Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Sixth Report


THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

ROLE OF THE AGENCY

Developing a vision of the Agency's role

  13.  The Environment Agency is a very large organisation which performs a large number of disparate functions, ranging from the conservation of salmon stocks to the regulation of waste management at nuclear power plants. The challenge for the senior staff and Board of the Agency has been to develop from these disparate functions a coherent vision of its overarching role.

14.  On the basis both of the evidence we have received during the course of this inquiry and of our own experience of the Agency, we conclude that they have not yet succeeded in doing so. Uncertainty, even confusion, about exactly what the Environment Agency is and about its overall aim was apparent throughout both the written and the oral evidence which we received.[41] "The theory of the Environment Agency being a 'one-stop-shop' is good, but the practical implementation of the theory is confused and confusing for those whom the Agency is supposed to assist", said one witness[42]; another, "the policies of the different sections of the Environment Agency often conflict with each other"[43]; yet another, in answer to a question about the Agency's priorities, replied, "I would be very interested to have a clearer understanding of what the Agency's priorities are".[44] Pamela Taylor of Water UK said, "I am not convinced that there is necessarily a shared understanding throughout the whole of the Agency regarding its purpose, its aims and its objectives and therefore I do not think it is possible for its key stakeholders, including the water industry, to understand particularly those aims and objectives and then to understand our role in helping to deliver them."[45] The Chemical Industries Association wrote, "the Agency is still struggling to reconcile and fulfil effectively its roles as regulator, provider of flood defence, conservator and educator ... the existing complex structure makes it difficult to know who to talk to in the central functions on a particular issue and who can speak with authority for the Agency".[46] We also note a survey of the Agency's staff which revealed that only 2% had a "clear sense of vision and direction", compared with a 'benchmark' figure for other organisations of 26%.[47]

15.  Perhaps the clearest evidence of the Agency's failure to set out and disseminate a coherent vision of its role came from Ian Bonas and Pamela Castle, the Chairs of two of the Agency's Regional Environment Protection Advisory Committees. Mr Bonas referred to the lack of an understandable, concisely expressed, vision of the Agency's role, noting that "it needs clarity of purpose and transparency of action to win the hearts and minds of the public to the importance of the environmental issues faced."[48] His colleague Pamela Castle said, "The public do not know what the Agency is. If you talk to colleagues and friends they do not know what the Agency is, what it does. ... [It] should be higher profile and then [it] would be getting a stronger message over and [its] role would be that much easier."[49]

16.  UNISON, referring to the difficulties which the Agency experienced in creating a new body from its 85 predecessor organisations, made the point that, "what was unacceptable was the inability of the Agency to recognise the problems early enough and the absence of a cogent management ethos and strategy properly to deal with them."[50] We agree. If more effort had gone into developing a coherent vision for the Agency at an early stage, many of the problems which it has experienced in the early stages of its existence might have been dealt with more effectively.[51] On the evidence we have received, the Agency appears still to lack a "cogent ethos and strategy". This is affecting not only the management of its staff and the effective performance of its functions, but also the way it is perceived both by the industries which it is responsible for regulating and by the general public whom it serves.

17.  Creating an overall vision and strategy for a new Agency should have been made a matter of immediate priority at the very beginning of the Agency's existence. Many of the problems which the Agency has experienced since its formation can at least in part be attributed to the failure to do so. We therefore commend the emphasis now being placed on the production of a new Environmental Strategy.[52] We recommend that, as a central part of the production of this strategy, the Board of the Agency develop a clear vision of its role and the way in which each of its functions contributes to that role.

18.  We also recommend that the Board take steps to disseminate that vision widely amongst the general public, regulated industries and those with whom the Agency works, particularly local authorities. Ensuring that these recommendations are implemented should be the overriding priority of the new Chairman in the coming months.

Agency influence on public debate and on environment and sustainable development policy

  19.  The Agency's failure to set out a clear role for itself and a vision of what it is aiming to achieve has compromised not only its operational effectiveness but also its ability to influence public debate and Government environmental and sustainable development policy. As a result, the Agency is currently "punching below its weight". We were unconvinced, for example, by the Agency's explanations of why it had not taken a strong public line on genetically modified organisms. This issue has been arguably the most high-profile environmental concern in recent months: it seems to us that to argue, as the Chairman of the Agency did, that "we have a very limited view because our statutory remit is very limited"[53] is an abnegation of its central statutory responsibilities to protect the environment and to contribute to the promotion of sustainable development. We find it difficult to believe that, with its knowledge of environmental media, the Agency has nothing useful to say on the subject of GMOs, and its stance compares unfavourably with that of English Nature, which has taken a much more active line.

