Compulsory EID Cattle Tagging – YES OR NO?

[exmoor dave]

But.......
The huge cost of fraud associated with this doesn't really get mentioned.
The government, banks and techies are just too keen on the benefits that they don't properly address the negative points.
In finance, huge losses to fraud are deemed acceptable and it is us who ultimately have to pay for them. These would largely be not possible in a non-digital age.
There have been many threads on here about ARAMS and how incompetent it is to the point where many of us keep everything on paper to prove our own competence.
I'm not a luddite [a mis-appropriated term] or a silly head but simply try to assess whether adding an electronic/ digital element to anything has an overall positive or negative affect.

I can read a primary at the speed of light. I can write it down pretty quickly too. I am pretty much always fully charged and rarely need back up in case of error404.

Any electonic system should have a manual way of completing the task in case of failure which should be available for us 'luddites' to use any time.

ARAMS being a good example of a total cock up.

I had a sheep inspection last autumn.
Last 30 moves on ARAMS to compare to my records.
ARAMS info was mostly wrong (inputted by destination not me).
It was paper records (movement book & stack of licences) and my commercial software that got us a pass on the inspection.

 

[Henarar]

It wasn't so much about cattle EID specifically, but about what/ how to replace arams, cts etc etc in to one multi species program.

Oh f**k

The key being that if the digital system was made user friendly enough then there would be a natural move away from paper,

well yea but what are the chances

 

[exmoor dave]

Oh fudge

I think cts is coming to the end of its life, it was a world beating system in its day but apparently it's very dated now.

What concerns me is that we've got this silly situation of 4 different sheep systems for the UK regions.
Yet no one at all complains about having one cattle system, but if cts is replaced I can see it being political football to get 4 different cattle systems.

Why can't folk just be grown ups, sit round a table and decide on one proper good uk wide system!

 

[Henarar]

for god sake I hope they don't mix ARAMS up with CTS
CTS works fine, don't f**k it up
those of you with fancy readers can use CTS with them and those of us that can't justify such things can use it easy, it can also be used easy enough by someone with a phone without any IT
if it is not broke don't f**k about with it

just cos someone isn't in to IT and all the latest gadgets don't make them a bad farmer and it shouldn't prohibit them from farming

 

[exmoor dave]

for god sake I hope they don't mix ARAMS up with CTS
CTS works fine, don't fudge it up
those of you with fancy readers can use CTS with them and those of us that can't justify such things can use it easy, it can also be used easy enough by someone with a phone without any IT
if it is not broke don't fudge about with it

just cos someone isn't in to IT and all the latest gadgets don't make them a bad farmer and it shouldn't prohibit them from farming

I think ARAMS is going, so no chance of cts being mixed up with it.

if I understood correctly, cts is just being bodged along to keep it going so I can understand it needing updating.
But the way it works is good and most folk seem happy with it.

 

[Henarar]

I think cts is coming to the end of its life, it was a world beating system in its day but apparently it's very dated now.

What concerns me is that we've got this silly situation of 4 different sheep systems for the UK regions.
Yet no one at all complains about having one cattle system, but if cts is replaced I can see it being political football to get 4 different cattle systems.

Why can't folk just be grown ups, sit round a table and decide on one proper good uk wide system!

let them sort the sheep system out first then and make sure it bloody well works before doing anything to the cattle system
CTS offers a f**k sight more than any traceability once the animal is dead they should sort that out first but fat chance of that as they have plenty of money that they don't want to part with

 

[Henarar]

I think ARAMS is going, so no chance of cts being mixed up with it.

if I understood correctly, cts is just being bodged along to keep it going so I can understand it needing updating.
But the way it works is good and most folk seem happy with it.

as I said then sort the sheep system first
leave CTS alone till this new system has been proved to work in the real world, not in some wiz kids head FFS

 

[smcapstick]

But.......
The huge cost of fraud associated with this doesn't really get mentioned.
The government, banks and techies are just too keen on the benefits that they don't properly address the negative points.
In finance, huge losses to fraud are deemed acceptable and it is us who ultimately have to pay for them. These would largely be not possible in a non-digital age.
There have been many threads on here about ARAMS and how incompetent it is to the point where many of us keep everything on paper to prove our own competence.
I'm not a luddite [a mis-appropriated term] or a silly head but simply try to assess whether adding an electronic/ digital element to anything has an overall positive or negative affect.

I can read a primary at the speed of light. I can write it down pretty quickly too. I am pretty much always fully charged and rarely need back up in case of error404.

Any electonic system should have a manual way of completing the task in case of failure which should be available for us 'luddites' to use any time.

I wouldn't know an ARAMS form if it came up and said 'Hello, I'm an ARAMS form'.

However, your point about the fraud not being possible in a non-digital age is a bit silly. Fake / stolen / rubber cheques have been issued for centuries, not to mention fraudulent credit notes (super old-school, there). You used to be able to buy ships with credit notes - they would just have the name of a local reputable business on and something like 'the bearer is a nice chap and I'm sure he'll pay you soon' or some rubbish.
It's also an awful lot easier to forge a signature than it is to obtain several passwords and answers to security questions. Some unscrupulous types would just walk in to a bank, pretend to be old Mr. Jenkins from down the road (who had just died) and draw out all his money. All you had to be was confident and convincing. I'm not convinced that 23 year old Anwulichukwu Babangida from Nigeria could quite get away with that.

