Examination of witnesses (Questions 460
- 479)
TUESDAY 28 APRIL 1998
LORD TOPE,
MS PATRICIA
HUGHES and MR
TIM EVERETT
Mr Grieve
460. Can I just come back on targets as
I am interested to hear about targets because I am interested
to hear whether you have had targets which you have not been able
to meet and, as a result of that, what steps you have taken to
publicise that and to have the issue discussed. I am particularly
interested in that because, for instance, when we had the Road
Traffic Reduction Bill's Third Reading in the House on Friday,
the Government was rather gutted because it did not want to set
targets, but at the same time we are going to have, I think, some
targets even though realistically, picking up what Mr Loughton
has said, we are probably not going to meet them, but just the
discussion seems to me very often to be valuable if people are
prepared to do it, although politicians may sometimes rather shirk
that where in fact they have failed, and I would be interested
to know about your experience in doing that.
(Ms Hughes) On a small-scale level within the
Council, we have found it much easier to set small groups targets
that they themselves have thrown up, the bottom-up bit, so that
is how you will get much less use of paper because people need
individually to be committed to that. We have found it much, much
harder to meet our targets on energy and that is partly because
it is very hard to get a measurable grasp of it. It is also because
the target is moving. You might think we are using less, but actually
we are getting a better tariff and we can also have our energy
use target totally thrown out by a freak use and so we have found
it quite difficult. When you get to external measures, it is so
much easier to do things like recycling and air pollution, which
we can do easily, than it is to do car usage and to set targets
on car usage in terms other than parking policy or increasing
public transport. We can set targets for improving cycle networks.
So these are indirect measures I think we have found direct targets
on car usage incredibly difficult.
(Mr Everett) Perhaps I can just add to that on
the energy front, one of the things we have learnt was not to
use the bills as the method of assessing our energy usage which
is what we were doing at the start which seemed an easy way of
doing it. Because of our success in separate tariff negotiations,
the Council we actually got a reduction in the costs, but it was
not representing a reduction in usage. That told us that we had
to focus very clearly on usage. Some of the data we had was frankly
very soft and that also told us that we had to invest in making
sure we had better systems for monitoring our actual usage of
electricity and gas. We have made sure now that most of our large
users are computerised, on line, and we can get the information
very easily. We have set up a system with those which are not
on line to get the information back on a regular basis and many
people are taking part in that, including schools, and in fact
75 per cent. of schools are taking part in that programme. It
is important to have the hard information wherever possible because
that is what enables you to set meaningful targets, and if the
baseline information is wrong, then clearly the targets are going
to be unachievable or far too soft.
Mr Blizzard
461. Certainly from what I have heard so
far, I should congratulate you for the effort you have made. One
of the things you said a while ago was that you had probably the
highest car ownership in the London area or the London suburbs
certainly. I wonder if you could help me with one or two sort
of indicators that might give me a profile of your Borough, for
example, unemployment rate, average income and so on. I get the
impression that you have probably got relatively low levels of
unemployment and relatively high levels of average income.
(Lord Tope) Yes, as a general overall picture,
that is true. There is 3½ per cent. unemployment.
462. And you will have pockets like everywhere
else.
(Lord Tope) Exactly, and that is the point I was
going to make. We have overall low unemployment, overall relative
affluence, but we do have some significant pockets where it is
significantly worse, up to, on one estate, for instance, 11½
per cent. male unemployment.
463. The purpose of my question was really
to ask whether you think that general picture has made it easier
to get your Council and significant people in the community and
even the wider community focused on the environment as opposed
to, say, an area where they have got double-figure unemployment
throughout and 20 per cent. people's urgency for jobs in the economy
and so on?
(Lord Tope) That must be true. I think we must
acknowledge that that is true, but I think what has been more
important probably for us is that we do actually try to make an
impact where it is harder to make it, such as in the particular
estate, for instance, we were talking about with 11½ per
cent. male unemployment, and we are now seeing some measure of
success there. It is harder, of course it is, and you are quite
right and what I think perhaps you are saying, without using the
words, is that it is much easier to do it with the middle class,
relatively affluent.
464. Not really.
(Lord Tope) Well, where perhaps the problems and
the process of life are different, and I think that is probably
true and that has helped us, but we have seen now successes in
those parts of the Borough which are not like that.
465. What I was getting at is that I think
there is a relationship between wealth and a healthy environment.
The better, the wealthier parts of the world seem to have usually
better environments than the desperate areas. My final question
is do you think again it has significantly helped you, the fact
that you are a unitary authority, that you can have a completely
integrated strategy for everything rather than if you were two-tier?
(Lord Tope) I have never been two-tier, so it
is hard for me to make the comparison. If I can speak only from
a unitary authority, we have been a unitary authority since 1965
and we have found that of benefit, yes. I would not wish to argue
with district or county colleagues as to whether they might have
a different view, but for us as a unitary authority it certainly
has been a help and there is no doubt about that. Tim, you wanted
to make a comment in relation to the previous question.
