Examination of witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
TUESDAY 28 APRIL 1998
LORD TOPE,
MS PATRICIA
HUGHES and MR
TIM EVERETT
Mr Blizzard
440. I think my question is the other side
of the coin from that, that in order to give your environmental
policy the thrust and very high priority you wanted, did that
require much departmental reorganisation in terms of changing
the departments or change within the departments and did you have
any resistance to that? I am talking about in your early days
when you were gearing up for it.
(Lord Tope) We did not need at that time to reorganise
and restructure the Council for that reason. We did do some restructuring,
but for other reasons. Yes, it did meet with resistance, it is
fair to say, probably in all departments partly because, and remember
this is twelve years ago before Rio and before Mrs Thatcher put
the environment on the agenda, it was seen as a political gimmick
and it was the politicians doing their thing. As I say, we did
have some champions. It was perhaps for obvious reasons harder
to demonstrate to social services that it had some relevance to
them than it was, say, to environmental services, but we did overcome
that and they did become convinced of it and I have to say, as
one that strangely enough is not given to winning prizes or awards
and so on, that actually Sutton in starting to win awards and
starting to win prizes and has started to make a difference because
our social workers, for instance, going to a conference would
meet people who have actually heard of Sutton, not for social
services reasons necessarily, but for some other reason, and it
began to give—I am not sure if "pride" is the
right word, but perhaps it is—a recognition anyway, and
as they began to think about it, they did actually begin to realise
that it did actually have quite a lot to do with them and quite
a lot to do with the work that they do because it is about all
our lifestyles and in different ways, and sometimes in the same
way, it is relevant to their work as much as it is to some of
the more obvious areas.
441. Were there any significant restructuring
costs at all? Did you need to get in some key appointments or
move people and protect salaries or declare redundancies or anything
like that in order to reshape the way you wanted it to happen?
(Ms Hughes) We did create an Environmental Services
Department and we did move environmental health from the Housing
and Social Services Department for that purpose. I suspect we
made a very small saving out of that, but it certainly was not
the motivation.
Chairman
442. You obviously reviewed this after about
five years and came to the conclusion that this approach was not
sufficiently embedded in the system and you thought training of
staff actually should be enhanced. Is that the key issue, the
training of staff, and how have you tackled that and what sort
of financial priorities have you given that?
(Mr Everett) I think the concerns at that stage
were that many of the initiatives were coming from the same small
group of champions and we wanted to break out of that and extend
the awareness further across the Council. One of the things that
caused us to come to that view, which is touched on in the memorandum,
is that we saw that getting more people involved in doing environmental
audits, apart from actually helping to build up our information
on what impacts our services were having, what the current state
of the local environment was, also served to involve a much wider
range of operational staff in thinking through the environmental
issues and that had a systematic training impact.
443. Is there a specific training course
you put them on?
(Mr Everett) We did various things. Certainly
for some time as part of the induction training package for new
staff there is an element around the environmental policies of
the Council and these days that is built into the core values
and other corporate policy aims. That is an essential component,
but as part of doing environmental audits we also look to train
those individuals up both in the basic principles and also in
terms of environmental awareness. As a consequence of that, not
only are they able to do the environmental audits and take part
in practical exercises, but also a level of environmental awareness
is built up. That has become a significant component of what we
now do with EMAS and, as part of taking individual units through
the system, we are keen to make sure that as many of the people
who are involved as possible have the opportunity to think through
the environmental implications of their particular part of the
operation and, therefore, their level of environmental awareness
is also increased.
Dr Iddon
444. Could I look at the way the committees
operate and in particular the reports presented to the committees?
Most committees have a financial appraisal at the end of a policy
statement. Do you have a similar thing for the environmental appraisal?
(Lord Tope) Yes, we do.
445. On every committee and on every report?
(Lord Tope) Yes.
Mr Truswell
446. You have obviously addressed part of
the answer to this question in your response to the question about
training, but those responsible for drawing up reports and developing
policies clearly have to be aware of the environmental implications
of what they are doing and, as I say, you are addressing that
through the training system, but to whom do they turn for greater
advice and expertise when it comes to too big an issue for them?
Following on from that, does the authority find itself
frequently or infrequently going to external agencies for advice
about environmental issues?