Not only that, you may be able to scribble something down quickly... but can you relay it as quickly as an emailed PDF attachment, that has every single piece of information on it, to every relevant department at the same time? I'm sure you're fast... but you ain't that fast!

All of this is meaningless, of course. I have no idea what you lot are talking about

 

[milkloss]

I suspect some IT company with pound signs in its eyes are accusing cts’ system of needing bodgering! Multi million pound contracts and years of bug fixing and under performance. Look at previous government failures over new IT systems and I think you’ll see it could be a disaster.

 

[Henarar]

I wouldn't know an ARAMS form if it came up and said 'Hello, I'm an ARAMS form'.

However, your point about the fraud not being possible in a non-digital age is a bit silly. Fake / stolen / rubber cheques have been issued for centuries, not to mention fraudulent credit notes (super old-school, there). You used to be able to buy ships with credit notes - they would just have the name of a local reputable business on and something like 'the bearer is a nice chap and I'm sure he'll pay you soon' or some rubbish.
It's also an awful lot easier to forge a signature than it is to obtain several passwords and answers to security questions. Some unscrupulous types would just walk in to a bank, pretend to be old Mr. Jenkins from down the road (who had just died) and draw out all his money. All you had to be was confident and convincing. I'm not convinced that 23 year old Anwulichukwu Babangida from Nigeria could quite get away with that.

Not only that, you may be able to scribble something down quickly... but can you relay it as quickly as an emailed PDF attachment, that has every single piece of information on it, to every relevant department at the same time? I'm sure you're fast... but you ain't that fast!

All of this is meaningless, of course. I have no idea what you lot are talking about

do you have any idea what YOU are talking about

 

[Henarar]

I suspect some IT company with pound signs in its eyes are accusing cts’ system of needing bodgering! Multi million pound contracts and years of bug fixing and under performance. Look at previous government failures over new IT systems and I think you’ll see it could be a disaster.

THIS

 

[smcapstick]

do you have any idea what YOU are talking about

Not in the slightest!

 

[milkloss]

The other point is that cts appears to be free. Feck with it too much and I suspect we’ll have another cost foisted upon us for something which won’t work how it should and won’t be what we want.

Bit of a copy and paste special.........who was it who said “Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it” ?

GDS gets it in the neck from MPs over Rural Payments Agency farce
Public Accounts Committee says civil servants' turf war caused mega IT cock-up
By Kat Hall 2 Mar 2016 at 10:03
The Government Digital Service's reset of the Rural Payments Agency's IT system, which ended in disaster last year, was “inappropriate for farmers”, according to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report.

Last March a failure to integrate the digital front-end with the back-end system of the Common Agricultural Policy IT system meant farmers were forced to go back to pen and paper to complete their forms.

The system, intended to be a GDS digital exemplar, has now gone over budget by 40 per cent, now having cost the taxpayer £215m, and will incur penalties from the EU of £180m per year in the early years of the Common Agricultural Policy system as a result of disallowance payments.

The report said: "The Government Digital Service was created to help improve IT projects, but instead hindered delivery of this programme."

In January 2013 the programme was reset, as a “digital exemplar” project, as part of the Cabinet Office Transformation Programme. This led to the introduction of seven fundamental changes. Those changes significantly increased the delivery risk and the chief executive of the RPA admitted they had created difficulties for the programme, said the PAC in a report today.

The RPA paid only 38 per cent of farmers under the Basic Payment Scheme on 1 December 2015, compared with more than 90 per cent in previous years.

The PAC report said the Cabinet Office, through GDS, focused on trying to encourage digital innovation, reduce costs and develop learning across government.

GDS’s focus on developing a digital front-end to allow farmers to apply online, which was not a European Commission requirement, was inappropriate for farmers, who have a lower average level of digital literacy than the general population and there is poor broadband coverage in many rural areas.
GDS introduced a level of innovation and risk to the Programme, without assessing whether the Department was capable of managing the changes, and did not provide sufficient support during implementation.

We welcome digital innovation but it must be introduced appropriately, taking into account the capability of the department concerned and its customers. In this case, GDS failed to take account of these considerations or provide adequate support. It lost sight of the outcome – which was that farmers be paid as quickly as possible.

Reiterating a hearing in December, the PAC blamed the deeply dysfunctional relationship between GDS and the Rural Payments Agency for the failure of the system.

“Highly paid public servants need to get the job done and such behaviour is unacceptable.”

Mark Grimshaw, chief exec of the RPA, is paid between £160,000 - £164,999 per year; Liam Maxwell, the previous senior responsible owner of the project, and government chief technology officer at the Cabinet Office, earns £140,000 - £144,999; and former GDS head Mike Bracken, who was heavily involved in the programme's “reset” earned 155,000-159,999 per year before leaving Whitehall last year.

