SIP Government rip off.

[rayken1938]

Just been reading the FFSAQ report that was presented to Sunfish AGM.
It stated that there were 50,000 SIP permits sold last year and that $618,000 was distributed to stocking groups.
Now that sounds great untill I did my sums and realised that only $12.36 from every permit actually goes to the stocking groups.
Cheers
Ray

[finga]

Mate, can you put this up in the News section with the link to the report please?
Cheers Scott

[finga]

Found the report.
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/cps/rde/dpi/hs.xsl/28_14587_ENA_HTML.htm

Nearly 25% admin costs. Whooly dooly

I'll bung it up in the news section

[rayken1938]

Whoops made a big mistake forgot about the weekly permits but 25% still a big overhead.
I have written to my local MP peter Dowling.
Cheers
Ray

[Pistol_P]

Doesnt really surprise me.......Just add it to the list of the missing monies the government is responsible for...::) ::) .....It stinks really...>:( >:(

Question is...where does it go..??

Pete

[STUIE63]

ooh ooh pick me (whilst putting hand in the air )
let me guess consolidated revenue
Stuie

[Outdoor Guy]

$12.36 thats nearly 25 yellowbelly fingerlings or 2 cod woo hoo

[NAGG]

I think those calculations were a bit out of wack !

From what I undestand - does not the original charter say that 75% of all monies collected would go directly to stocking groups - which it has !

Now , I dont know about you guys ...... but I certainly do not work for nothing !
$170,400 (83.7% of the admin cost) has gone in salaries ... you know , the people that collect the sip funds , enter the data , send out the info & keep the SIPs available to the small business outlets that sell them ......... oh yeh & then actually administer the funds making sure that the stocking groups get their funds + review the actual stocking (make sure funds are spent on actual stocking). ::)

So here is my idea to improve the ratio

- Pete , Ray & Stuie can volunteer their time to run the scheme :) (3 blokes should manage) That will put $170,400 straight back into stocking ---- 8-)

Chris

PS - for the last 5 years - salaries have accounted for between 80-84% of the admin cost

[Gazza]

I support the SIP concept 110% , I also prefer to camp/river fish , with less "results" maybe , but a imo better tasting fish at the camp & relaxingtime.

If $admin$ is "un-necessarily" creeping up , they've been good in the past ,and hopefully a lot busier in the future , re now available water everywhere.

i.e. SIP concept is soundly managed imo , by whom i don't know , but fitzy would be screaming from the rooftops & gumtrees ;D if an issue.

jmo ...I support the SIP scheme 110%

[rayken1938]

As i said in my original post 25% is excessive. I was on the board of a friendly society ( Funeral Benefit plan) for over 10 years. The society had 3 full time office based employees plus one salesperson on the road and assets of over $10 million.
We had to pay commission to the various government departments for them to do payroll deductions plus rent for our premises.
We had to administer out investments and usually did a twice yearly mailout to our members.
We consistently ran at between 10 and 11% of our income.
Looking at the last few years annual reports the overheads have shown a downward trend due to the adoption of new technologies and the use of email rather than post to contact members.
Cheers
Ray

[Lucky_Phill]

10% management / administration fee is a general figure that Queensland Fisheries use when any funding is sort for any project.

25% seems a tad high. IMO.



LP.

[NAGG]

As i said in my original post 25% is excessive. I was on the board of a friendly society ( Funeral Benefit plan) for over 10 years. The society had 3 full time office based employees plus one salesperson on the road and assets of over $10 million.
We had to pay commission to the various government departments for them to do payroll deductions plus rent for our premises.
We had to administer out investments and usually did a twice yearly mailout to our members.
We consistently ran at between 10 and 11% of our income.
Looking at the last few years annual reports the overheads have shown a downward trend due to the adoption of new technologies and the use of email rather than post to contact members.
Cheers
Ray

Depends on the income ? - there would be a certain number of staff required to run the department. If all the sudden most of those weekly licences went to yearly - BINGO!

We have the same thing at my company - sales increase , fixed costs remain the same & the profitability goes through the roof.

Chris

[Apollo]

10% management / administration fee is a general figure that Queensland Fisheries use when any funding is sort for any project.

25% seems a tad high. IMO.



LP.

Just a thought Phil. In a normal project fisheries funding would be sort, it would be a research type project, so the bulk would be for materials, consumerables and research staff. The administration of the SIP scheme is all about processing paper or online applications for permits, assessing stocking funding allocations and making the distributions, then accounting for scheme. It is all an administration function, processing a lot of permits, so I would think the admin costs would be a higher % than a research project where they are dealing with a lot less income sources, paperwork and processing. Don't think we are comparing apples to apples.

If their charter is 25% and they stick to that, then they have performed to what was agreed to.

[rayken1938]

To my mind they have a target of 25% to meet and there is no incentive to achieve any improvement by adopting new work practices and new technologies.
It is not that they have to sit down with an acabus or count it out on their fingers with the computer programs available nowdays.
Cheers
Ray

[Apollo]

To my mind they have a target of 25% to meet and there is no incentive to achieve any improvement by adopting new work practices and new technologies.
It is not that they have to sit down with an acabus or count it out on their fingers with the computer programs available nowdays.
Cheers
Ray

Yes Ray, you are right that there is not incentive to achieve below that %.

They are still dealing with alot of applications that come from many sources that have a fair percentage of paper based. These are not high value applications, so there is a certain amount of people needed to do that. $170k doesn't buy a huge amount of staff, pay their wage, pay their super, pay their workers comp and other staff costs, house them, supply them with equipment, etc

These staff have to collect/collate the fees, process the applications, allocate the funds from each of the 50000 permit holder's direction to the dam or multiple dams, account for funds, process the distribution to the stocking groups and account for that.

When you work it out, this equates to the above being done at one permit per 4 mins.

Steve

[Richard]

That original amount quoted may be because a lot of the groups couldn't meet their stocking quota due to a number of factors such as lack of fingerlings, receiving waters not ready/suitable, groups not organised for some reason, etc.. So that may be why the stokcing groups as a whole didn't receive the full 75% of the SIPs money ? (I haven't read the report so not sure).

And outside of the SIPs paid scheme, don't forget guys there's a lot of 'other' work that goes into the stocking program than just entering in SIPs permit data (although as Steve pointed out I'd reckon that a big job in itself) that may slide in under the radar of that report.

Think about setting up management plans for all the stocking groups, pre and post electrofishing/netting stocking surveys of all the dam waters to see how the food fish/fingerlings/year classes are going, scientifc support for these groups for hatching/rearing/releasing fingerlings. None of this is actually funded by the SIPs scheme and is currently funded by the government. The SIPs money isn't allowed to be used for this unforunately because a lot of the groups would benefit from it being able to be spent on facilities or this kind of support.

But that was what was agreed upon at the start so I guess we're stuck with it for now. SO often it falls down to a few hard working volunteers in each group who do 90% of the work.

[aussiebasser]

They are also responsible for travelling around and doing all the research inot the effectiveness of stocking, including electrofishing is all stocked impoundments. $170K would not cover their complete payroll bill. It's still the best fresh water licensing scheme on the world.