Examination of witnesses (Questions 760
- 779)
TUESDAY 19 MAY 1998
MR PETER
MADDEN, MS
JULIE HILL
and MS INGRID
MARSHALL
760. You mean This Common Inheritance?
(Ms Hill) Yes, they did at least in providing
those checklists of what individual departments were doing provide
an annual process where someone went round to each department
asking them to report back on progress. That in itself was a discipline.
761. The problem with that is that it became
bogged down in process and endless recital of little steps forward
in areas that very often did not matter.
(Ms Hill) That is the important thing. They have
got to leave aside administrative reporting. A valid action to
report is not: "We have decided to have a consultation document",
or "We have decided to have a policy process", on so
and so. It has got to be in the area of major initiatives and
major decisions. One of the things they would have to be very
clear about is they cannot get away with citing as a commitment
going through a certain administrative process.
(Ms Marshall) In the annual report that the Green
Ministers could provide you with there could be scope for you
to decide what you would want reported on. That could follow the
format of the questionnaires that you distributed to departments
as part of this inquiry. I thought the format of questions in
there was very good.
762. They would in fact be responding to
our questionnaires?
(Ms Marshall) You could guide exactly what it
is you wanted responses on and give guidance so that the feedback
is exactly what you like. We think it is important to find out
about what targets they are setting for themselves, what monitoring
processes they have established collectively in particular, and
some kind of report back on the discussions that have been having
about policy appraisal and the role that departments are playing
in taking forward the Sustainable Development Strategy. That could
form key parts.
Chairman: That is
a very important point. Who is driving this and how it is driven
is absolutely crucial, as you were saying at the beginning.
Dr Iddon
763. Could I go back to the programme I
referred to earlier. Are you aware of what the Green Ministers'
programme is? Are you happy with it? Would you lay down a different
programme for the Green Ministers to address?
(Ms Hill) The kinds of things we felt they should
address, as we said earlier, are two very key process areas which
is to scrutinise whether policy appraisal is going on and attendant
to that is making sure that the right training for the policy
appraisal guidance is in place and the departments have their
own monitoring systems so they can report on it. The second important
element is discussing what has been done to implement the Sustainable
Development Strategy. As we understand it at the moment, there
is no mechanism for carrying forward the Sustainable Development
Strategy once it has been produced. That seems to us a major deficiency.
Other than that I think there are two very clear policy areas
at the moment which they must address. One is clearly how we will
implement whatever carbon dioxide target comes out of the next
round of negotiations and the other is each department's contribution
to transport reduction. Those are two clear policy areas and then
alongside that, last but not least, is the greening operations
in the housekeeping area. We feel those five items would provide
them with a fairly solid and fairly full programme of work for
the next year or so.
Chairman: Let us come
on to the Sustainable Development Unit. I know Mr Dafis wants
to ask questions.
Mr Dafis
764. If the Green Ministers' Committee is
really going to be generating a powerful agenda for greening government,
obviously it needs to be getting the right ideas fed to it from
somewhere. Now there is a network of officials supporting it which
is called GM(O)—Green Ministers' Officials. What impression
do you have of the commitment of civil servants at a high level
to sustainable development? To what extent have they internalised
it and to what extent are they seriously committed to it, would
you say?
(Ms Hill) We do not have evidence. It is not the
kind of thing that it is easy to have evidence without examples
of specific policy discussions. There is no mechanism to make
senior civil servants accountable for integration of environmental
imperatives into other policy areas. One idea might be that if
there is one obvious role for civil servants it might be on the
greening operations. As we have said, it is within the department's
own gift and your own Committee could examine permanent secretaries
on their own progress on greening operations especially as the
DETR is about to launch a strategy for greening operations for
every department to follow. There needs to be some explicit mechanism
for ensuring that permanent secretaries are engaged, it seems
to us.
(Mr Madden) To give you one example, the Department
of Environment, Transport and the Regions should be expected of
all the ministries to have put sustainable development at the
heart of their thinking. On the whole regional development and
devolution debate they had to be reminded very strongly that sustainable
development was not there at the heart from the beginning. If
it is not in the Department of Environment, Transport and the
Regions, what hope for other ministries?
765. Absolutely. Something about the Sustainable
Development Unit itself now, its programmes, its objectives, its
working practices. As much as you have seen of them are you satisfied
with them?
(Ms Hill) They almost certainly do not have enough
resources to do a proper facilitating job across government. If
we accept that the process of policy appraisal is at its very
early stages, then the other departments probably need quite a
lot of help in applying the methodology and acquiring the knowledge
and altering their thinking in order to get to that ideal state
where they routinely think of any environmental implications of
their new policy. They probably need more support from the Sustainable
Development Unit. They have only three people effectively devoted
to the "greening government" side.
