Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MR GREGOR
HUTCHEON, MR
NEIL SINDEN
AND MR
PAUL HAMBLIN
WEDNESDAY 3 JULY 2002
Chairman
100. Welcome to the Committee. We have in front
of us the Council for the Protection of Rural England. Mr Gregor
Hutcheon, who is Head of Policy (Rural), Mr Neil Sinden, Assistant
Director (Policy), and Mr Paul Hamblin, Head of Policy (Transport
& Natural Resources). We are inquiring into what the role
of DEFRA is and whether it is able to discharge that role, so
we are not really interested in a sort of wish list of what everybody
wished it was doing, we really want to know whether it has defined
properly what it thinks it is doing and whether your experience
of dealing with it shows that it is able to do so. So that is
the key task. My first question is, you suggest, in your evidence
to us, that, in fact, not a great deal has changed and there is
still a lot of the old attitudes which are still embedded in the
Department. Without naming individual officials, could you give
an illustration of what you mean; what has happened to you, what
phone calls have you had, as it were, what meetings have you had
which you have come out of saying, "Nothing's changed"?
(Mr Sinden) Yes; if I can kick off. To
put this in a broader context, I think it is important to stress
that for many years our experience of dealing with the former
MAFF was a difficult one, and embraced long-standing problems
to do with what we perceived as an inability of that institution
to encompass and embrace change that was necessary in the way
it addressed questions concerning the future of the countryside
and the future of farming. I think some of these problems were
structural, in terms of the way in which that Department was set
up, and its failure to recognise, I think, the broader, multi-purpose
role of farming and agriculture in the countryside, and its narrow
focus, from the very early post-war period, on agricultural production
and support, and that was reflected in, I think, a sort of very
strong imbalance in the amount of resources and staffing that
was going into commodity support and servicing of the agricultural
industry. And I think what we are seeing now, with the new Department,
is, to some extent, a continuation of that culture; we welcome
the moves that the Department has made in terms of setting up
a perhaps more balanced structure, in recognition of its wider
remit, and we very much support the potential role that the Department
can play in developing a strategy and an approach to rural areas
which reflect society's aspirations for a modern countryside and
for improved standards of environmental protection and environmental
quality. I think that, in terms of the contact we have had with
the Department and officials within the Department to date, we
enjoy a largely positive relationship, particularly with senior
members of staff, and we are very encouraged by the enthusiasm
that staff at that level have shown towards the wider remit of
the new Department. But we do have concerns, both in the centre
and out in the regions, that the new culture, the new remit, the
new approach, is not perhaps as widely shared as we would like
it to be.
101. And is that because you attribute that
to a failure to change the culture, or do you attribute that just
to the lack of, let us say, policy instruments to implement the
new aspirations?
(Mr Sinden) I think it is a bit of both. I think there
are big questions about the challenge that the new Department
faces in delivery on a new farming strategy, and I think there
are big questions there about the policy instruments it needs
to develop and promote in order to deliver on that very big, challenging
agenda. I think there are also questions about the policy instruments
it has at its disposal, in terms of promoting sustainable development
across Government, as well, and we may want to go into more detail
on those issues later on, if that would be helpful to the Committee.
102. On the sustainable development thing, I
always imagine, if I was working in the Department and I get up
in the morning and look at myself in the shaving mirror and say,
"Today, I'm really going to make sure I deliver this sustainable
development sort of thing," what would I do, what sort of
questions would I ask, as I am sitting at my desk, to make sure
I am delivering this? It is one of these wonderful phrases, and
I sometimes wonder, the poor blighters who have actually got to
translate this into daily action, what does it actually mean,
in terms of what they are doing?
(Mr Hamblin) I think it is about looking at problems
in slightly different ways, and, as Neil mentioned, taking a broader
perspective to the problems and your place within that Department,
so that you are no longer simply focusing on a sub-objective which
is very narrowly defined, but you are taking a much broader outlook,
you are recognising that sustainable development is a cross-cutting
issue, and that you have a role to play within that. And, for
the countryside, more tangibly, I think that means that we need
to move away perhaps from looking at the countryside and the demands
that we place on it, to what can the countryside sustainably provide,
from consuming more from the countryside, in terms of resource
use, to getting more from less, and really looking at broader
issues about quality of life, rather than narrowly-defined economic
growth, as measured by GDP.
