Enforcement etc

Well why didn't I think of that,what a brilliant idea Kevin.
Making use of the local "bobbie", doesn't appear to be too difficult to me.
Some exellent points again,I for one will be doing something along the lines suggested,especially having an attempt, to get an answer out of local polititians.

Well Fred

Looks like it's just you and me against the rest.

Still, looking on the bright side, that's twice as many as there was yesterday!

Sounds like a plan to me.

The only way to tackle issues we all complain about; thefts, no licences, etc... is to have more enforcement of the existing laws and regulations.

People harp on about new laws but what's the use if the existing ones aren't enforced properly anyway?

Kevin,

Don't want to pee on your bonfire - but I think you've got the maths wrong - ?20 million would pay for 800 bailiffs at ?25k each, not 80.

It would be very interesting to know what the real breakdown of expenditure was - I have posted the question on the EA website - if I get an answer i'll post it up here.

Also, given the level of other income I would expect the actual expenditure on fish related activities to exceed the ?20 million collected from licence fees.

On the point regarding enforcement, I wonder whether this is really the area that we should be encouraging the EA to spend more money on. As you say it is one of the pet priorities and certainly an emotive subject when discussed amongst anglers - due to the menace of fish stealing etc. But shouldn't we be looking at more positive activities - finding ways to encourage more people to pay for licences (a bit of carrot to go with the stick of enforcement). Another good question might be - how much money is raised through fines for fishing without licences and where does this money go?

So, anyone have any ideas of how we can encourage more people to pay for their licences. More free fishing with good facilities - maybe their could be a regional link up with some commercial fisheries, e.g. buy a rod licence and get a day's free fishing at Clattercote or Drayton. Funding for this could come from the increased revenue. How about 200 Tesco's clubcard point with each licence.

The more people we get to pay for their licences the less money is needed for enforcement and the more money can be spent on improving habitats, encouraging more people to fish, stocking and research and development (I'd be happy to pay a fee of ?50 a year if I knew it was going towards funding R&D on a Bream proof bait ))

I've rambled a bit - so I'll leave it for others to add their points - come on folks - this is important stuff - get involved!

Cheers
Graham
BAF

BAF

Sorry, you're right about my maths (cr*p) Although even 800 bailiffs isn't a lot to go round.

One figure I can get right is that there are currently 8000 Town/Parish/District councils in England and Wales, and if each of them should have a least one PCSO (Ours has 2) that's a lot of spare enforcement lying around

I think the EA do a wonderful job with limited resources given the scope of what they are expected to do. This is not helped by the government regularly cutting their grant in aid.
Yes most of us want more enforcement and more bailiffs/bobbies on the beat, but we're going to have to pay for them one way or another. Bringing pressure to bear is probably going to have very little effect, because as we all know - anglers in this country do not have a loud enough voice!
I help the EA out in several ways. One is joining the local RFERAC committee. There are usually places available evry year for volunteers to apply, then you'll get a very good idea of what the EA is involved with. The other way is coaching children and newcomers to the sport most weekends at EA sponsored events. The EA is trying very hard to promote angling amongst the general public and hopefully, entice more people into buying rod licences. I also bring matters up at every NFA meeting I attend and ask for these to be passed to HQ for further action as necessary. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, this revenue is a 'pittance' for all the fishery related tasks that need attending to.
Until we can get 3 million members of the public pestering their MP and getting the MPs to speak up on our behalf, I'm afraid we'll be waiting 'till the cows come home before we see any significant improvements. Unity amongst 3 million, we can't even get unity amongst half a dozen. Sorry to a bit defeatist on this but I do try and do my bit.

Terry - excuse my ignorance - what is a RFERAC committee?