766. Mr Meacher told us that their resources
were similar to the resources of the Social Exclusion Unit, less
than the resources of the Women's Unit and less than the resources
of the Better Regulation Unit. Have you any idea what type of
human resource ought to be available to them? Substantially more?
(Ms Hill) At least double, probably triple. It
in some way depends how far departments do call on their help
on the policy appraisal process. If dissemination of guidance
is working correctly they would call on them quite a lot. If departments
did start to knock on their door more often they would certainly
need more resources.
767. Certainly the Sustainable Development
Unit should be the engine house of ideas?
(Ms Hill) Yes.
768. Would it not be finding ideas? If we
see the Green Ministers' Committee as a number of politicians
driving the agenda they would need to be instructed, fed if you
like.
(Ms Hill) Indeed.
769. The Sustainable Development Unit would
be crucial there, would it?
(Ms Hill) Indeed. At the same time it is important
to say that individual departments should have or acquire some
ownership of the ideas themselves. I think it is important that
they start to want to ask the right questions and acquire the
knowledge themselves. There should not be a sense that there is
one over-riding view of a way of doing things that is promulgated
by the Sustainable Development Unit and that is taken up as an
add on and tacked on to the end of what is being done. I do not
think we will achieve genuine integration if that is the case.
770. You are not suggesting that there ought
to be a Sustainable Development Unit in all departments?
(Ms Hill) Yes, indeed, that would be the ideal
situation.
771. This would be the kind of power house,
the one with intellectual authority, command of the subject.
(Ms Hill) Yes, intellectual authority is a very
good way of putting it. There are ways of helping to acquire that,
on-line databases, web site information. It seems to us in the
nitty-gritty process of government a lot is done or not done according
to accessibility and availability of the right information at
the right time.
772. For the first time I am getting a clear
picture in my own mind about how the process should work. Would
you put it as strongly as this: the Sustainable Development Unit
is absolutely crucial in developing the policy agenda, that it
should feed through to the Green Ministers' Committee and that
it should be a power house of ideas?
(Ms Hill) Yes.
(Mr Madden) Also we do see it having a facilitatory
role. Part of getting the ability to take on board these issues
across Government will need the Sustainable Unit in helping and
offering advice and support.
Dr Iddon
773. We have mentioned earlier that in order
to drive the agenda forward we have to have ownership at a fairly
top level politically. Do you think within the Civil Service—you
do meet civil servants of course—that there is that kind
of ownership within the officer ranks as well?
(Ms Hill) It varies with the department and with
the issue. I think you can point to instances where there is strong
ownership of the ideas and objectives and instances where there
is not. I think it has not penetrated nearly far enough. I think
that is down to the fact there has been insufficient investment
in the time and money that is required to train people at a senior
level, inform at a senior level, and discuss with civil servants
in different departments how they see the issues of environment.
I think we quite often go along thinking these issues of the importance
of the environment are self-evident but it is clear to us from
talking to officials on a one-to-one basis that it is often far
from evident.
Mr Grieve
774. Can we draw you out a little bit on
this. Which departments have you found most responsive and which
least? It would be interesting to hear that not for pointing the
finger of blame but it would be interesting to hear whether your
views correlate with our impressions.
(Ms Hill) In terms of systematic interviews with
people in the departments I am now basing this on information
that is nearly two years old so please bear that in mind. We have
supplementary knowledge on an ad hoc basis, but our systematic
inquiry on policy appraisal took place nearly two years ago. It
was obvious that transport was beginning to take on board the
environmental ideas in the sense that at that time they had almost
no option but to do so. It was clear there was ownership of the
idea that transport could not go on as it was. There was a clear
turning point around two and a half years ago from "Unlimited
transport growth is a good thing, it is a sign of a good economy"
to "We can't go on like this, it is unsustainable."
Chairman
775. That is when Dr Mawhinney was changing
policy.
(Ms Hill) Yes. At that point there was a different
kind of thinking in transport which eventually emerged in a number
of different ways and a number of different policy decisions.
In the Industry Department, by contrast, I would say there was
always a feeling that the overwhelming objective is economic prosperity
and growth and the health of British industry vis-à-vis
other economies and therefore the environmental considerations,
while they are important, have to be put alongside that and more
than that, environmental policy has to be scrutinised for its
effect on the economy. I think the Industry Department very quickly
caught on to the idea that if there was a demand for industry
policy to be scrutinised for environmental implications then equally
it should work the other way round, so that with some of European-driven
environmental policy that turned out to be very costly, like the
Water Directive and others, there was a sense maybe these should
have been gone into a bit more thoroughly at the time. There was
a definite sense of a reciprocal level of debate which is a genuine
sustainable development debate actually and is very healthy. It
indicates in officials' minds that the two things are beginning
to come together, the health of the economy and the health of
the environment and just where they do or do not coincide. Those
are two examples.
