Examination of witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1999
MR MIKE
CHILDS and MR
RAY GEORGESON
Chairman
1. Gentlemen, can I welcome you to the first
session of our Select Committee's inquiry into the Environment
Agency. Before we start can I just draw to people's attention
that yesterday we published not all of the evidence, because we
received a very large amount, but I think it is something like
60 bits of the evidence in this document which I am afraid costs
£18 but it is available on the parliamentary page on the
worldwide web, so you can actually get the information if you
want for free. The bulk of the evidence that we have had in is
there. Can I ask you to identify yourselves for the record, please?
(Mr Georgeson) Thank you, Chairman, good morning.
Good morning, Committee. I am Ray Georgeson, Executive Director
of Waste Watch.
(Mr Childs) My name is Mike Childs, I am the Senior
Campaigner with Friends of the Earth.
2. Can I stress to you that if you agree with
each other there is no need to repeat it for the record but, please,
if you disagree let us know. Do either of you want to say anything
by way of opening remarks or are you happy for us to go straight
into the questions?
(Mr Childs) I am happy to move into questions, Chairman.
Mr Olner
3. Good morning. I wonder if you could tell
the Committee how effective a contribution the Agency has made
towards achieving sustainable development?
(Mr Childs) I think from Friends of the Earth's perspective
the Environment Agency still has a long way to go. It has got
better over the last couple of years, partly because of the interventions
from the new Minister for the Environment, Michael Meacher, who
has given encouragement to the Agency to be more independent and
help drive towards sustainable development. I think we are hoping
that the new Chairman of the Environment Agency can also give
it direction in terms of being a better agency to deliver sustainable
development.
4. It has taken a long while to get better,
has it not?
(Mr Childs) It has taken a long while. It was a strange
beast to put together, I think, because it was formed from so
many waste regulatory authorities, from Her Majesty's Inspectorate
of Pollution, from the Environment Agency. I think it was a difficult
job putting all of those components together. They all brought
their own cultures. Certainly in terms of Her Majesty's Inspectorate
of Pollution, I think we saw an agency that was extremely close
to industry and not very used to speaking to people within their
communities. I think the challenge of bringing them together has
been a difficult one. It has not proceeded as quickly as it could
but I do think that the new Government has helped drive towards
that and I think the new Chairman could help that as well, as
well as by making sure there is parliamentary scrutiny of how
well the Agency is performing.
5. In your opinion, what do you think are the
biggest obstacles currently facing the Agency and its effectiveness
which need to be addressed?
(Mr Childs) I think the larger scale obstacle is they
still have not managed to get the culture of the Agency right.
Certainly from reports that we have seen and speaking to people
within the Agency they are not sure
where—
6. Whose culture? The NGOs' culture, industry's
culture or the general public's culture?
(Mr Childs) The culture of the Environment Agency
in terms of being an independent and a fair regulator. Certainly
from the coverage we have seen there are Agency members of staff
on the ground who are not sure what relationship they are meant
to have with industry, for example. On the one hand they are told
to treat them as customers and on the other hand they are told
to be independent and fair. I think there is a lot of work still
to be done there in terms of trying to turn the Agency into one
organisation that has one voice and one culture. That is why I
think we do need to see the Minister for the Environment continuing
to give advice, to give encouragement, and we also need to see
a new Chairman who will help drive forward the Agency.
7. Given that the Agency was made up of many,
many agencies, what do you think ought to be the Agency's priorities
for the deployment of its resources? Do you think it is correct
at the moment or do you think that others should be given a higher
priority by the Agency?
(Mr Childs) There are areas where it is weak that
should get a higher priority. For example, in a lot of the work
that we carry out Friends of the Earth is looking at pollution
from the larger industrial processes. The work that we have carried
out over the last year shows that many of those processes, perhaps
not unsurprisingly, are in the poorest parts of the country. Those
are the areas where the Agency does not have good communication
with the communities who live there. That is an area where I think
the Agency should put increased resources in terms of trying to
improve its communication with the people living in those areas.
That is one key area where they could get a lot better. The other
area where they are not being as effective as they could be is
in terms of waste regulation. Again, perhaps that is because they
have had to merge so many different organisations to make up one
function. There is certainly an area for improvement there.
8. People on the bottom of the pyramid on waste
and recycling would argue that the Agency is far too strict with
them.
(Mr Childs) I think from that perspective the waste
management industry has not been an industry that has been very
well regulated in the past. When they get a new, tougher and more
independent Agency then they are going to find it more difficult
perhaps. You just need to look at the problems we had with landfill,
for example, over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of groundwater
pollution, in terms of concerns around health around landfill
sites. That shows that we clearly need more effective regulation
of these kinds of facilities. I would not be surprised if the
managers of those facilities do not like tougher regulation but
I think it is right in terms of protecting the environment and
protecting public health.
9. What about those who are even below the site
level? I am thinking of the guy who collects six batteries from
a rural garage and wants to take them to a recycler where he has
to have documentation that he is carrying them in the back of
his van and if he has not got the documentation then he is liable
to very severe fines by the Agency and they have done that in
the past. Do you think that is right? Are they concentrating too
much at the bottom end of the pyramid and not further up it?
(Mr Childs) I think they need to make sure that they
seem to strike the right balance between protecting public health
and the environment and also not putting too many burdens on industry.
I think that is right, but when you look at issues such as fly-tipping,
it is often the smaller operators who are responsible for fly-tipping
incidents, so you can see that whilst the Agency does need to
keep its eye on regulating the big boys, if you like, the ICIs
of this world, it also does need to look at those smaller industries.
Mr Cummings
10. On the whole question of a cultural change
which we all agree to be an extremely important ingredient in
the future success of the Agency, has any particular culture emerged
as a predominant culture from any of the other agencies which
were pulled under the one roof?
