Levy board structured for efficiency

Savings of almost £4 million a year will result from the new integrated levy board structure being moulded out of five former UK/British levy boards.

These savings will start to be realised this Autumn after the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) brings its operations together at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire.

AHDB’s first year has been dominated by two priorities - putting in place and refining the structures needed for the new organisation to work effectively, and delivering its six sector-focused business plans without interruption.

AHDB Chairman John Bridge said: "The AHDB board strongly believes that any changes in organisation design and structure must deliver better value for levy payers.

"We are now a single organisation and from April 1 will operate as such. Reporting lines will change to give us a single executive management team ’run by’ the AHDB chief executive which is responsible for the delivery of the required work streams across all six sectors.

"The vital Sector Boards remain in place with delegated responsibilities from AHDB to identify the most appropriate strategies to meet sector challenges, to ensure there is adequate funding for these and to oversee the effective delivery of the strategies.

"All staff work for AHDB with some in specific sector teams and others servicing more than one sector from shared services. Sector specific activity will continue to be delivered under the established sector brands of BPEX, DairyCo, EBLEX, Horticultural Development Company, HGCA and Potato Council.

"We are welding a single team ethos with sector focus and this will become a lot easier once we are all co-located at Stoneleigh Park this summer.

"We have made significant progress this year and I thank my board members and the AHDB staff for their tremendous work and positive attitude during this period of change."

Organisation Structure

The setting of strategy is delegated to the six sector boards and levies raised from each sector are ring-fenced to be used for the benefit of the sectors from which they were raised.

Management structure

The new management structure becomes effective on April 1, 2009 with an executive management team headed by the Chief Executive of AHDB comprising the director of each sector team plus the functional heads/directors.

In order to deliver better collaboration and co-operation AHDB has:

• Created two new roles; a Chief Scientist and a lead marketing role (TBC) designed to encourage cross-sector co-operation.

• Centralised several administrative functions built on common systems.

• Centralised Market Intelligence to ensure the inter-relationship and inter-dependencies of the sectors are understood better.

• Formed a single executive management team charged with delivering co-operation and collaboration as well as the effective delivery of sector plans.

Sector Boards

The primary function of the sector boards is to act in the very best interests of the sector at all times. Each board has delegated functions from AHDB giving it the duty to develop the most appropriate strategies to meet the challenges of the sector; to ensure the relevant levy rate is recommended in order to provide adequate funding for the required work, monitor strategy implementation and approve remedies where performance deviates from plan.