The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) says the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affair’s (DAERA) decision that outcomes from Independent Panels will be final is sensible and will be welcomed by farmers. It says this will give farmers more confidence the process is fair.
The consultation was about changes to the Area-based Schemes Review of Decisions Panel between June and August 2021. DAERA has now confirmed it will not overturn decisions made by the Independent Panel. UFU president, Victor Chestnutt, described this as positive news that reflects what its members have wanted for some time.
“In 2018 we sought a judicial review against DAERA to maintain the Independent Panel at a second stage appeal. This was settled outside of court, but the decisions continued not to be binding. We asked for additional or new evidence to be allowed but this was rejected. Now DAERA has agreed to new legislation that will make the Panel decision final, unless there is an error of law. By any standards this is a good and a fair outcome for our members,” he said.
The new draft legislation allows the Panel to accept additional evidence from the applicant that supports their original grounds for review. The Department has specified that clear guidance will be provided for the review process and will be issued to applicants at the start of the process. The Department has committed to ensuring the process is easily followed, open and transparent, and that each review is resolved as early as possible.
DAERA has acknowledged the Panel's independence importance and that the presence of its staff on the Panel could be perceived as prejudicial to that independence. Now it will only provide a secretariat and must accept the Panel decision as final, other than where there is an error of law. If this is the case it will ask the Panel to reconsider its decision.
Mr Chestnutt says this was a good result from a sustained campaign by the UFU for fairness, although he underlined that he was disappointed its calls for a review of historic cases was rejected in the new legislation.
