The new integrated levy board structure in the UK will save almost £4 million a year, its chairman has said.

John Bridge, chairman of the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board, said the savings will start to be realised in the autumn once the AHDB moves its operations together to Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire.

The first year of operation of AHDB has been dominated by the twin priorities of refining the structures required for the board to work effectively, and delivering six, sector-focused business plans. 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.”

Bridge added that sector-specific activity will continue to be delivered under established sector “brands”, which in the case of horticulture and potatoes are the Horticultural Development Company and the Potato Council.

Bridge said: “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.”

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.

The new management structure becomes effective on April 1, 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 designed to encourage cross-sector co-operation. It has also centralised market intelligence and several administrative functions built on common systems and formed a single executive management team charged with delivering co-operation and collaboration, as well as the effective delivery of sector plans.

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