(Ms Hughes) The answer internally is that we have
a "green team" who are experts and they are located
in the Environmental Services Department. We often talk about
whether they should be located at the Centre. I do not think it
matters, provided they are regarded as a corporate resource. They
are our experts. We are fortunate in having a consultant who works
also for the ALG and the LGA who used to work for us who is really
the arch-expert, so we go to him a lot, particularly when we are
talking about Europe and other matters of that kind. Otherwise,
yes, we do from time to time use the expertise of the LGA, but
I have to say that in many regards I think it is sharing with
other authorities who have much the same approach as we do that
gives us as much of that shared experience as actually going to
the formal associations.
447. Could I just follow up on the point
you made about the "green team"? Are they actually seen
as a corporate resource and genuinely, as with so many local authorities
and organisations, is it seen as, "Oh, well, that is Environment's
job" and they are part of the Environment Department or whatever
it is called?
(Ms Hughes) They are acknowledged to be the experts,
so, in answer to your question, when people need help, they know
it is the green team that is going to give it to them. There is
to some extent a view that they are the "green welly brigade"
and that is true, but, nonetheless, as people get enthused, and
people do get enthused, then they like being associated with the
green team.
448. As a Committee, we have encountered
a great deal of scepticism and I think some resistance to the
idea of introducing environmental management systems. The sort
of reasons for that which we have been given include the fact
that some people see them as geared more to the private sector,
that they are seen as overly bureaucratic and that perhaps the
cost of implementing them outweighs the advantages. What would
your response be to that sort of scepticism?
(Ms Hughes) Shall I deal with the cost first?
Ours is an authority where there are 3,500 staff, excluding our
teaching staff, and the cost of EMAS for us in direct terms is
the cost of a co-ordinator at £38,000, to get accreditations
in the year is £6,000, and to have our own internal auditors
to do the audit is about £8,500. Now, that is a very low
cost for the kind of saving in cost terms which we might achieve.
In addition to that of course, there is the cost of all those
other people I have talked about, the directors, the champions,
and the people in the various groups who are going through the
EMAS accreditation and the time they give. Now, that we cannot
quantify, but we do think it is commensurate with the benefits
that are going to come out of it. For example, a small unit in
my department, the committee section, which is notorious for paper
usage, has actually reduced its paper usage by 20 per cent over
two years. You can obviously challenge these figures, but we can
demonstrate a cost benefit, though there are reservations about
that which I will come on to. I think also that people do actually
feel that in some way they are doing something and provided it
can be demonstrated to them that they can do something practical
which actually makes a difference to themselves and that it is
not just a global issue, I think people feel pleased that they
have done it and that is certainly an impression we have had and
we are aware that in our employee surveys, our employees have
said that they think that the Council is trying to do something
about the environment, this is the second most important thing
they think the Council is doing after delivering high-quality
services.
449. The timescale for the adaptation of
your EMAS has been reasonably protracted, and I do not mean this
as a criticism because obviously you are to be praised for the
fact that you embarked upon this course of action in any case,
but, from your experience, is there any advice that you could
give to others now beginning the process as to how they could
foreshorten that timescale and what are the main reasons for the
five years or more that you feel it is going to take?
(Ms Hughes) We took the view that this was going
to be something that people would need to adapt to. It is a cultural
change, so we started fairly pragmatically with the people we
thought wanted to do it and would do it best. That is my department
and some of the Environmental Services Department because they
are more geared to that kind of approach and we hoped by example
that we would encourage other people. We then decided that we
would gradually bring in people and the last people on our list
for the year 2000 are some of the social services teams and that
is because we took the view that for them to have to take this
on board would be an enormously difficult thing if they had been
one of the pioneers. The advantage of that is that people do perceive
it working and can learn from their peers. It also means that
people have got opportunities to prioritise other key things they
need to do, like Investors in People. The disadvantage
is that it becomes very hard to measure achievement in financial
terms unless you have got whole areas doing the same thing. For
example, in the civic offices, if only some people are EMAS accredited,
they do not know how much energy they are saving as against the
rest of the civic offices which could be using a lot more. So
in a sense doing it over a long period means that you cannot demonstrate
the results in quite such a clear way as you could if you set
about it as a big bang.