(Mr Madden) My personal response to that would
be that MAFF and DTI are two ministries where we have seen a lot
of progress over the last year. There used to be a real bunker
mentality that they should oppose anything on principle. I think
we have seen real movement there. As I said before, the Treasury
is one area where despite what we were told last year there has
not really been any movement.
Chairman
776. Very often when the Civil Service as
a whole collectively is beginning to grapple with a new concept,
like for instance resource accounting, it puts together packages
of programmes at the Civil Service Training College at Sunningdale
and exhorts departments to go down there. Has that happened at
all in relation to environmental considerations?
(Ms Hill) When the policy appraisal document was
first launched, the 1991 one, there was training attached to that
for some departments. The then DoE staff held seminars for other
departments on what it meant and how to implement the methodologies.
Our impression of that was that it was a bit patchy and that it
was done more systematically in some departments than in others
and it was not followed through. There was a one-off effort to
get it promulgated and no rolling programmes. Our impression now
is that there is not very much training available and it is very
much up to senior civil servants to decide when to send their
officials for training exercises. There is nothing that requires
them to be up to speed on environmental issues or environmental
polices.
777. What impression do you have of the
co-ordination of policy in relation to sustainable development
between different departments and different next step agencies
and organisations like that. We had the evidence from the business
community particularly that there was a lack of co-ordination.
(Ms Hill) Well, co-ordination takes place at different
levels. For an individual policy issue there may well be an inter-departmental
group that oversees the implementation of that issue. I think
what is lacking is integration of that whole process of the policy
appraisal initiative. There is no co-ordination as far as we can
see on making sure that is thoroughly promulgated.
(Ms Marshall) I think the extent to which agencies
and NDPBs are being required by their departments to look at policy
appraisal and take on board the greening operations agenda is
very patchy. It varies an awful lot. I do not think any department
actually requires agencies or NDPBs to carry out environmental
policy appraisal. I do not think it is mandatory. Whereas on greening
operations some are captured by that requirement and others do
not seem to be. It is patchy and that definitely needs to be tightened
up.
Dr Iddon
778. I was just going to move on to the
Sustainable Development Strategy. Following Rio of course the
Government set up its Sustainable Development Strategy and in
1996 we had 118 Sustainable Development Indicators which the DoE
endorsed. What lessons, if any, can the present Government gain
from the last Government when it addresses its revised Sustainable
Development Strategy and the Indicators?
(Ms Hill) I think the chief lesson is the value
of pinning actions and activities on individual departments because,
of course, there is a value in having a document that is owned
by the whole of Government but at the same time if there is not
a clear agenda and programme for individual departments to underpin
that strategy you have no real sense of where the activities are
going to take place and whose job it is to follow through. Our
overwhelming impression of the very large documents produced under
the last administration is that they were very long on words and
short on specific targets and actions. All those long tables of
commitments were process-based administrative commitments rather
than real environmental sustainable development targets. You have
got to have the targets and pin them on individual departments
so that they become accountable for their implementation.
779. We have got central government, local
government, NGOs, industry and commerce. Do you think there is
enough cohesion to drive the environmental policies forward, enough
partnership between all the different organisations or do you
think we can do it in a better way?
(Ms Hill) The message I often get from the business
community is that they feel in order to go forward on a sound
basis they need very clear guidance from Government. While there
is a very valid message that sectors and stakeholders other than
Government have a role to play, I think it is still true to say
that in this country Government sets the overall framework. There
is not enough devolved power in local authorities or the regions
or certainly in business to be able to make some of the very large
changes that we are going to need. Simple examples are energy
policy and transport policy. These are things that are only in
the gift of central Government. In that sense cohesion is very
difficult unless you have got a very clear steer on our direction
from central Government. Having said that, having got the steer,
you have got to get other people to own that policy. There is
no point in having a comprehensive energy policy if business is
bitterly opposed to it. That is about consultation and the right
amount of discussion with the business community and others before
the strategy is finalised. It may be about formalising targets
over the kind of things that have been tried in some other countries
where there are semi-binding agreements for industry to implement
certain parts of the strategy. There has got to be clear guidance
but it has also got to be owned by the people who have to implement
it. That is a delicate relationship in a way—to be seen
to be giving a very strong message but also not giving it in a
way that alienates the very people you want to give effect to
it.
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