ONE main aim behind the proposed re-organisation of the NFU is to secure as much new government money as possible for farmers.

The change in the role of regional policy advisers is designed to release them to spend more time on helping farmers apply for the cash available under the England Rural Development programme and similar schemes.

Mr Richard McDonald, director general of the NFU, said the overall idea was to make the organisation more efficient and in closer contact with the grass-root membership.

He revealed that the NFU was exploring the possibility of buying its London headquarters to save cash. The building costs £475,000 a year to rent but a review would increase that dramatically.

Officers are still looking to relocate outside London, but the possibility of buying the building has arisen. "The preferred position would be to do that if we could get it at the right price," said Mr McDonald.

He knew from his increased mail bag that the Next Step proposals had caused a great deal of discussion up and down the country.

The recent regional livestock committee meeting in Newcastle expressed concern about the proposals, but at last week's North Riding and Durham annual meeting at Croft, the proposals received an easier ride.

The existing regional policy advisors will be allocated NFU counties to look after and will become less specialist but a key new objective for them will be to help their membership make the most of the new government schemes.

"In the regions we want to make sure we can press all the right buttons to get money into them," said Mr McDonald.

Administrative costs were being driven down hard and staff on the front line would work to generate money for the benefit of members. Some posts in the regions, and support staff, would go and those left behind would have to be computer literate.

The last re-organisation had, to a point, distanced officials from the membership. The aim was to get back to closer working relationships.

"We have a huge amount of work to do," he said. "I am very, very proud of the success we have achieved and believe we do not shout our story as much as we should."

Next Steps was a strategy to take the industry back to its rightful position. "The pledge I give you is that we shall all work our butts off because we all care very strongly about British agriculture."

Concern has been raised over the establishment of a national call centre to answer farmers questions about IACS and similar schemes and legal matters, instead of regional staff giving advice.

Mr McDonald said the centre had been operating for a year and had received a satisfactory rating by 95pc of those who had used its services. Eleven people were handling an average of 1,000 calls a week.

The meeting was told regional staff would not, to any great extent, get involved in members' queries. They would instead be referred to the national call centre.

Mr Kevin Littleboy doubted members would accept that. He said the regional specialists had recovered £2m of IACS payments from MAFF at Northallerton.

He would prefer some cases to be handled by the NFU regional staff, at least until MAFF had agreed its own changes.

"We do have a working relationship with Northallerton and I think it would be advantageous for some of these cases to be dealt with regionally," he said.

Having listened to Mr McDonald, his immediate reaction was that the policy advisors should continue with their specialist roles, combined with an accompanying role of looking after their counties.

The region had exceptionally good staff and he did not believe it was sensible for them to become jacks of all trades.

He suggested North Riding and Durham should be allocated one adviser, as the county branch had a third of the region's membership.

The large turnout for the agm showed what a strong affinity and affection members had for the identity of the area.

Earlier Mr Graham Smith, outgoing county chairman, said he believed Next Steps could bring the membership closer to NFU officials in London.