCATION STRATEGY
Anna Farrell (AF) joined the meeting for this item.
AF explained that this work was not sector specific and was the first time we had pulled together one approach to education, which had featured in 5 of the 6 sector strategies (not horticulture). How to add value had been looked at while being prudent in terms of cost and how much resource that we could put in. The proposal to move away from being a delivery arm and becoming more of a trusted source for resource and programme for teacher training whilst working with the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) was agreed.
AGENDA ITEM 11 – RED MEAT LEVIES
The Board was updated on discussions with Quality Meat Scotland and Hybu Cig Cymru.
AGENDA ITEM 12 – A LEADERSHIP ROLE FOR AHDB IN THE MANAGEMENT AND EXPLOITATION OF LIVESTOCK DATA
RL had held discussions with Defra about AHDB’s future role in livestock data. MS reinforced that the current data system for the pig sector, eaml2 was very important. The Board agreed that AHDB having a central role in livestock data was a good strategic fit for the organisation. It was cautioned that the risk of reputational damage could be huge if we got it wrong and due diligence was needed. This project would succeed or fail on the IT platform. The Board gave its approval to pursue to the next step but with a need for a full due diligence exercise and regular updates to the Leadership Team and Board. Action: RL will provide updates on livestock data at future Leadership Team and Board meetings
AGENDA ITEM 13 – SECTOR REPORTS
Beef and Lamb
Work was underway on a report looking into trade opportunities for livestock products.
Cereals and Oilseeds
Recruitment for the first monitor farm in Northern Ireland had been very well received.
It was impossible to forecast regarding Bio fuels further than 2019.
The Electronic Grain Passport project had been suspended.
Dairy
Work had commenced on developing optimising dairy systems, which was approved at the last Dairy Board meeting.
Horticulture
The Horticulture board was exploring the possibility of using Farmbench for field veg grown crop.
The Horticulture board sectors of field veg and protected edibles had agreed to support Fruit Logistica providing the criteria outlines can be met.
The industry was talking about developing a Horticulture hub as the ‘go-to’ place for knowledge in the sector.
GT commented there was concern amongst some horticulture levy payers that their total profits were being compromised with more of their profits being absorbed by paying the levy than a few years ago due to lower profit margins.
A piece of work on robotics and automation for the industry would be undertaken over the summer. The work would scope out and horizon scan where we were and what was possible.
Visits to Sutton Bridge were planned to look at the potential for some sectors of horticulture to look at storage e.g. brassicas.
Pork
AHDB had succeeded in collecting around two thirds of anti-microbial data from 2015/16. MS wished to note the tremendous effort by AHDB staff to gather the data. The data was good quality. The work had also improved the relationship between the AHDB KE team and Pig Vets.
Potatoes
SPOT farms were being well received.
SC was in the process of understanding Farmbench better.
AGENDA ITEM 14 – CORPORATE REPORT
JK asked for comments on how much content was useful to see in the corporate report and it was generally agreed that this could be reduced. Action: JK to review the corporate reporting template
RL clarified that Farmbench was a key development for us as it was our first full farm based benchmarking tool. The concept was to bring those sector based initiatives together in to one model. This was built, currently being tested and would feature prominently at the Cereals event in two weeks’ time. A team was working on the wider branding for it and how we maintain and recruit farmers to the system.
Our choice of social media channels was raised. Action: Christine Watts would bring an update on AHDB’s communications strategy covering objectives for the social media campaigns to the next Board meeting
AGENDA ITEM 15 – RISK
The Board reviewed the Corporate risk heat map.
AGENDA ITEM 16 – CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
How the food and farming industry maximises its input with Government as part of its industrial strategy had been discussed at a brainstorming session jointly hosted with the NFU last week. In parallel to this work, Industry leaders from different parts of the sector were collaborating to ensure that the sector spoke with one voice. Action: The Board gave its approval for £10K of funding to support the AHDB’s input into industry engagement on a sector deal for food and farming
AGENDA ITEM 17 – CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT
A debate had taken place at yesterday’s Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) meeting around pace of change. There were challenges in the workforce in terms of resistance to change and cultural barriers hampering progress. The governance structure with layers of boards and committees also did not help with a risk averse culture and cautiousness due to concerns about sector boards and committees’ reactions and the need to get multiple permissions. The Leadership Team did not consider themselves to be a cautious team – quite the opposite. Action: Board members to continue to feedback to JK and the Leadership Team around the organisation’s pace of change
In Christine Watts’ (CW) absence, JK presented slides on a bolder new communications plan to lift AHDB profile around thought leadership and Brexit. Key points included:
· 25 speaker platforms have been identified between June 2017 and January 2018
· A deck of 50 slides that anyone can use along with a training webinar for sector board members and regional teams has been developed
· 3 new Horizon reports are imminent: Cereals Prospects; WTO; Livestock Products
· One PR agency has been appointed to replace multiple ones
· Farmbench was now live in 3 sectors
AGENDA ITEM 18 – APPROVAL OF ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS (ARA)
KB had circulated a final draft of the ARA for review. A couple of minor changes had since been made following comments by the NAO. Approval for comments made on Brexit would not be received before the General Election and AHDB was being asked to hold sign off until after Ministers had seen it at the end of June/early July. Will Lifford (WL) stated that the ARAC had been happy to recommend sign off by PK and JK. Action: The Board gave its approval for PK and JK to sign off the Annual Report and Accounts including any minor changes required