Ráðunautafundur - 20.02.1996, Page 16

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The Advisory Service employs 87 Advisory Staff, 41 Secretarial Staff, 2 Scientific Of-
ficers and 2 Technical Officers. Of the Advisory Staff, 75 are Agricultural Advisers, 6 Rural
Business Advisers, 3 Farm Woodland Advisers and 3 Managers. The organisation of the
Advisory Service is shown on the chart. Each Advisory Office operates as a separate cost
centre, with its own budget and targets in terms of earnings and sales of SAC services. Day-
to-day management is highly devolved and the local work activity varies greatly, reflecting the
differing needs of the clients in the different parts of the country. The nurnber of Advisers in
each Office varies from one to six depending on local requirements.
The staff of the Rural Business Unit specialise in financial business management and
deal with the more complex and more diffícult business case work as well as providing sup-
port to local Advisers. The Farm Woodland Unit is staffed by three professional foresters who
undertake publicly funded promotional work on farm woodlands and provide a complete
range of advice to those engaged in farm-scale woodland enterprises.
SAC’S INTEGRATED APPROACH TO THE PROVISION OF ADVICE
It is an essential feature of the SAC approach to the practical provision of advice that Advisers
present and promote all of SAC’s services with the primary aim of inspiring “good business
decisions” by their ciients, taking into account relevant environmental and social consider-
ations. It is our experience that public interest advice will be more readily received and put
into practice when presented to the land manager within the context of technical and business
advice relating to business decisions the client is having to make for the enterprise or farm.
This approach is particularly effective in relation to animal welfare, environmental protection
and habitat and wildlife conservation.
COMMERCIAL ADVISORY ACTIVITY
SAC provides advisory and consuitancy services to a very wide range of clients throughout
Scotland and elsewhere. The staff of the Advisory Service act as SAC client managers for
farmers in Scotland and a variety of locally based organisations and companies. Three-
quarters of the Advisory Service’s clients are subscribers and collectively they account for
two-thirds of the Advisory Service’s commercial income.
Conventionally commercial income within SAC has been assigned to one of five cate-
gories: subscriptions, consultancy, analytical, packages or publications. Subscriptions account
for 25% of the commercial income of the Advisory Service and consultancy for just over half.