Graham
Regional Fisheries, Ecology and Recreation Advisory Committee

Anyway Kevin,what's a 0 between friends?

ok i have only just started fishing so my points may not be as valid as youres and my spelling is awfull. but i will have a try
i dont mind paying 4 my rod lic 1 bit ( just like my car tax tv lic ) you have to so you do and you just hope it goes to the right uses ?
it should be enforced on day ticket waters you have to show youre lic upon getting a day ticket thet way you could free up the baliffs to just the free waters/ club and private . the later should be enforcing there members to have one to be a member. so we back to the free waters.like every where there are good spots and bad spots you could leave the bad spots ( off free water and patrol the good spots ) just 4 the start anyway and on the spot fine anyone thet doesnt have a lic of say ? 100 this would pay 4 more baliffs i.e. the mutched loved gatso ( speed ) cammera the goverment seams to love them ?
as i meantioned im new to fishing but i have got everything from a number of shops could it also be enforced thet you have to show (prove when getting stuff of the net) you have a lic at least whilst a major item ( rod/reel etc ) they do with tvs
you could also scrap the lic and put say 50p on a day ticketbut i suppose thet could leave some to pocket the extra money but there has to be some way around thet . could be some sort of profit margin tax if you know wot i mean ?
i for one dont mind paying my lic fee as it shows in some way i care for the sport i am enjoying and you probly find the people who dont have a lic are the ones who dont respect the sport or the places they fish
i hope wot i have said agrees with you in some way as thet is wot it is meant to and my points come across
brendan

No, no, no, no, no, Kevin. I'm not biting again. Last week I was worried that you were seriously considering selling your gear and giving up, this week I worried that you've run out of pacifiers. You'll find them on the floor, all around the perambulator. )


I had a discussion maybe 10 years ago with various people one of whom was Ian Welch. There was no argument, I believe Ian also thought that the licence fee was nothing more than a tax.

I agree to this day, the licence fee brings in nothing at all (well, hardly nothing) when compared to the overall cost of the EA. However, as Mr Granville Marzdin pointed out, paying it gives us a right to stand up to all the antis and other abusers of our rivers and say "We pay to put that right and fish here! So stick it chief."

It's not perfect, but I am still relatively happy with it.




I bit again, didn't I? I bit again.

I honestly can't remember the last time I was asked to produce my rod licence (I've always had one).

On the subject of enforcement at a local level, all the local district councils in my immediate area have "Ranger" type teams in addition to PCSO's. They patrol and monitor their respective amenities including various fishing ponds and quite a stretch of the local river.

One of my sons worked as a Ranger for a couple of years and was specifically told not to check for EA Licences when working "on the river"! I suspect the EA were protective of their "territory".

There seems to be more and more devolution of responsibilities to a local level, the Highways Agency is a good example (now taking on a lot of the motorway "work" previously done by the police). It seems logical that EA Licence enforcement should follow but don't hold your breath.

As promised the response to my query to the EA

===================

Dear Graham

Thank you for your enquiry regarding rod licensing fees.

The rod licence is the main source of income that funds the Agency's fisheries function - ?19 of the ?29 million is from this source. Licence income does not fund other areas of Agency work, and is spent entirely on fisheries specific work.

Our Coarse and trout work is almost entirely funded from rod licence income.

The main work areas are:

regulation (licence sales & enforcement and disease control - ?3.5 million),
fisheries monitoring (?2 million),
promotion and advice (?2.5 million),
fish kills and rescues (?1 million),
stocking (?1 million) and improvements (such as habitat improvements, fish passes, fisheries development and improvement - ?5.5 million).
In 2005/6 we funded 183 fisheries improvement projects.

I trust this will be of use.

Regards

Luke Adams

National Customer Contact Team
Environment Agency
Tel 08708 506 506
Fax 01709 312820

>>> <EA.Web.site@environment-agency.gov.uk> 09/29/06 01:14pm >>>
Feedback form response
==================

Interesting response.

But who has embezzled the other ?13.5m?


He did say they raise ?19m of the ?29 million needed to fund the fisheries work and yet he highlights only ?15.5 million. So who's had the rest.

Silly me - staff cars, office parties, international research trips to Marbella etc, ..... Call me a cynic.

I've sent the same question back to them Woody - see if we get an answer...