(Mr Childs) My feel for it, and not working within
the Agency it is difficult to say, but my feel for it is that
the culture of the National Rivers Authority, I think, which was
seen as more independent and fair, is the culture that is beginning
to win over the culture, say, which was perhaps in Her Majesty's
Inspectorate of Pollution which, as I said earlier, had not had
a history of taking community concerns into account, so I think
that is where the beast is trying to shape itself, if you like,
but I think it does need more work.
11. I find it very difficult to believe that
so many agencies brought together under one roof and the individuals
concerned, knowing full well that we are now moving in a different
direction, have this in-built resistance. Do you find it strange?
Do you find it understandable?
(Mr Childs) I very much find it frustrating that whilst
at the top end of the Agency there is a willingness and a drive
to change its culture and become more independent and fair, on
the ground staff are resistant to that change. I think I understand
that because we are all resistant to change in our own lives,
but if you look, for example, around the regulation of the large
industrial processes, then you do see that the former staff of
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution, whilst they are now working
for the Agency, are still not quite adapting to the need to speak
to the communities that they live in in an open and honest way,
to bring them on board and take their concerns seriously. I think
that to work within an organisation for ten or 15 years and then
suddenly to face a change of culture over a short span of time
can be an extremely difficult thing to do.
Chairman
12. Do you agree with the sort of criticism
of the priorities or are you happy as far as Waste Watch is concerned?
(Mr Georgeson) Chairman, I would be very interested
to have a clearer understanding of what the Agency's priorities
actually are. I feel that this question of culture and which is
the dominant culture is really a difficult question to answer
and what you have, I feel, is a mixed message coming from the
Agency which, on the one hand, seeks to be a tough regulator and,
on the other hand, describes its base of sort of clientele, for
want of a better expression, as customers. Now, I, for one, feel
uncomfortable with the use of the word "customers" in
terms of—
13. Well, the police have started calling the
general public customers, so surely the Agency can do the same.
(Mr Georgeson) And they are perfectly entitled to,
but does that not create some confusion possibly in the minds
of many of the people at the front line of the Agency who are
not sure whether they are serving a customer or indeed policing
a miscreant. I think there is certainly some anecdotal evidence
that there is confusion at the front line of the Agency about
just what approach is intended.
Mr Olner
14. Perhaps I could ask Mr Georgeson a specific
question and it is the same as I asked Mr Childs. Your organisation
promotes waste reduction, reuse and recycling, but what about
the bottom of the pyramid and the Agency being sort of over-bearing
and too regulatory and the costs being out of all proportion to
recycling at the lower end?
(Mr Georgeson) Well, I can speak from my own experience
and also the experience of really representing at least in part
the work of small community-based recycling and composting operations.
Firstly, from my own experience several years ago of managing
a community-based recycling operation which was involved very
modestly in waste paper collection, drink cans collection and
the sort of community activities that you hopefully are now familiar
with—
15. Can I just say that I have no problem with
that, but I am talking specifically, say, about car batteries
where six of them are worth £8 and it costs £10 to move
them to a large collector and they finish up in the tip.
(Mr Georgeson) I think there is an argument that may
say that that is a heavy-handed approach and possibly there is
a disproportionate level of resources being spent on regulating
those people in comparison to the very heavy polluters and the
very large industries. As I am sure you are aware, the Agency
is introducing a new system called OPRA—Operator Pollution
Risk Assessment I believe it stands for—which is hopefully,
if it comes into force, going to see the Agency concentrate more
of its resources on the areas of real difficulty and spend less
inspection time simply checking that people who are dealing, I
think very honourably, with waste are getting on with their jobs.
From my own experience as previously involved in a waste management
operation, I received a weekly visit from an inspector whose prime
function on a Friday afternoon was to check that the yard was
reasonably clean and yet five minutes down the road in the same
northern town there were all sorts of euphemistically described
waste transfer stations which I would suggest were more deserving
of the Agency and its predecessor's attention and were not getting
sufficient attention almost for security reasons, never mind anything
else.
Mr Randall
16. The Agency has been accused of having a
"tick-box" attitude to regulation which is more on achieving
artificial targets than the more effective protection of the environment.
Is that a sentiment that you would agree with?
(Mr Georgeson) It is a sentiment that I would agree
with. The Agency were not helped by the Government with Waste
Management Paper 4 which dictates certain levels of inspection
at certain types of waste facility. As I have just said, I think
the new regime that the Agency is looking to introduce may well
help to address that issue. I think it is reasonable to say that
up until now the "tick-box" mentality has been fairly
strong.
17. That would lead to site visits to places
where it might take a shorter time, there would not be so much
to investigate, in order to get through more site visits?
(Mr Georgeson) More site visits to better regulated,
better managed sites. As a result, and inevitably mistakes do
take place, the mistakes that are made by the better operators
are more easily exposed. We have no doubt that there are plenty
of less well managed waste facilities that are not receiving anything
like the attention that they deserve.
18. Do you think that is because of this achieving
targets or because of the natural desire to go to places where
you get a better reception than you would do going to what I might
call a cowboy operator?
(Mr Georgeson) I think it is a mixture of the two,
to be honest. There are targets, I believe, that need to be achieved
and I gather that there may well be performance incentives for
staff to achieve certain targets for visits. I readily admit that
it is much easier for an inspector to visit a site where he or
she is welcomed and the site is well regulated and they are simply
doing a spot check than it is to try to negotiate past razor wire
and rottweilers.
19. Do you think there is any way that the Agency
can try to improve on going to those latter type of operations?
(Mr Georgeson) It possibly needs some additional input
from the police, I do not know.
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