Mr Jack
103. But, Mr Sinden, you said at the beginning
that you were hoping that DEFRA would develop yet more strategies,
according to your own definition of what was required, and yet,
if you look at the plethora of documents that have come out from
DEFRA, if you look at their Annual Report, it is suffering almost
from aspirational overkill. Do I get the impression that you do
not think it has yet come up with a clear definition of what it
is about, or, if you like, got off the starting-blocks in a forceful
way, that you can happily define what this thing is all about?
(Mr Sinden) I think we would recognise a certain proportion
of the picture you paint there. Our concern here is not that we
see the Department developing yet more strategies and more sets
of aspirations, but actually we see the Department beginning to
focus on implementation and delivery. And, for example, in that
respect, we would be very keen to explore, and the Committee may
well like to explore, the possibility of the Department having
a much more coherent focus, a targeted set of delivery objectives
in connection with the strategy statements that it has developed.
104. Are they not already defined, as you may
have seen in their Annual Report, with its PSA agreements; all
of those are supposed to be about delivery? Do I adjudge that
perhaps you do not think much of those?
(Mr Hutcheon) I think, in terms of what the Department
is trying to set out and what it wants to try to achieve, we welcome
what it is trying to achieve, because one of the opportunities
we think DEFRA offers is to look at the countryside in a far broader
context than MAFF ever could and ever did. We are concerned, and
whilst the Rural White Paper, for example, is a policy document
that we think DEFRA should take ownership of, like the Curry Report,
which I know the Committee is well aware of, the tremendous consensus
there is around that, the Rural White Paper was a similar document,
which was extremely wide-ranging, was very visionary, set out
the future challenges facing the countryside, and we would like
to see DEFRA being the champion of the implementation of the Rural
White Paper. Last year, clearly, with foot and mouth disease,
understandably, the Department's focus was elsewhere; we would
like to see it now get back on track, we would like to see less
of the effort being placed, now that the context has been set,
about what it wants to try to do, and more on looking at the PSA
targets and agreements, which we welcome. I do not think there
is one, for example, on PSAs and rural service delivery, the Rural
White Paper sets some rural service standards, perhaps those could
be incorporated into the PSA agreements with all other Departments.
Because one of the challenges that DEFRA faces is that it cannot
deliver all it wants to do on its own, and so what we need to
do is find mechanisms which make sure that it delivers across
Government; and, obviously, with the distractions last year, it
has not been able maybe to do that. So I do not think we would
want to be overly critical of progress so far, but we are concerned
that it really does wake up to the challenges that are facing
the countryside now.
Mrs Shephard
105. There does seem to be some internal contradiction
between you, if I may say so. Mr Sinden is saying the individual
should look, as it were, across the board, while one of his colleagues
is saying there should be a more targeted approach. Now an individual
can only do a certain number of things, and surely it is either
one or the other, and I do not understand that apparent inconsistency;
perhaps you can explain it?
(Mr Hutcheon) Can I illustrate it maybe by an example.
One of the recommendations of the Curry Report was for a food
chain centre to be set up, to look at the whole food chain. An
old MAFF approach to that might have been to look at the economic
efficiencies that could be achieved, and that might be its focus.
What we would argue DEFRA's focus for the food chain centre should
be is not to focus purely on economic efficiency in the food chain
but to look at quality in the food chain, so trying to improve
the environmental performance of the way in which we produce food
and trying to deliver more environmental benefits. To improve
the economic efficiency, yes, because we want viable businesses,
but to make sure that it actually delivers more for local economies
in the countryside and more for GDP, and, in terms of society,
delivering more jobs in rural areas. So, there, we have an example
of a focused initiative, it is looking at the food chain, but
it has a broader perspective and is trying to deliver a much broader
range of objectives.
106. Can you also tell me what your organisation's
approach is, given that at the moment your strictures are defined
to people in DEFRA, which is essentially centralised, to the setting
up of regional government?
