The RYA this 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.

Gus Lewis, RYA Legal and Government Affairs Manager said: “The Government’s Spending Review provides us with an opportunity to challenge on financial grounds certain issues affecting recreational boating.  We have therefore taken this opportunity to highlight two key areas in which the Government could cut its expenditure to no real detriment to its overarching policies, but to the benefit of recreational boating.

The RYA 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.

The RYA has serious concerns that the e-Borders reporting methodology is simply not designed to accommodate the unscheduled activities of the recreational boating sector. In the absence of a carrier ticketing system, a passport ‘control line’ and attendant law enforcement assets, the RYA believes that a sea border security regime based on un-targeted self-reporting of routine traffic (such as the e-Borders programme) would create an environment in which illegal activity could either not be reported or alternatively be reported in such a way so as to create an illusion of legitimacy.

“In our view the extension of the e-Borders programme to the recreational boating sector will, at significant cost to the taxpayer, fail to enhance detection at the border as intended and will not deliver value for money. The RYA accordingly proposes that the part of the e-Borders project concerned with the reporting of cross-border movements by recreational vessels should be discontinued”, added Gus.

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, which is currently administrated by the Health and Safety Executive on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.  In 2008 the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge was introduced, which involves its own inspection and accreditation regime administrated by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom on behalf of the Department for Education.

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.

Therefore 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.