20.  Furthermore, the examples which we were given of areas in which the Agency has been influential were, for the most part, hardly high-profile. Groundwater monitoring, the introduction of integrated pollution prevention and control, and agricultural waste are important issues and ones on which we were very pleased to hear that the Agency had been influential,[54] but the Agency's work on these issues has been very much 'behind the scenes'. Even on climate change, cited by the Chairman of the Agency as a controversial issue on which the Agency had put forward "a strong set of views",[55] we feel that the Agency has been following the debate, not leading it. Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth summed up the relationship between the Agency and the Government by saying, "At the moment I think we see the Agency very much looking towards the Government, trying constantly to please the Government and failing often, but not quite having the confidence in itself to stand up and say, 'We think this is the right thing to do for sustainable development.'"[56] The Agency needs to recognise that if progress is to be made towards sustainable development, then it will need to be more active. The matter cannot be left solely to central government policy and voluntary initiatives.

21.  The Minister for the Environment, in response to a question about whether the Chairman of the Agency had a role in speaking to the media, for example, on environmental issues, replied,

    I certainly think it would be totally proper for the chairman of the Agency to be asked, for example, to go on the Today programme or a public affairs programme of a similar kind. I would encourage that ... I believe it would be good if we had key personnel, for example, in the Environment Agency, and of course there are other agencies such as English Nature and HSE, where appropriate going public and talking to their brief.[57]

He went on to say,

    I have always taken the view - and I have to be careful because I am not sure this is necessarily shared by all my colleagues - that I do believe in open discussion. I would not expect the Chairman of the Agency to make an outright attack on the Government. If he felt the need to make that kind of criticism, I would expect him to come to me and say it very frankly to me. If any of these public officials at a high level wish to take a view which was different from the Government's, perhaps particularly where they had given forewarning that they wished to do that, I see no reason why they should not do so. I think the important thing is the genuine frankness of public debate and there are issues, as we all know, where there is more than one view, which is perfectly reasonable.[58]

22.  The Environment Agency has a large number of highly trained staff and is a substantial repository of expertise. As an important advisor to Government on environmental issues, we would like to see the Agency engage more vigorously in public debate and raise its profile on matters of importance where protection and enhancement of the environment and sustainable development are concerned. Clearly, the Agency must conduct itself in accordance with Government policy, but it should also play an important role in influencing that policy as it is formed. The phrase used by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Environment Agency's fellow NDPB, the Countryside Agency, was that it should be a 'champion' for the countryside.[59] The Environment Agency should become a 'champion' of the environment, and of sustainable development.

23.  We welcome the Minister's enthusiastic support for the Agency, and we hope that it will continue, particularly in the critical coming months as the new Chairman takes over and the Agency develops its new environmental strategy. As the Agency becomes, as we hope it will, a more effective and confident organisation, we fully expect that it will start to say things which the Government may not want to hear. The Minister's support for its right to do so will be crucial if it is to become an effective 'champion' for the environment and sustainable development.

24.  We now go on to examine a number of matters relating to the way the Agency carries out its functions.


41  See, for example, ev p.10 (EA06); p.37 (EA19); pp.82-3 (EA38); Q13 Back

42  Ev p.43 (EA21) Back

43  Ev p.120 (EA57) Back

44  Q12 Back

45  Q171 Back

46  Ev p.79 (EA37) Back

47  Reported in ENDS Report, April 1999, "Environment Agency management comes under fire from staff" Back

48  Q523 Back

49  ibid Back

50  Ev p.100 (EA49) Back

51  Ev p.123 (EA58) Back

52  QQ564-566 Back

53  Q659 Back

54  Q675 Back

55  Q660 Back

56  Q48 Back

57  Q685 Back

58  Q686 Back

59  DETR press notice 248/ENV, 27 March 1998 Back


 
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