(Mr Everett) It is in some ways the old cliché,
that it is better to under-promise and over-deliver rather than
the other way around. I think as we were one of the first authorities
to get involved with EMAS, we did not quite know what we were
letting ourselves in for and there were some quite specific differences
with other environmental management systems and we needed to think
through what these would be. As has already been said, our early
response was really a pragmatic one, which was a mixture of where
were all of our major environmental impacts because clearly that
is part of the EMAS system, to focus on things which are important
environmentally, but also the balance of where the interest was,
where the support was inside the Council structure, what other
pressures there were that units had to face, so we tried to map
out a realistic and achievable timetable. Now, there are things
we learned in the process and some of those perhaps we can touch
on later on, but the organisation itself had different problems
and we had to think through what is a realistic timetable. I think
for both external and internal credibility, it is much better
to set realistic and achievable targets even if it takes longer
rather than set a target which right from the start looks over-optimistic.
450. Has the process thrown up any major
organisational or even political dilemmas and, if so, how have
you resolved them? Have there been any major policy changes or
indeed have any policies been dropped as a result of the process?
(Mr Everett) We did have to make a slight change
to our original environmental policies which I think I sent to
you as part of the pack on the Environmental Statement which was
first adopted. We had to add to those policies as part of adopting
EMAS, but only fairly marginally, but there is a commitment to
making sure that we do comply with the law and we do seek continuous
improvement and we had to add an additional policy into the list.
It was not a significant change and most of what was said in 1986
remains part of the core environmental policies.
451. Could I just ask about political dilemmas
because they can be great at both local and central government?
Have there been times when in putting into practice your policies
you have seen a ballot box potentially dropping on your head?
(Lord Tope) Yes, of course. That is a very dramatic
way of putting it, but yes and, frankly, taking such a lead on
this, it is something which I think it is fair to say most of
our residents recognise, if not wholly understand, can sometimes
be a stick with which we are beaten inevitably, and planning applications
is a very good example and frankly it happens too often. We think
it is worth it. We think overall that the benefits are greater
than the disbenefits. If you are asking me politically, I believe
that. I would not claim for one moment that we have 170,000 eco-freaks
living in the Borough, and in fact far, far from it, but I do
think and I do believe that there is generally a higher level
of environmental awareness in our Borough now, and I really do
not want to overstate it, but just as a general perception, than
there probably is in a number of other places where this sort
of work has not been done, and I am talking more about our work
in the community than our own internal EMAS about which I suspect
most of the population of Sutton know little or nothing.
Joan Walley
452. If I could follow on from this, the
audits that you describe seem to be mostly of housekeeping issues
in a way. How does that then relate back to the full circle that
Mr Truswell was just talking about in terms of policy issues?
You say, for example, that planning decisions might be a focus
for some sort of disagreement maybe if you are putting forward
the environmental thrust, but how do you actually influence the
policy decisions as well as the actual housekeeping issues of
what is being done as a result of the heightened awareness that
there is?
(Mr Everett) Perhaps it would help to clarify
what we mean by environmental audits because this has meant different
things to different people at different stages. When we started
off this process, the environmental audits we used were very much
the housekeeping issues in terms of transport, energy and so on.
Of course having adopted EMAS, the audit stage is a very specific
part of the EMAS scheme and it is to see how we are complying
with our environmental programme and management system devised
for each service unit which has been accredited. Inside each of
those programmes and management systems are issues which relate
to policy, for example, the environmental appraisal of the revision
of the unitary development plan which is obviously a fairly critical
document, but implicit in that whole review and embedded in their
management system is the need to ensure that appropriate policy
development takes place as well and if we move on a bit in terms
of what we now regard as environmental audit, it does include
both policy issues and indeed the housekeeping and operational
issues as well.
453. Coming back to a point which was made
earlier about how you actually get key staff, if you like, adapting
to this and taking these issues on board, how do you actually
retrain them? How do you overcome the non-understanding of this
agenda amongst the staff?
