The Alternative Angler – Is it Worth it? Part 2

Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can.

Fishing – Is it worth it? Part 2

Time to approach things from a different angle, and see what can and does have an affect on fishing in this country, and for a start, perhaps not unnaturally, I want to kick off with our dear friends at the Environment Agency, and the necessity for us to pay for rod licences.

The EA is a huge department, and its estimated expenditure for 2005/6 is:

Government and other grants: £ 640m (65%)
Charges and levies: £ 309m (31%)
Other income: £ 37m (4%)
Total funding: £ 986m (100%)

So, the approximately £ 20m raised for Rod Licences amounts to about 2% of the total, which contributes to what, exactly?

Let’s assume it is put towards one of our pet priorities, that of enforcement. At a salary of say, 25k per annum, that would give us 80 bailiffs to patrol the three million anglers spread around the whole of England and Wales, or roughly 40,000 anglers (imagine the crowd at the average Premiership match) per bailiff. Don’t be surprised if your own particular enforcement officer doesn’t get round to check you every week, or month, or year, or ever, come to that. In all probability he is too busy out catching people illegally removing fish, I shouldn’t wonder……

However, all of the licence money collected isn’t just spent on enforcement, the following statement is to be found in an answer to a Commons question put to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

All rod licence revenue is spent to protect, conserve and improve freshwater fisheries on such actions as enforcement activities, monitoring, research and development, and habitat improvement works.

So, it would appear that we pay for far fewer than the nominal 80 bailiffs, and if each of the above activities gets an equal share, then £ 5m for enforcement isn’t going to amount to much, is it? The obvious conclusion is that the income generated from Rod Licence sales does not, on its own, fully fund all the services to fishing as shown above. Therefore it must be the case that those services, particularly enforcement, have to be heavily subsidised. The question follows that if some of this can be subsidised, why not all of it? With a budget of nigh on £ 1000m, the impact of having/not having income from rod licences is surely minimal.

Legislation without enforcement is no deterrent, and rather than just burying our collective heads in the sand, let’s start looking at some alternatives to the current situation. In the first instance, if enforcement needs ‘beefing up’ then is the solution to ring fence a substantial increase in licence revenue for just that purpose, but if so, how much? To fund an additional 100 EA bailiffs will cost more that double the current fee, say £ 60 a year (chuck in a bit for inflation), are you really prepared to pay that, and perhaps more importantly, why should you?

Or would an increase of that magnitude just lead to a dramatic loss of licence sales and even greater evasion than is currently the case? Three million anglers can’t all be paying if only £ 20m is being collected, even allowing for the young kids and concessions on prices.

A further suggestion is to delegate enforcement powers to suitably trained angling club bailiffs and/or volunteers. Checking for valid rod licences before issuing day tickets or permits always seems to make sense to me; how can you possibly take money off someone who by rights shouldn’t even be there? I realise this would mean these delegated bailiffs would need instruction on PACE and probably CRB clearance, but maybe angling clubs and associations would be willing to fund a number of their officials for this task

And for some real blue sky thinking, how about getting the police involved. When I was a boy, the local beat bobby was always the one who poachers feared. Beat bobbies, am I mad you say? Well maybe not. As part of the steady devolution of power in local government, many town/district/parish councils already have to employ their own PCSO’s, and this will be a growing trend.

Whilst not beat bobbies per se, they are enforcement officers, they will be on your patch, and what’s more you will be paying for them through your local community charge precept. If not already in place, a regulation allowing them to issue fixed penalty notices for fishing illegally can be introduced, and then they can be sent off patrolling the banksides looking for miscreants. Those found fishing without licences, or removing fish illegally can be detained for up to thirty minutes by a PCSO until the police arrive, if they believe them to have given false information, or committed an offence.

They may not get round every fishery every week, but even if their patrols took in a stroll along the bankside (and let’s face it, it will be on their ‘beat’) every couple of months or so would be a massive improvement on the woeful lack of licence checking we are seeing now. It is the visible presence of policing in the future, you will be/already are paying for it, so why not try and get in early and make it work for anglers?

If they can issue a Fixed Penalty Notice for dropping a cigarette butt, then surely fishing without a licence, or removing fish illegally must warrant at least as much attention. The awareness generated by one or two well-publicised ‘busts’ by PCSO’s will surely increase the uptake on rod licences from the current level and might even deter some of the fish rustlers.

The good news, of course, is that this massive increase in additional enforcement would need no funding from an increase in rod licences, as the good citizens of England and Wales are paying for the PCSO’s out of their Community Charge, which would mean that the EA can peg, or even reduce rod licence charges.

I feel that it is time that we anglers made our feelings known to those people who are in a position to have an effect on our sport. As a rod licence holder, I am completely unaware of what dialogue is available to me with the EA, or if there is any dialogue between various angling organisations and the EA. That being the case I have sent a copy of this text to Sir John Harman, Chairman of the Environment Agency, with a note outlining my concerns, and the possible solutions, if only to show that at least we are capable of recognising there are problems, and are prepared to look at ways to possibly combat them.

It will be interesting to see if a response if forthcoming…….

And on a slightly similar note, just a brief excursion into the muddy waters of angling and politics. The following Commons questions show that at least a couple of our MP’s have an interest in rod licences:

Chris Ruane (Lab: Vale of Clwyd, PPS to the Secretary of State for Wales):
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the total amount of revenue raised by fishing rod licences was for each of the last 10 years; and if she will make a statement on where the revenue was spent.

Mr. Michael Foster (Lab: Worcester, Assistant Whip, HM treasury):To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the value of rod licence sales has been in each region in England and Wales since 2000.

I wonder what prompted those questions? Are these MP’s keen anglers with a real interest? Were they prompted to ask by a concerned constituent? What did they do with the figures when they got them? Hmmm….

Are politicians in general interested in angling? Well here’s a little experiment you can try. The following website: www.theyworkforyou.com gives you access to your local MP, and allows you to email them questions. How about we all ask our elected members a fairly innocuous question along the lines of:

“As one of your constituents, and one of Britain’s 3 million anglers could you tell me whether or not you support fishing as a peaceful recreation?” Or something along those lines. Again, it might be interesting to see what responses may be thrown up. I’ve emailed mine, no answer yet, though…..

I, for one, am not prepared to sit around and wait for things to happen, or not, when it comes to the sport I enjoy. If none of the above queries get answered, I will try another tack. Anything that anyone does, whether as an individual or organisation, to raise issues and awareness about angling can surely only be of benefit.

It’s time to wake the slumbering giant.