17 May 2015 News/Editorial
Just when you thought we could talk about something else, the Scottish Government has brought out the main consultation on the rest of the Wild Fisheries Review, unambiguously entitled “Wild Fisheries Reform: a response to the report of the Wild Fisheries Review”.
If you thought the consultation on licences to kill (and all that) was controversial, it had nothing on this.
As expected, it includes the Tweed, both Scottish and English sides.
The effect of implementation, as envisaged, is that the River Tweed Commission (and the Tweed Foundation?) would cease to exist and would be merged into a charitable, peculiarly Scottish, entity called a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (“SCIO”).
The new SCIO would be a membership organisation representing the full range of interests in wild fisheries and their management at a local level, including local authority and other public sector interests, in addition to the owners and users of fishing rights (pretty much exactly as the RTC is now). This would be underpinned by a model constitution to ensure appropriate governance and balance of interests, notably at board level.
These SCIOs would be set up to cover the whole of Scotland (and the English side of the Tweed) and would all report to, and be responsible to, a central National Unit.
Funding would be provided by annual standard levy on all fishery owners, levied and collected centrally by the national unit, and could be “redistributed” away from the river, from which it is collected, to other rivers, which redistribution “should be informed by the priorities of the national strategy and used to ensure delivery across the whole country in line with public value.”
It is not the purpose of this week’s effort to deal in any detail with the many questions, some of which are already well rehearsed, which arise as a result of all these pretty seismic changes, but the most obvious ones, for the Tweed, but also more generally, are:
1. The effective abolition of the River Tweed Commission after over 200 years; when the RTC is peculiarly adapted to a cross territory river and already both highly representative (81 “members”) and covers all fish species, why?
2. The English question...will the Tweed’s English proprietors countenance paying levy (a) to a national unit in Scotland where they have no vote and (b) in the knowledge that their (English) money could be “redistributed” away from the Tweed to some other river in Scotland?
3. If annual levy income is “ redistributed” away from the Tweed (or any other river), that will leave the Tweed (or any other river) with less income, which must then result in less necessary expenditure, including employment costs?
4. What extent and level of representation will fishery owners have on the new SCIO?
5. How will the annual central “standard” levy be calculated (will it be more or less than river board levies charged now?) and what protection will owners have from being charged an additional local “enhanced” levy with which they might not agree?
6. How will the assets and liabilities of existing river boards and rivers trusts (the RTC and Tweed Foundation) be transferred into the new SCIO, as originally envisaged by the WFR, although the consultation appears to be remarkably silent on what happens to the numerous Scottish rivers trusts? Indeed, how can the Tweed Foundation trustees be forced by Government to do anything other than what they now do, or with their balance sheet assets and liabilities?
7. Can the new charitable SCIO employ bailiffs, part of whose role is to protect the property rights of fishery owners, almost all of whom are necessarily (uncharitable and) commercial in the exercise of their fishing rights for profit? Will the Scottish charities registrar (OSCR) allow SCIOs to protect private property (fishing) rights?
The questions are endless, of which the above are just a few, and for those already tired of it all, when it is not obvious how any of this will put one extra salmon in the Tweed or any other Scottish river, I am afraid we are in for a long haul before it is all decided…...or not.
Tweed proprietors/fishery owners are all invited to the River Tweed Commission meeting at the Cross Keys Hotel in Kelso at 9.30am on Monday 1st June, where all this will be discussed for the first time.
The consultation paper, and the 38 questions to be answered, can be found on the following link:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Salmon-Trout-Coarse/fishreform
I would advise as many Tweed owners as possible to attend…… because it would be surprising if all this does not in some way (adversely?) affect their existing property rights.
It is often forgotten that it is the proprietors who own the right to fish, not the Scottish Government.
This is the opportunity for owners to have their say….responses to all 38 questions in the consultation must be in by 7th August 2015.
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