(Mr Everett) We might have made the assumption
that some areas are going to respond better to a particular initiative,
but at the moment we are running three area schemes where we have
been piloting the use of wheelie bins primarily to increase the
recycling rate. One of the areas specifically chosen for that
pilot is an economically poorer area and in fact the levels are
very similar, even though the areas where we are piloting are
quite different. We were a bit surprised about that as well, but
the results, though not quite so good in the economically deprived
area, are nearly as good.
466. And you are going to approach those
pockets from a position of relative strength in the whole set-up?
(Mr Everett) Yes.
Joan Walley
467. I wanted to come in briefly on the
relationship between revenue spending and capital spending and,
in terms of setting targets and monitoring, which you referred
to earlier, how you see the two things linking together and how
that links to central government policies as well. Presumably
if you have got targets, if you have got energy efficient new
heating systems in schools, that can help you with your targets
far more easily than if you have got outdated, crumbling schools
all over 100 years old. What do you see as the relationship between
revenue and capital and then how do they link in with your relationship
with central government and other examples, such as Lottery and
New Deal money, which again are delivering perhaps either capital
or revenue monies to you?
(Mr Everett) We have for some time had an energy
conservation fund. The prime intent of that is to find ways of
encouraging the occupiers of our buildings to take part in the
schemes, so the idea is that any savings we get, half of those
go back to the school or the other occupier and part of it goes
back into the central fund which then helps to pump-prime further
energy efficiency measures. You are right, if you have got older
buildings, they can be more difficult and they actually are the
ones we need to focus on and some energy efficiency measures are
relatively simple to do. One of the things we have done, going
back to the monitoring and the setting up of the hard information,
is we have now identified those buildings, old and new. It is
not just the old ones which are the worst, but some of the newer
ones which is interesting. We can look at energy usage per square
metre so that in comparing, say, two schools which are different
in size, we can get a much better idea of where we should concentrate
our efforts in terms of getting the best energy efficiency.
(Ms Hughes) I would add that we are not an authority
that attracts government money easily, as you would expect, so
we do need to concentrate on areas where we are something special
and in that way we get supplementary credit approval. We also
tend to lever in developers' contributions to do things which
are different, for example, energy efficient private housing and
those kind of things, so we do have to work very hard to make
a difference and I think this is a policy that enables us to do
that.
Dr Iddon
468. Could I turn to your procurement policies
and ask what are your relationships with external suppliers?
(Mr Everett) We have two targets in fact, one
of which was by 1997 for all of our suppliers to produce an environmental
policy, and I will come back to that in a minute, and we have
got a further target which is that by the end of 1999 for all
of them to come up with a verified environmental management system.
At the moment about 650 of our suppliers have got good environmental
policies which will form the basis of the management systems and
we have invested time in terms of the training of those suppliers
and about 140 local businesses have been through courses which
we have run. We also work very closely with the company that helped
set up Business Ecologic, as was, or the Business Eco Network,
which I think is now the right title, which we do not fund at
all, but is actually a self-starter and finances itself which
works with the local businesses, especially the smaller ones,
to give them the advice and the support through that process.
As things stand at the moment, we have been able to maintain our
existing standing orders in terms of tendering procedures and
while using people who have met those targets without a problem.
Now, there may be issues that we have to address once you get
closer to the second target, and again clearly there is a balance
to be struck between the environmental impacts of particular suppliers
of goods and services and possible financial issues, but bearing
in mind that many environmental management systems can help save
those businesses money, it is not necessarily going to add cost
to the purchase of those goods and services.
469. Do you know what percentage of recycled
paper you use, for example?
(Mr Everett) We can certainly supply that information.
(Ms Hughes) It is to the order of 80 per cent.[3]
470. That is a very high use. While we are
on this topic, could I explore your transport policies? Obviously
car usage in local authorities is quite high, particularly with
departments like social services who are doing a lot of visiting.
Do your policies restrict people from large engine capacity use?
Do you have policies which encourage small engine capacity?
(Ms Hughes) We do not restrict, but we only pay
for small usage, so people who have car allowances and large cars
are not fully reimbursed and we also subsidise bicycle use.
(Lord Tope) I am not sure how well that works,
but we do subsidise bicycle use. We did attempt to introduce the
payment of cycle allowances at the same rate as car allowances
and the Inland Revenue was not too happy with that, and I do not
think the staff were as well. I commented on how the public feel
about the restriction on their use of the car and I should say
that the staff feel that the car allowance is just as sacrosanct
and that again is a very tricky area. To give you an example,
I think one of the things, Tim, that your group worked out a few
years ago now is that we are in geographical terms a small London
borough and we do not cover the distances that a county does and
you worked out, I think, that staff mileage was something like
two million miles a year.
(Mr Everett) And that is the miles actually on
Council business. We suspect that the travel-to-work mileage is
substantially higher because of course that would include a number
of people who come to work who do not use their car on official
business.
