TIGHTER management of finances and critical examination of duplication of services between the UK farming unions have been identified as key priorities for the restructured National Farmers' Union of Scotland.
The Angus area executive of the union heard David Dent, the consultant hired to examine union structure, warn: ''We are not going to have the
luxuries of the past.
''Every sector has to be examined against its political effectiveness. If it does not meet those tests, it will have
to go.''
Dent's report, which is to be presented to office bearers at NFU Mutual on May 29, stresses that an ''independent, financially secure NFUS'' is the ideal.
''But in some areas a more UK-based operation would be valuable. We are talking about peripheral things, not livestock, milk or cereals,'' he said.
Dent stressed that the duplication of efforts had to be related to the ability of farmers to pay.
He also warned that there would be a need for more effective lobbying when the
Scottish Parliament opened.
Dent's report is also to call for consideration of how to raise alternative sources of income and how the union can best market itself.
While he stopped short of revealing specific details of his report, Dent said the union would be forced to balance the demands of its members against a declining number of active farmers.
He said consideration had to be given to delivering services, making the best use of technology and reaching non-members. The most potent factor in marketing the union would be the presentation of an ''effective and credible'' leadership - precisely what was now in place in Edinburgh, he said.
The report is also to call
for more use of direct debiting in a bid to stem the waste
of resources involved in chasing subscription renewals.
Dent, a former official with the English NFU, said few people understood the depth of the crisis which had engulfed the union in December last year.
Only the work done during of joint presidency of George Lyon and Stewart Whiteford had kept the union from
terminal decline, he said.
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