Farm Inspection and Regulation Review – terms of reference
Updated 13 December 2018
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, has asked Dame Glenys Stacey to conduct an independent Farm Inspection and Regulation Review.
1. Purpose
To identify opportunities before and after Brexit for improving farming-related regulation and enforcement (including inspections), in order to reduce burdens on farmers, while maintaining and enhancing our animal, environmental and plant health standards. The review will apply only to England.
2. Objectives
The review will provide:
- an appraisal of the current regulation of farming, including enforcement
- a comprehensive review of the current farming inspection regime including an assessment of improvement efforts
- a review of the potential and effectiveness of enforcement tools (including but not limited to inspections) both before and after Brexit
- advice on how inspections can be simplified, removed, reduced or improved to reduce the burden on farmers, both before and after Brexit
- recommendations on the strategic direction and culture of future regulation and enforcement and improvements that can be made in the short, medium and longer term
The review should take account of:
- the government’s Brexit programme
- the efficiency and reform agenda and the potential of data/technology
- the vision and ambition set out for the environment and farming in ‘A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment’, published in January 2018
- the structure of the farming industry and the rural environment
- the sustainability, scalability, deliverability and cost-benefit trade-offs of future interventions
- previous reviews and existing improvement programmes on regulation, enforcement and inspections
- wider work underway in Defra to consider future farming policy and farming regulation and enforcement, in the light of the UK’s exit from the EU. In particular the review should take into account the Command paper ‘Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit’, published in February 2018, and the forthcoming Agriculture Bill
3. Scope
The review will consider the range of regulations that farmers and land managers in England have to comply with. It will also consider the associated enforcement functions delivered by the Rural Payments Agency, Natural England, the Animal Plant and Health Agency, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and local authorities.
4. Roles and responsibilities
The review chair will be responsible for overseeing the strategic direction and progress of the review. The review chair will report directly to the Secretary of State.
Over the course of the review, the review chair will provide periodic and timely advice to Defra, to inform the drafting of the Agriculture Bill.
The review chair will produce a final report and recommendations by the end of December 2018, and may produce an interim report or reports.
5. Timing
The review started in March 2018 and is due to be completed by the end of the calendar year.
6. Governance
The review chair will be responsible for governance arrangements within the review, in consultation with the Director General for Food, Farming and Biosecurity.
7. Contacts
The review team can be contacted at FIRR@defra.gsi.gov.uk.
Please email the team to be on the review’s mailing list and get the latest updates.