RYA proposes spending cuts to Treasury
Gus Lewis: ‘challenge issues affecting recreational boating’
The RYA has told the Treasury to make spending cuts to benefit the leisure marine industry by taking recreational craft out of the e-Borders fiasco and consolidating adventure activities accreditation.
SPENDING CUTS: The RYA last week submitted two proposals to HM Treasury’s spending review, urging the Coalition Government to abandon previous plans to include recreational vessels in the e-Border’s programme and to rationalise the licensing regimes for outdoor activities involving young people.
‘The government’s spending review provides us with an opportunity to challenge on financial grounds certain issues affecting recreational boating,’ said Gus Lewis, the RYA legal and government affairs manager.
The RYA says it has reiterated to the government its belief that there is no demonstrable security case to support the extension of the e-Borders programme to the recreational boating sector and that the programme would not be the most appropriate, proportionate, effective or efficient mechanism for securing the sea border.
There are also serious concerns that the e-Borders reporting methodology is simply not designed to accommodate the unscheduled activities of the recreational boating sector.
Alongside its proposals for discontinuing the e-Borders programme for recreational boaters the RYA has also proposed the consolidation of government adventure activities licensing regimes.
In 1995, the government introduced the Adventure Activities Licensing scheme for organisations providing facilities for adventure activities for persons under the age of 18. In 2008 the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge was introduced.
Consequently many providers of adventure activities for children have to undergo two separate government inspection and accreditation processes, subjecting them to additional bureaucracy and cost, as well as duplicating administration across different government departments.
So the RYA is proposing a consolidation across departments and that provision should be made for the accreditation regimes operated by national governing bodies, where the safety standards are equivalent, to be accepted by the government as an alternative.
Images for this article - click to enlarge
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright © Mercator Media 2012. This does not exclude the owner's assertion of copyright over the material.
