Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600
- 619)
TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2000
SIR JOHN
HARMAN, MR
ED GALLAGHER
AND MR
ARCHIE ROBERTSON
Mrs Dunwoody
600. I think that is a load of nonsense, really,
if you forgive me saying so. We have taken evidence here about
the problems of the interaction between local government and the
Agency, "... the boundaries are not coterminous. Increasingly
local government is working towards the regional configuration
... For many of our functions that increasingly is becoming the
focal point. The Agency is not configured on the same regions".
If you are so superb at selling your ability to take the evidence
on one level and translate it in terms on another, you somehow
seem to be failing to convince the people that you are talking
about in local government.
(Sir John Harman) I was giving you a response from
a local government person with regional responsibilities. I recognise
the quote you have made from the LGA evidence, I do not believe
it is particularly well founded in fact. Mr Gallagher did indicate
to me that he wished to comment on that.
601. With respect, Sir John, you must have dealt
with facts and figures and the evolution of policy for many years
in another field. Are you seriously telling us that if you collect
data on one basis, if you actually implement statutes on one basis,
nevertheless you have the flexibility within your organisation
to re-present that across those existing boundaries in a way which
makes it simpler for people to understand in a completely different
context?
(Sir John Harman) Yes, on the data certainly that
is the case. It is now collected in such a way it can be reaggregated
at the levels you require for the sorts of things you mentioned
in your question.
602. You are able to run what is in effect a
dual policy decision making process?
(Sir John Harman) As far as statute is concerned,
the second part of your question, the only case at the moment
where there is a potential difficulty, of course it may be different
in the future, is over the Welsh boundary because at the moment
that is the one area where there is a potentially different statutory
authority on either side. Perhaps it is early days and, therefore,
I do not wish to be too confident about this but so far nothing
has come to my attention that makes me doubt our ability to manage
that. I know this is due in great part to a tremendous amount
of effort that has gone on, particularly from the Welsh region
of the Agency, into understanding and working with the National
Assembly for Wales and its policy implementation. I am not saying
that difficulties could not arise but I have not yet seen that
anything insuperable on the policy side has come to us. I did
say that Mr Gallagher was probably trying to get in, I hope he
still is.
603. Mr Gallagher?
(Mr Gallagher) I think it is true to say that without
using the environmental strategy excuse for this particular comment,
we are waiting to see what will happen with regional government.
Regional assemblies are there, they are working. As Sir John has
said we are making the best contribution we can to those. If regional
government becomes a very serious part of political life then
we will have to respond to that and I would have thought you would
have had to respond to that perhaps more towards the political
side of the argument than the environmental. Please understand
when we are dealing with the environment we are not just dealing
with river catchments, we are dealing with coastal areas, we are
dealing with zones of industrial pollution and air corridors which
do not all have the same environmental boundaries let alone political
boundaries. The reason we have been rather robust at maintaining
our stance on environmental boundaries is because we had a lot
of support from the organisations that we spoke to when we consulted
on boundaries. This is old history now but we spoke to 25 organisations:
industrial, environmental and local government. 24 out of the
25 said we should operate on environmental boundaries. Most, but
not all, of the local authorities said we should not. We feel
it has been legitimate for us to keep this argument going. The
next point of decision really is regional government. Then we
will have to look seriously at the way we structure our regions,
not just in terms of their reporting but the sorts of functions
we want carried out.
604. That is fine. If I come to you with a problem
from the Cheshire side of the boundary and I say on a very short
distance away, on the Welsh side of the boundary, they not only
report to a different assembly, they have increasingly different
views on how they should proceed, and although they are supplying
large amounts of, let us say, water, we are not talking about
air pollution, the effects of what is decided by the Welsh Assembly
could materially affect the Cheshire side of the boundary. I have
to say that one water authority managed very successfully to poison
a number of my constituents which I did not take to personally
but some people might have misinterpreted. Are you really saying
to me that you would find it possible, therefore, to operate on
what would be a multi-level response without any difficulty at
all, although your information is gathered in an environmental
way, not even coterminous with the existing local authority?
(Mr Gallagher) In the case that you have mentioned,
let us say it is the River Dee, that is managed in an integrated
way irrespective of political boundaries. The point you make about
the Welsh Assembly maybe wanting to do different things or things
differently is a very valid one. It should not apply to our regions
where that level of democratic accountability is still the same
as it always was. I think you can rest assured that in taking
decisions about the water which is drunk in the River Dee and
the water quality, all of that is dealt with in an integrated
way. In fact, we have imposed on the Welsh, if I can put it that
way, in our Dee-protection zone, which is the first one that has
been done anywhere I believe in Europe, constraints in order to
protect the drinking water for the people in the North West.
Mrs Dunwoody: That is a specific example and
I think I can cope with that.
Mr Olner
605. You spoke earlier about this cosy influence
you have with the Minister but surely the Minister is responsible
for your "tick-box" attitude to regulation where he
has given you rather arbitrary inspection targets to reach?
(Sir John Harman) I do not believe that our relationship
with Ministers is cosy.
606. I think they were Mr Gallagher's words,
not your's.
(Sir John Harman) In which case I might ask him to
explain. I do not see it as a particularly cosy relationship nor
do I see our approach to regulation and licensing as being a "tick-box"
approach. In all honesty we are continually trying to ensure that
when we do regulate individual sites, individual companies, we
are taking a strong line, we are applying the regulations correctly,
but also we are doing so with as little bureaucracy as possible.
You did quote, I did not hear Mr Gallagher use the word "cosy".
607. I think nine and a half out of ten was
the score he gave the Agency.
