SUMMARY OF HGCA BOARD MEETING
HELD ON 26 NOVEMBER 2008

Election of Vice Chairman

Two candidates had put themselves forward for the position of Vice Chairman of the Board.  A vote was held and Rad Thomas was elected. 

Chairman's report

The Chairman drew attention to the following:

• the success of the recent HGCA Market Outlook Conference
• meetings in Scotland with ScotGov and NFUS - the Chairman indicated that over his four-year term, he intended to hold two Board meetings in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland and one in Wales - ScotGov were keen to involve the Minister in an outlook conference or Board meeting
• staff consultation meetings had been started in October and expression of interest forms had to be completed within three weeks of those meetings

Food supply chain quality schemes and branding consultation

The Chairman reported that a good number of responses had been received from organisations and individuals.  A summary of these responses had been compiled and would be circulated.

Further work would need to be done to develop a workable plan with the sectors and would be reported back to the AHDB Board at its meeting in January.

The Chairman sought the views of individual Board members.  A range of views were expressed.  The Board were generally supportive of assurance schemes; however the red tractor was not very relevant to the cereals sector. 

Chief Executive's report

Jonathan Cowens presented his report highlighting a few key issues.

HGCA migration plan for Stoneleigh 2009 and beyond

Jonathan Cowens outlined the key dates for HGCA staff for the transition/migration to Stoneleigh. 

Jonathan Cowens detailed the areas of HGCA's business which he felt would be at risk with the expected loss of certain key personnel.

Sector Corporate Plan 2009/10-20011/12

Jonathan Cowens presented the latest version of the Sector Corporate Plan.  The document had been updated following the last Finance & Audit Committee and the release of Defra harvest figures.

Crop Marketing presentation

Alastair Dickie, Crop Marketing Director, presented his final annual review of the Crop Marketing Department, pointing out that in a year's time, Crop Marketing would be fragmented into Market Intelligence, Marketing and Stakeholder Communications.  Currently, the activities of the department ranged from those which were farm-orientated to promotion/information and industrial uses.  He detailed the personnel in each activity area within the department and outlined their roles.  He explained that there had been a number of new recruits to the department over the year and Alastair was impressed with their capability.  He commented that the functioning of the department was underpinned with systems and run by processes and although this was one of its strengths, any systems failure made it very fragile. 

Alastair looked ahead to the focus and challenges of the next 18 months, highlighting the following areas for attention:

• global market analysis
• supply chain partnerships
• price risk management
• cereal product development
• farmer marketing

He emphasised that the current activities were all interconnected and helped growers to improve their operating environment.  He felt that the prime concern during the transition would be to protect these activities and maintain continuity and motivation while moving to the fragmented structure of shared provision.

Annual Benchmarking Survey and Stakeholder Satisfaction

HGCA's Customer Results Group (involving representatives from across HGCA) had reviewed recent stakeholder satisfaction with HGCA services and a paper had been circulated.

Alan Almond, Business Development Director, gave a presentation highlighting the key findings from the annual grower benchmarking survey which had been conducted in June.  The survey was part of the evaluation process which HGCA employed to look at ways of improving what we do.  The annual benchmarking survey had been conducted by post for the last six years, but this year included an online version. 

Both the postal and online survey had been sent to a random 5,000-6,000 different growers and the response rate to each had been 9.6%.  The questionnaire looked at 13 HGCA activities and rated importance and satisfaction levels. 

Most respondees said they preferred to receive HGCA information by post and only 6% of the online respondees obtained their information through the website.  This would be investigated further.  It was noted that online respondees were dramatically less aware of the HGCA Recommended Lists than the postal ones

Dee Taylor, Communication Projects Manager, detailed some of the other areas which HGCA had evaluated.  Events continued to be an important area for HGCA.  115 HGCA led  events had been held across the regions during the year with 5,287 attendees.  When asked on feedback forms if they felt the event had been worthwhile, 98.6% of delegates had said 'yes'.  Some specific areas flagged up for improvement were the need to develop all promotional avenues and partnership mailing opportunities as well as ensuring chairs at events were well briefed and speakers kept to time.

During the last 12 months, the database had gone through significant cleansing to improve the accuracy of records.  Currently there were 50,069 entries on the system, of which 53% were growers.  Subscribers to HGCA electronic publications and website visitors had all increased significantly during the year.

Looking ahead, Dee highlighted some of the areas which HGCA would need to focus on:

• continue to monitor, evaluate & respond to stakeholder feedback
• develop database to enable communication with stakeholders in their preferred format
• devise ways to increase awareness of HGCA activity where it is currently low
• further expand online & electronic links with industry
• maintain high standards of events delivery, use new approaches 
• provide appropriate UK geographical coverage and develop partnerships with other organisations
• contribute to development of AHDB whilst still fully meeting needs of cereals & oilseeds sector

Finance report

Six months accounts to 30 September 2008

Colin Nunn presented the six months accounts to 30 September 2008 in both the traditional HGCA financial basis and the AHDB activity format, the difference between them being the analysis of the costs.  He reported that income was at 98% of budget and costs were 95% of budget.

Forecast 2008/09, budget 2009/10 and projections to 2011/12 - post Board meeting 17 Sept and post Audit & Finance Committee meeting 29 Oct and Defra harvest figures

The original budget was recommended by the Finance & Audit Committee at its meeting on 3 September and was presented to the HGCA Board at its meeting on 17 September.  At that meeting, the Board made several adjustments to the budget.

Subsequently, Defra released their harvest 2008 estimates.  The figure was higher than the estimates used for the HGCA Budget which the Board had approved and had been submitted to AHDB.  The Finance & Audit Committee decided to incorporate these changes and also made adjustments to the projected project spend.  

Membership of Advisory Committee

The Board approved the appointment of John Whitelam (AIC) to the MD Advisory Committees for three years until 30 September 2011.

Janet Godfrey's appointment as Chair of the MD Advisory Committee was confirmed for three years until 30 September 2011.

The Chairman noted that the current grower vacancies on the BCE and MD Committees which had been advertised in Farmers Weekly had had a disappointing response.

Any other business

Visit to USA

The Chairman reported that his recent visit to the US with the Chief Executive had been extremely worthwhile and a number of useful contacts had been made.  A report of the visit would be prepared.

Alan Bide

David Houghton mentioned the sad passing of Alan Bide.  Alan had been greatly involved with CEL.  He would be a great loss.  Board members echoed these sentiments.

Future Board meetings

Ian Douglas enquired about venues for Board meetings in 2009.  The Chairman suggested that a Board meeting would probably be held in Scotland in the summer. 

Pesticide legislation

The Chairman explained that he had written two letters to the Commission about the proposed pesticide legislation.  However, HGCA was not a lobbying organisation.  Other industry organisations, whose remits was to lobby, were dealing with this.

Date of next meeting

The next meeting would be held at 9:00am on Wednesday 21 January 2009 at HGCA.