Did you know there was something called the Home-Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA)? Apparently it came into being after the Cereals Marketing Act 1965 under the Wilson government and Fred Peart the minister of agrculture at the time.The Chair of the HGCA receives an annual salary of 26,673 paid by the Authority for a commitment of 1.5 days per week, whilst the Deputy Chair receives an annual salary of 9,224 for a commitment of 0.5 days per week. Authority members receive an annual salary of 4,590 for a commitment of 1.5 days per month. Apparently the whole thing is iad for through taxes, sorry, statutory levies, on cereals and oilseed growers alogn with cereals dealers and processors.
A cushy number if you can get it I suppose. A pay rate of 340 a day for just a day and half a week. Still doesn't it all just sound so quaintly Soviet Central Committiee-ish? Corn prodcution is up comrades, we have exceeded all norms! They have a website and everything!
Update: Croydonian has kindly pointed out to me that the Director of Finance & Business Services is called Gordon Bennett. I bet he gets bored of the sniggering.
6 comments:
TheHome Grown Cereals Authority? And I daresay its psychiatric advisor is Dr Heinz Kiosk? Amazing. I only thought organizations like this existed in Peter Simples febrile and much missed imagination.
Note also this minute from its last meeting:
"Levy income was up by £0.3m partly due to more assertive levy collection methods".
All that is missing are words along the lines of Stalin's "We shall smash the kulaks so hard that they will never recover".
Interesting bit on their partnerships page:
"HGCA is one of 7 Agricultural Levy Boards who work together, through the Applied Research Forum for Food and Farming (ARF), to better co-ordinate applied farming and food research so as to avoid duplication and maximise synergy."
So there are 7 more with chairman, ........
aw, come on. Stop being mean. You can't tell me you've never used their 'Appropriate Fungicide Dose Tool' after catching a nasty rash?
No? Just me then?
http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/policy/levy-bodies/pdf/levy-radcliffe-review.pdf
They have produced some decent reports though... if you are interested in cereals...
Post a Comment