(Ms Hughes) I think this really takes a little
bit of time. First of all, there clearly has to be leadership
from the top. That is done formally through the Council's performance
management system, Council objectives, committee objectives, and
it is done in a micro way through making sure, as you have said,
that each of the chief officers has a clear objective. One of
the objectives is to make sure that this is embedded in their
departments and that is done partly through ensuring that each
member of staff has an objective which, if you like, as you get
nearer the front line, becomes simpler. It is about how they are
going to make a difference and in that regard an environmental
difference might be the one. So, for example, I was until recently
responsible for Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages. For
an ordinary registrar, the objective was more environmental confetti,
but actually in their job that made a difference. That, I think,
is the best way to get people to understand, by actually making
sure systematically that they are asked to say how their job can
change, but it is also underpinned by programmes of formal training.
At their induction it is very important that people do understand
that this is one of the Council's core values and that is demonstrated
then and then again through EMAS training.
454. Can I ask how you then take that out
to the community, and when I say "the community", I
mean not just people who are belonging to various organisations,
but parents, people getting married? How do you actually take
this message out and what degree of understanding is there?
(Ms Hughes) That is truly, as you know, really
the hardest part and we have tried lots of ways of doing it. We
have tried it through the Local Agenda 21 process of having the
large meetings to which everybody is invited through newspaper
advertisements, all the community groups, and you get 300 or 400
people. Then you get the real activists and then you work up your
strategy. In addition to that, we have done lots of public launches.
We have a budget for raising public awareness where our champions
and others go into all those organisations and talk to them.
455. What sort of budget do you have for
that?
(Ms Hughes) Well, overall with our green team
it is probably in the region of £100,000 for staffing costs,
but we also support through a grant a body called The South Centre
for Environmental Initiatives and they are the voluntary sector
arm, if you like, that co-ordinates the lead on Local Agenda 21,
so they do the work with the community. That is the community
and local authority team. In addition to that, we grant-aid a
business organisation, which was called Business Ecologique, and
I am not quite sure if it still is. That covers our relationship
with business. It is difficult and I think it is all about trying
to get people like teachers to change the way they behave. If
you go to some schools, it is part of daily life, and if you go
to other schools where we have failed or we have not tried, you
cannot tell the difference. I just think it is about continuing
effort.
456. In terms of how you bring the community
on line or on message with this policy that you have got, if,
for example, you have got new buildings which for some reason
or another you have got a need for, how would you actually design
the lay-out of the buildings to match the heightened public awareness
and awareness amongst business about the actual architectural
design? How do you marry the actual premises from which you operate
your services to the services that the people out there are actually
wanting?
(Mr Everett) That has been approached in a number
of ways. The white collar consultants which deal with the in-house
architecture and design have been through the EMAS system and
so, as a part of their process of getting accreditation, it was
necessary to ensure that they could deal with the environmental
impacts of the things they did. We have advice on good environmental
design which we make available to private developers as well and
there are a number of ways we can support and do support them
both through the planning and the development processes to reach
more environmental options. Obviously there are often going to
be development pressures in different directions so that there
are discussions around a particular development which would need
to take place, and we do try and encourage the better environmental
options for buildings both in-house and externally where that
is feasible.
Mr Loughton
457. I want to explore the community aspect
a bit more because I think there is some good detail you have
given us on the management set-ups you have got with your green
team and that is very much the approach which we have been taking
with some of the Ministers we have seen to see whether they have
actually got the structures in place and we have found them sorely
lacking on who is reporting to whom and how often or not. The
proof of the pudding of course is if the community are doing it
and given you have been doing it for quite a long time compared
to other people, is it reasonable to expect that the community
would be rather more on message in terms of what one is trying
to achieve? If I take an example in one of my own councils which
is, I think, number one for reaching its 25 per cent. recycling
target and has been very green in that approach, we have blue
boxes there for recycling stuff and now, because the funding from
Europe has run out, it is going to be cut back from once a week
to twice a week deliveries. Now, there is general uproar amongst
the residents, but not because we might now no longer meet our
25 per cent. target, but because they are going to have an awful
lot of old cans and bottles hanging around for two weeks rather
than one. In your suggestions, that you adopted in 1986 rather
curiously from A to S, and none of the letters seem to match with
"E" for "environment", but we have got some
nice apple pie stuff, like act and campaign against pollution,
aim to reduce and discourage litter, consider favourably employment
which enhances the Borough's environment and I do not think anybody
would object to that, but would it not be better actually to put
key figures and targets along the lines of the auditing you are
suggesting because you said at the outset that the purpose of
setting up these various audits is not just to produce the figures
and see where you are, but it is actually to involve more people
and I think that is absolutely right? Do you not think it would
involve more people and actually people wanting to achieve 25
per cent. recycling or wanting to achieve 10 per cent. less traffic
on the school run in the mornings or whatever it may be if you
had specific targets that you had a contract with the people for
effectively?
