Union members vote for the status quo

There will be no change to the current terms of office in NFU Scotland following the majority of the branches of the union responding favouring the status quo.

Current president Jim McLaren has already made it clear that even if the rules were changed to extend the current presidential maximum four-year term of office, he will be standing down at the annual meeting in February 2011.

The responses from the branches also made it clear that there should be no change to the current position of the vice-presidents where they serve for one year prior to the positions being open for re-election.

Union chief executive James Withers said: "While approximately one third of those who responded wanted a change, it would be fair to say that there wasn't a groundswell in favour. The message has come back that the system isn't broken and so the Board agreed last week that we won't be putting any proposals to the November Council meeting to make any changes at this time."