Full Cost recovery on hold

3. Full cost recovery for official meat controls
3.1. The Board will recall my up-date in March where I explained that our proposals to move to a charging system based on the principle of full cost recovery were to be considered by the Reducing Regulation Committee (RRC), a Cabinet sub-Committee, has been established to take strategic oversight of the delivery of the Government”Ÿs regulatory framework. We have been advised by the Minister for Public Health that some members of the RRC have concerns regarding our proposals and are not content for us currently to proceed to implementation of our full cost recovery proposals.

3.2. We cannot simply settle for the status quo. Problems with the current system – subsidies given to businesses regardless of scale or efficiency, unfair competition and market distortions – are being compounded year on year, as we move further away from the 2008/9 data on which discounts are based.

3.3. We are giving detailed consideration to these problems, and the issues raised by the RRC, and the Board will be provided with a more detailed paper at its meeting in June. In the meantime we are continuing to support the meat industry”Ÿs project to develop a case for an alternative delivery system, as the Board agreed at its meeting in September 2011. We have provided the Industry representatives with information on request and understand that the industry project is still at an early stage