(Lord Tope) It is difficult to know where to begin
on this one. First of all, we do set targets and we have a target
of 50 per cent by the year 2000, for instance, and 80 per cent.
by the year 2005, and this year we are up to 28 per cent. plus—that
is recycling. It is interesting. If we do really go for waste
minimisation, then in addition to all the recycling which we do
and lots of other people do, I think we believe that one of the
key areas in this is composting and home composting. Now, interestingly
this is one of the gripes I have with the Audit Commission in
that when they publish their figures on waste minimisation, they
do not include composting and I think that is crazy and that for
us is actually a major feature to the extent that we have had
a number of initiatives involving the community with this in,
for instance, delivering a green home composter to every household
unless they specifically say they do not want one, not that they
say they do want one, but they say they do not want one, and that
is a way actually of raising community awareness. It is worth
it for us frankly as the cost wholesale is not enormous and the
saving to us in landfill tax alone, never mind all the other benefits,
is also good. That gets people more aware of it. We have had projects
in a number of parts of the Borough where volunteers, sometimes
it has been the scouts and so on, actually call door to door to
encourage people to do this and they themselves get a financial
reward for the amount of cost that is saved by doing this. There
is a whole range, and, as I say, it is difficult to know where
to start, but there is a whole range of ways in which we have
sought to involve the community right back to our very early initiatives
with recycling, what originally were the bottle banks, but which
now obviously cover much, much more than glass, where I do not
think we are able to do it any more, but in those days actually
each one was sponsored by a local organisation who received the
proceeds and financial incentives to get the community involved
and they were managed by local organisations, but I think we have
so many now that that does not happen to quite the same extent.
It is initiatives like that where we do seek to involve the community.
I did say before and I will say it again, that I do not wish to
claim that everyone living in Sutton is a super environmentalist
because that would be absurd, and we have a high turnover of population
just as any other London suburb probably has, so it is a constant
process, but I do think that people generally are more aware because
of what happens both inside and outside their house quite literally
in terms of the activities that we do and why we do them, and
why we do them is important.
458. I agree with all of that and all of
that my Council does, plus we recycle Christmas trees, which is
another initiative that you may do as well, I do not know.
(Lord Tope) Yes. I see we are getting into competition
now!
459. And both councils are of your persuasion
as well, so I do not know why I am saying it. The point is, and
it is nobody's fault, but I still do not think we have made the
breakthrough because what we are talking about is not environmental
awareness, but it is convenience awareness and it is actually
very convenient for somebody to be able to turn their waste into
compost and it is actually very convenient to be able to throw
out some of the recyclables, et cetera, et cetera, but have you
not got to a stage or do you envisage getting to a stage where
people are going to shriek because they have not reached their
25 per cent. recycling and because they have not reduced the traffic
on the roads by 10 per cent. to make it easier to get to school,
or whatever it may be? Do you think that is just wholly unrealistic,
that actually all we can hope for for people is the incentive
because it makes their lives more convenient and might save the
Council a bit of money as well on certain aspects?
(Lord Tope) I think if we are realistic, convenience
will always be a major factor in people's lives and it is certainly
our aim to get to that higher level of awareness. I think we have
achieved it with a greater number of people than would otherwise
be the case, albeit it is still a minority, but that has got to
be the aim because essentially we are talking about a change in
lifestyle and you cannot impose, or I certainly do not think you
should impose a change in lifestyle and it is something that has
to grow from, if you like, the bottom up. You mentioned in your
comments cars and that is a major headache for us in a London
borough with, I think, the highest car ownership in the whole
of London. There is a great awareness of the problems of traffic
and pollution and traffic congestion, but it is always somebody
else's car that is doing it and to challenge somebody's unfettered
right to drive and park wherever they wish to is like challenging
a basic human right. It is something that we have to be brave
enough to tackle. Somebody made the earlier remark about the ballot
box landing on our head and nowhere is that more true than in
trying to tackle somebody's inalienable right to drive their car,
but it is something we have to tackle.
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