Labour MP Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said today: “It was frankly embarrassing to learn of senior and highly paid civil servants arguing to the detriment of hard-pressed farmers. Explanations such as ‘We worked on different floors’ and ‘We dressed differently’ are a slap in the face to them and a dismal excuse for failures that could severely hit the public purse.”

She added: “The enduring mental image is of managers, having seemingly lost sight of the purpose of the project, devoting their energies to a childish turf war instead.

The PAC report recommended that in the future GDS should "comprehensively assess departments’ capabilities to deliver any changes it imposes and ensure that it provides an appropriate level of support for those changes.

It also said the department "should review its approach to tackling serious failures of management and put in place measures to stop this ever happening again." ®

 

[Jackov Altraids]

I wouldn't know an ARAMS form if it came up and said 'Hello, I'm an ARAMS form'.

However, your point about the fraud not being possible in a non-digital age is a bit silly. Fake / stolen / rubber cheques have been issued for centuries, not to mention fraudulent credit notes (super old-school, there). You used to be able to buy ships with credit notes - they would just have the name of a local reputable business on and something like 'the bearer is a nice chap and I'm sure he'll pay you soon' or some rubbish.
It's also an awful lot easier to forge a signature than it is to obtain several passwords and answers to security questions. Some unscrupulous types would just walk in to a bank, pretend to be old Mr. Jenkins from down the road (who had just died) and draw out all his money. All you had to be was confident and convincing. I'm not convinced that 23 year old Anwulichukwu Babangida from Nigeria could quite get away with that.

Not only that, you may be able to scribble something down quickly... but can you relay it as quickly as an emailed PDF attachment, that has every single piece of information on it, to every relevant department at the same time? I'm sure you're fast... but you ain't that fast!

All of this is meaningless, of course. I have no idea what you lot are talking about

Perhaps I should have been clearer, there is still the same frauds as there have always been but there is a huge amount that has been made possible by the digital age. How would have LP UK Plant sales been so successful scamming without being entirely electronic...
There was attempted financial fraud in the UK across payment cards, remote banking and cheques, in 2016 to the value of £2.148 billion. Banks and card companies managed to prevent 64% of this. I wonder how much of that was cheques?

You missed the main point I was making that it really should be properly assessed if going electronic or digital actual adds enough benefit to outweigh its costs, environmental impact and the fact all these systems lack resilience to power outages, data loss and hacking.
They also require continual updating giving 'blank cheques' to providers.
It is no good not being prepared to take advantage of any new technical advances but it shouldn't always be assumed they are better.

 

[Philip Watkins]

...... You used to be able to buy ships with credit notes - they would just have the name of a local reputable business on and something like 'the bearer is a nice chap and I'm sure he'll pay you soon' or some rubbish.
....

You still can, sort of. Paper money is nothing more than a glorified credit note. Written on the front is the bank of England promises to pay the bearer x pounds.

 

[Whitepeak]

When EID tags for sheep came in I remember thinking at the time why aren't they doing it for cattle it would make more sense. However I don't think EID will help our cattle enterprise in any way, infact we are putting an extra management tag in some cows as we find it easier to refer to the cows by name than a number.
Some are saying countries with EID have superior tracebility. From experience this isn't true, when I worked in Australia they were tagging cows with EID tags for the first time as they went up the ramp of the lorry to cull or a show. And these were dairy cows that had been reared on a separate farm 5hrs drive away.
As an aside I saw on Twitter a few weeks ago a calf rearing unit that were putting 4 tags in calves! The 2 official tags that they had from birth, an EID tag for the milk machine and management and a BVD test tag. Poor calves wouldnt have had much ear left!

 

[dannewhouse]

When EID tags for sheep came in I remember thinking at the time why aren't they doing it for cattle it would make more sense. However I don't think EID will help our cattle enterprise in any way, infact we are putting an extra management tag in some cows as we find it easier to refer to the cows by name than a number.
Some are saying countries with EID have superior tracebility. From experience this isn't true, when I worked in Australia they were tagging cows with EID tags for the first time as they went up the ramp of the lorry to cull or a show. And these were dairy cows that had been reared on a separate farm 5hrs drive away.
As an aside I saw on Twitter a few weeks ago a calf rearing unit that were putting 4 tags in calves! The 2 official tags that they had from birth, an EID tag for the milk machine and management and a BVD test tag. Poor calves wouldnt have had much ear left!

when they had finished ripping them all out!!!
you would have thought 1x BVD tag + test with space for management and 1x EID perhaps a button or even full adult flag type?
cant understand dairy men putting an extra tag in for management, just buy management style adult flag at birth? perhaps herd to write on it but only to do 1ce? or decide as a calf a number?

 

[milkloss]

Why not put a chip in the tail? Can’t migrate from there can it?

 

[Henarar]

Why not put a chip in the tail? Can’t migrate from there can it?

Then you wouldnt know what one was coming just the one that had been

 

[M-J-G]

Why not put a chip in the tail? Can’t migrate from there can it?

Not the worst idea, the tail might be prone to damage, but I'm sure there will be a way round such issues.