(Lord Tope) So that is in a relatively small Council
in a small geographical area of a London borough. If you translate
that into a county, well, you are talking about huge mileage.
Chairman
471. How do you subsidise cycling?
(Ms Hughes) We were aiming to pay an allowance
to people in the same way as——
472. You have not done this yet?
(Ms Hughes) We could not as it turned out.
473. That was for your own staff?
(Ms Hughes) What we do is provide bicycles for
people to use in and around the Borough, and I think a lot of
authorities now do this.
474. This is your own staff you are talking
about?
(Ms Hughes) Yes. I am just trying to remember
what we did on the cycle allowance.
(Mr Everett) I think, as I recall, we did actually
give the allowances, but because of the impact on the Inland Revenue
as a taxation issue, it meant that most of the allowances were
gone in taxes and not for the individual tax benefit, so I do
not think the staff saw it as a particular incentive and that
put the scheme somewhat into disrepute.
(Ms Hughes) We worked out a formula for what a
small car on the same sort of mileage would cost.
475. Anyway, you did not get it through?
(Lord Tope) We got it through, but, as we say,
for tax reasons it was not a benefit. We do pay a cycle allowance
to staff. The only people who are not allowed to be paid a cycle
allowance are the councillors. There is actually no lawful power
to pay a cycle allowance to a councillor.
Joan Walley
476. It is the same for MPs.
(Lord Tope) Exactly, and I just thought I would
drop that in.
Mr Truswell
477. I just wanted to go back briefly to
this issue of how you influence external organisations. You have
mentioned suppliers and the requirements that you claim to—I
do not know if "impose" is the right word—but
which you try to extract from them. How do you validate the policies
and practices that they present to you as their way of fulfilling
those requirements? The second question is have you considered
how you might develop a similar sort of approach to your grant
relationship with voluntary organisations?
(Mr Everett) As I say, we did invest in starting
up this Business Ecologic specifically to give advice to local
businesses and to help them get going. The environmental policies
we have got were set up against the models that we encouraged
them to develop with those groups and, as I mentioned earlier,
the target we are now moving towards is that they have an appropriate
environmental management system which is verified in some way
and so any environmental policy they have already adopted will
then be fed through into the management system. It is fair to
say that of the policies we have received, they do stand up to
what would be necessary to be validated as part of the management
system in due course and clearly there were some suppliers who
did drop out at that stage and that is one of the issues that
we need to keep under review. As I mentioned in reply to an earlier
question, so far that has not caused us problems in terms of our
normal process of contract letting.
478. Do you feel that there might be a legal
challenge at some stage to this element of contract compliance?
(Mr Everett) We have been very careful in the
past in how we have structured this programme in terms of its
connection with competitive tendering in particular. We sought
legal advice and indeed discussed the matter with the relevant
government department and obviously that is an issue and there
are actually more general fiduciary duties in terms of use of
the money anyway. A lot of the good environmental management makes
sound business sense in any event, so, if anything, it might serve
to reduce some of those costs rather than increase them.
(Ms Hughes) We do through service-level agreements
with the voluntary sector and, through working in partnership
with the Centre for Voluntary Services in Sutton, require our
voluntary sector contractors to have an environmental policy.
Dr Iddon
479. There was some criticism of the relationship
between your local authority and central government in paragraph
9 of your memorandum. Could you expand on that a little and perhaps,
going back to the beginning, be totally honest about it?
(Mr Everett) It was not meant to be too much of
a criticism. We all recognise, officers and members, just how
difficult it is, we find, to co-ordinate sometimes inside the
Council and we realise that for an operation as large as government,
there are always going to be some difficulties. One of the examples
we would put forward is that the issue of indicators, clearly
setting good indicators for environmental sustainability issues,
is important. If you look at, say, the consultation process in
terms of best value as against the sustainability indicators consultation,
there is a question there about how those things link up. Now,
clearly with all the consultations going on at the moment, it
would be impossible to put them out as one composite document,
but the question is whether there is a sufficient overarching
framework to pull those different threads together. To extend
what I have just said, in the best value paper it is suggesting
that there will be a smaller number of national indicators which
will be used to judge the success or failure of councils, but
at the same time much of the pressure in terms of sustainability
indicators is going down to more and more locally-based indicators
to make sense in terms of our own communities, our own issues,
which of course now are very difficult to use for comparative
purposes. If you then link that on again into the question of
indicators which is touched on in the Green Paper from the Department
of Health, Our Healthier Nation, again the issues being
put forward are not wholly consistent in terms of what sort of
indicators we could use and how we are going to use them, whether
they are there to compare our own performance with the present
and the past as against comparing ourselves with the national
model and there are difficulties in doing that.
Chairman: Well, I
think we have exhausted all our questions. Thank you for the very
comprehensive and helpful replies. This has been a very interesting
session and congratulations once again on the lead which Sutton
has taken. Thank you very much for coming this morning.
3 Note by witness: 75 per cent in accredited
areas of the Council. Back
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