(Mr Gallagher) I said that nine and a half out of
ten ideas we presented to the Minister had been accepted by the
Minister. I would not necessarily call that cosy, I would call
that being on the same wave length.
608. Do you think your measure of effectiveness
and, through you, the Minister's measure of effectiveness should
be done by outcomes instead of activity?
(Mr Gallagher) It is fairly easy for an Environment
Agency to confuse activity with effectiveness. If you take 10
million water quality samples one year, 11 million the next, 12
million the year after, you can convince yourself you are doing
a good job. Our view is if we are taking more and more measurements
of an environment which is getting worse and worse we are wasting
our time. We do make very clear at the beginning, Chairman, we
want to focus very much on outcomes.
609. The targets are being met at the moment
by sites visited, are they not?
(Mr Gallagher) Yes, they are. Again, as Mr Robertson
said, this is part of the growing process that we are going through
in the Agency. If we have to inspect well run waste sites to a
set frequency, and as we drive to those sites we pass fly-tipped
material which we neither have the financing nor the resources
to deal with, then we are not dealing with the environment in
the way that we should. Our whole emphasis in the future is to
move more towards a risk based rather than an activity based regime.
We would look at those areas where the environment is most damaged
and we would concentrate on those rather than endlessly inspecting
people who are looking after their sites in a reasonably good
manner.
610. The Minister's targets will then fall off
and you will look at outcome rather than just inspection?
(Sir John Harman) Your points are well made, that
if we are to succeed in concentrating more on outcomes it will
be important that we are measured more by outcomes than by inputs.
That is a matter for perhaps your discussion with the Minister
but I think very much for the future. It is a development of how
we do things. Certainly we are not going to pursue our own path,
however well convinced we might be of it, with no regard to the
current targets we are being set. It will be helpful to ensure
that they push us in the right direction. We hope you will help
us in that.
611. Do you think the poster campaign you have
had on flooding has had a worthwhile outcome?
(Sir John Harman) I think the evidence of our market
research demonstrates it has. Mr Robertson has some figures on
that I think.
612. They recognise it was about flooding.
(Mr Robertson) The campaign runs on, of course, the
Flood Call Campaign.
613. I notice you have had the ads carrying
on.
(Mr Robertson) One of the first tests for it, of course,
occurred in December because there was a combination of high tides,
high winds and heavy rainfall across the south of England during
December and just in the days leading up to Christmas in particular.
During December we had 55,000 calls to the new Floodline, including
11,000 calls in the days 22 to 24, which certainly illustrates
for me the profile that Floodline has had through the media in
various ways.
614. I am sorry, you misunderstand me. I can
understand that fully in areas prone to flooding. I think it is
good there is a line for them to call. The nationwide awareness-raising
thing of flooding I actually think was money misspent.
(Mr Robertson) It would be if it was nationwide, but
in fact I would like to assure you it is quite targeted. The signs
should be in areas of flood plain, and one of the signs we have
used is designed to illustrate where flood levels are.
615. It is targeted in my own constituency of
Nuneaton (where I assure you it is not coastal so we have no tides,
and we are on the headwaters of main rivers) and I have seen at
least half a dozen billboard advertisements about it. Would you
say that was targeted?
(Mr Robertson) The headwaters of main rivers can be
a source of flood risk when the water cannot get into the rivers
fast enough.
Chairman
616. How much commission do you get from the
insurance industry?
(Mr Robertson) We did not, to my knowledge, get any
commission from the insurance industry, but we have been working
with them to raise the profile of flood risk.
617. You have not even had any feedback from
them as to whether more people have taken up flood risk insurance?
(Mr Robertson) It is too early to say.
(Mr Gallagher) I think part of the problem is at the
moment, and we have pressed the insurance industry to think about
this, is you cannot get flood only risk insurance. One of the
problems—and this is the point Sir John was making about
social responsibilities—is that it is unfortunate some of
the urban areas prone to flooding are those areas where insurance
premiums generally are high due to high crime levels and so on.
It is difficult. They would pay quite a lot of money to get flood
insurance which, if it were provided separately or in a more affluent
area, would probably be a bit cheaper. We have spoken to them
about this and we hope they will think more about it. In some
of the floods we are finding that 30-40 per cent. of people are
not insured. Flooding is traumatic enough without having to start
again from scratch. We do think this is an area where we would
like the insurance industry to do more.
618. The cynic would say that you as an agency
are washing your hands saying you cannot do anything about flooding,
so turn to the insurance industry?
(Mr Gallagher) We spend £250 million a year doing
something about flooding, with the defences we set up and with
the 2,000 people who maintain those defences who worked, as they
did, for ten days through Christmas, more or less continuously,
trying to help the public deal with a very traumatic event for
them.
Mr Olner
619. Could I just follow on from that and ask
how you resolve the conflicts between those operational duties
you have mentioned, and the adequate defence against flooding,
against the other duties such as nature conservation?
(Mr Gallagher) This is a very difficult area. When
people die as a result of flooding we have to recognise our prime
role is to protect people against that sort of catastrophe. On
the other hand, there is a lot of evidence to suggest not only
does pouring concrete over the countryside (which we have not
done for some years now) not only not act in the best way to protect
people against flooding, it also turns out to be less cost-effective
than some of the more natural solutions. There are problems of
course, if you have flooding in one part of the country, if you
build a concrete wall it simply moves the water faster to the
next place where you build another concrete wall and so on. I
think we are now a long, long way away from that sort of approach.
There is a limit to what we can do in terms of building defences.
Some of them in the north of the country would have had to have
been 15 feet high to stop some of the floods which occurred, which
you normally only expect to occur once in 200 years.
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