The other thing I'm trying to work out is the no of anglers that would be required to bring in ?19 million a year.

?25 per aduly
?8 per junior
Anyone know how much for concessionary?

+ ?8.50 per 8 day and ?3.50 per one day ....

Think I might send this query to them aswell...

I'm convinced that a prolonged campaign to ensure all clubs and commercial fisheries check a licence before selling a ticket will work - maybe through legislation or failing that a media sponsored voluntary campaign. This should bring more money through increased licence sales that will be returned to the sport through the EAs work.

Hmmmm - would need to seek guarantees that the ?10 million of governement funsing is ringfenced.


... and still no ideas on other methods of encouraging people to buy - are we all hung up on enforcement? There has to be a 2-pronged attack

So, 19m is collected from license fees and just short of 20% of that is spent on enforcement.

A further unknown percentage of it will be spent collecting the tax in the first place. For example, the EA will pay the PO a fee for each issued, then there are admin costs at the EA, printing costs of license itself, sending reminders for D/D payers..... and so on and so on.... So far more than 20% is swallowed up, when we add the cost of collection itself.

Yet everyone seems to accept that the enforcement side is sadly lacking and far far more of the resources need to be spent on this area. But how much? 50%? 80%?

I've had one check in 25 years. That was 2 years ago and the officer joked that I would have been quids in, had I never bothered and been caught once! Pretty true I bet.

So how much do we need to spend on enforcement, before fishing without a license costs more than buying one? (which is the only factor that will persuade the un-licensed to change their ways).

The problem is, collecting a fee or tax no longer becomes cost effective when collection and enforcement costs as much as the revenue itself.

So, as I see it there are 3 choices:

1 We accept the current level of enforcement and accept that the same number of anglers will take their chance, based on the small prospect of being caught.

2 We increase the license cost and revenue raised, so more can be spent on enforcement.

3 The license is scrapped and the resource of collection and enforcement is used elsewhere.

Paul - if you reread the response - I think you'll see costs of licences sales are covered in the ?3.5 million

Looks like I'm in a minority of one in my biew that enforcement is not the only answer .... cue tumbleweed

Graham

Point taken. You aren?t alone with that view.

Enforcement in it?s current format is time consuming, expensive and doesn?t use any intelligence to weed out the non-payers to make the process more effective.

The main problem is that the EA doesn?t actually know who the evaders are!

Compare that to say TV license enforcement. They can pin point streets, estates with low levels of TV license purchases from sales records.

Detector vans and enforcement officers can focus there efforts on these areas and make the enforcement process far more effective. Then they also have a system in place whereby they are notified by electrical companies of all persons who purchase a TV from shops. More intelligence which points them straight to those they need to tackle. Car Tax has moved the same way. It?s now largely tackled by comparing data on who owns a car on the road but has no tax.

What do the EA have in place? Very little. Do they even use past sales records to see who has previously had a license, but no longer has one?

I believe they need to use legislation to put the same onus on angling clubs, societies etc.. to provide details of all members, similar to how it works with retail shops. If they are a member of a club and paying the fee, the chances are they are an active angler. Cross reference the data with actual license sales and you have list of probable license dodgers. Not difficult to do. Most clubs probably have electronically held member details in the first place. Submit it by email every three months?..

Why not go a stage further and make it a requirement to have a license before gaining club membership. The EA can then also provide return results of the data match to clubs to also deal with those un-licensed members or cancel their membership. A double pronged attack.

The same onus could be put upon commercial fisheries and day ticket waters. The person provides basic name and address info to the fishery and they are required to pass on details to the EA and cross check them.

You could do far more effective work for less money by making basic technology do the graft, than by employing more enforcement officers.

Paul - I agree 100%. What I'll do is post the suggestion on the EA website and see what sort of response I get. If it is not satisfactory then time to make my MP earn his money .....

Well, it's been nearly three weeks, so I would like to report on the responses I have got back so far from both the EA and my MP

As I said, I would have liked to........


Cynical, moi.....!!!