This year has been a successful one for Teagasc director Prof Gerry Boyle and his nine-member board. He kept the organisation busy on operational fronts: research, training and advisory. And equally important for any organisation that must fight for its share of public funding: he secured increased Exchequer funding in 2015 and 2016. That includes a €1m increase in staffing budgets for 2016 and 2017 and the go-ahead to start slowly rebuilding staff numbers.

Challenges

Boyle will need to be an early riser next year as well, as there are still plenty of challenges. Some 5,000 young farmers have expressed interest in taking regional and distance Green Cert courses to meet CAP requirements, but Teagasc facilities can cope with just 2,000 per year. The organisation has outsourced applications for GLAS – a low-key internal debate has now started on whether annual applications for the Basic Payment Scheme could or should, likewise, be eventually outsourced.

Teagasc has operated under a recruitment embargo since 2009. Any request to replace retiring staff had to be made case by case to the departments of Agriculture and Finance. In recent weeks Teagasc received confirmation from the Department of Agriculture that it was finally being given discretion over new staff appointments. Staff levels will now be controlled under “paycap” arrangements which limit total spending on permanent staff. The paycap for 2015 is €62.2m. It will be over €63.2m for each of 2016 and 2017.

Advisers

Speaking last week at the launch of Teagasc’s 2014 annual report, Gerry Boyle said: “All advisory vacancies that have arisen in the last year and a number of critical vacancies that have arisen over the past several years can now be filled. Twenty new frontline advisers will be recruited.

“This will bring the total number of frontline advisers to 234. In education there will be seven college teachers/education officer posts filled to meet the current spike in demand for education courses.

“Twenty-four research scientists/technologists and three specialists along with other support staff have been identified and will be recruited. These include the areas of animal bioscience, dairy nutrition, soil drainage, plant pathology, entomology, nutrient management, meat science, dairy science, sheep specialist, crops, flavour chemistry, computational biology and others.”

When new support staff are added in, altogether an additional 75 permanent staff will be taken on. The new funding will also allow for some promotions, particularly in research and advisory.

“This couldn’t have come at a better time,” Prof Boyle said. “We were at breaking point in advisory and education, because of the service nature of these activities. It will also be hugely important for staff morale.”

Green Cert

Separate from the above permanent posts, Teagasc is also seeking more contract staff for Green Cert and other training. It got approval to take on some 15 additional contract staff in 2014, 20 further staff on two-year contracts in 2015 and it is currently in discussion about taking on a further 30 more contract teaching staff in 2016.

This is being driven by the sudden demand for training brought about by the new CAP. Prf Boyle explained that in recent years Teagasc has trained about 500 regional and distance students each year. That tripled to 1,500 in 2014 while more than 5,000 have expressed interest in starting courses in the coming year. The organisation recently wrote out to the 5,000 seeking further information on what training they required. About half replied. Gerry Boyle said that Teagasc facilities, including the private colleges that it part funds, have capacity for just over 2,000 regional and distance students. “The real constraint is on numbers of teaching staff.”

Income and spending

Teagasc had total income of €189m in 2014, with €127.7 of this coming from the Exchequer. Last year, Teagasc spent €68m on pay and €67m on pensions. It has 1,700 former staff on its pension roll. Its other big spending item is €34m on operations covering research, advisory and education. It also gave €2.7m in grants to the three private agricultural colleges and €6.3m in other grants.

Teagasc provides plenty of detail about staff and their pay. In 2014, the organisation had 641 professional staff, 153 technical, 192 administrative and 147 farm/domestic staff, giving 1,133 staff members in total.

Two thirds, 728 staff, were paid less than €60,000. The other 405 were paid €60,000 or more. Most of those, 318, were paid between €60,000 and €80,000. That left 87 key staff on over €80,000, spread around the various parts of the organisation. Director Professor Gerry Boyle received basic pay of €141,000 in 2014, with a €12,000 car allowance.

Teagasc operates a defined benefit pension scheme for its permanent staff. One busy staff member received €22,207 in overtime in 2014.

The Teagasc Authority is the management board which steers the organisation and sets targets for the director. It held 12 meetings in 2014. Most members get a flat €12,000 payment per annum for taking on the role, working out at €1,000 per meeting. In 2014 the One Person One Salary guideline of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was introduced meaning that three members whose day jobs are in the State or semi State sectors no longer received this payment. Chairman Dr Noel Cawley receives €21,000 per anum.

Investing for the future

Teagasc’s annual funding from the Exchequer was cut during the recession years and the pain was mostly felt in falling staff numbers, lower pay and fewer promotion opportunities. However, the organisation was able to maintain a high level of capital spending over the past seven years, which has hopefully protected its capacity to deliver for farmers and agri industry. Most of this capital spending was on its research facilities, with lesser spending on education and advisory facilities.

The organisation accessed this funding by selling off assets, most significantly farm land at the Athenry research centre. It received the agreement of the Ministers for Agriculture and for Public Expenditure and Reform to keep most of this funding for capital investment. Altogether, between 2007 and 2014 it acquired €39.7m from sale of assets. It has invested €33m of this money in facilities over that period with the balance of €6.6m remains on hand.

Major items include €4.9m on the Functional Foods Laboratory in Moorepark; €4.6m on the Animal bioscience Centre at Grange; €4m each on Kildalton College and Oak Park House; €3.5m on the Neutraceutical Laboratories at Ashtown; €3.3m on the Research and Innovation Facility at Moorepark and €2.4m on the Botanic Gardens. Current projects include the new pig research unit in Moorepark, on course to open in April 2016, and facilities in Ashtown.

The organisation is in the process of winding down all operations at the Kinseally research centre in Dublin, part of which site it owns. This land is likely to be sold off and Teagasc hopes to again access this funding for capital investment.

Last week Gerry Boyle said that Teagasc’s focus remains on driving competitiveness of farming through lifting output. “We haven’t taken on other societal goals as comparable organisations elsewhere have.”