(Mr Sinden) We, as an organisation, do not have any
strong position on the pros and cons of a regional tier of government.
107. Surely, you should have?
(Mr Sinden) What we do have is a view on how regional
structures can work best for the countryside and for the interests
that CPRE represents. We also recognise, as an organisation, that
the appetite for directly-elected regional assemblies varies from
one part of the country to another, and, indeed, the diversity
in public opinion is well reflected in CPRE's membership and amongst
our local groups and our regional groups. Because we do have a
firmly embedded regional structure, which matches the Government's
standard planning regions, and we have had that for a number of
years, because we saw, before the Labour Government came in, in
1997, a trend towards regional decision-making, the previous Government
put in place the integrated Government Regional Offices, back
in, I think, 1994, and we responded to that, as an organisation,
by strengthening our regional structures. We have continued to
strengthen our regional structures, as the trend towards regionalisation
has progressed, and it is likely that, where we see, in one or
more parts of the country, a strong expression of public support
for directly-elected regional assemblies, we would seek to match
that with further structural change within our organisation. So
we are adopting a horses for courses approach. But I think the
final point I would make on this is, in terms of CPRE's focus
on the land use planning system, we are very concerned indeed
that the Government appears to be pushing the regional governments
agenda much further and much faster than is desirable, in terms
of the planning structures that are required to deliver strong
and effective strategic planning decisions at the sub-regional
level. So we have been arguing very strongly, in the context of
the planning review, but also in the context of the Regional Governments
White Paper, that we would not want to see a significant move
away from strategic planning decisions being taken at a county
level, if there were not clear and directly-elected and democratically
accountable regional assemblies in place. So we are concerned
about the issue in that sense, and we would like to see the Government
decoupling its regionalisation agenda, to some extent, from its
planning reform agenda; but we do recognise that perhaps in one
or two parts of the country it may well be that we see directly-elected
regional assemblies in place within the next five to six years.
108. I am sure you would agree that regional
arrangements for administration are one thing, but regional arrangements,
either for diffusing centrally-taken decisions, which are not,
of course, easy to be described as accountable, or, indeed, regional
assemblies, which might be dominated by urban thinking and urban
interests, are a very different matter. And I wonder if your organisation
has analysed the likely composition of regional assemblies, or
regional decision-making, and whether that would swamp, to use
a very fashionable word, rural interests?
(Mr Sinden) Yes, we are looking at this, in the context
of the White Paper; and, as I said at the very beginning of my
comments on this issue, we are concerned to ensure that any new
regional structures work best for the countryside and for the
interests we represent. And, therefore, the issue of representation
of rural interests on any future directly-elected regional assembly
is a key one for us. The only further comment I would add, at
this stage, we have not refined our position precisely on this
question, is that we are anxious that perhaps the relatively small
size of regional assembly, which is being promoted in the White
Paper, would not enable adequate representation of rural interests
on a regional body of that kind; so we are likely to be pressing
the Government to think much more carefully about this issue of
rural representation. I do not know whether Gregor would like
to say something about the ERDP angle on this.
(Mr Hutcheon) Yes. Continuing the theme of regionalisation,
actually, one of the things we were going to congratulate the
former MAFF on, which was one of the few times we would have congratulated
MAFF, I think, given our experience of them, was on the regionalisation
agenda. It had set up the ERDP, the England Rural Development
Programme, and its regional chapters, which, actually, for the
first time, allowed a much more decentralised approach to rural
policy, design and delivery. In the past, it had been very centralised,
not even just nationally dictated but from Europe; and what we
recognise is that the countryside is extremely diverse and that
the priorities in the South West will be very different from the
priorities in the South East. And so we welcome the changes that
MAFF made in regionalising its delivery and design and also its
integration into the Government Offices of the Region, because
they also recognise that you cannot look at the farming sector
in isolation from the rest of the economy and society in rural
areas, and indeed urban areas, because the two are so closely
interlinked. So that sort of progress down to the regional level
is something that we welcome, and we believe that the ERDP is
a mechanism which can help encourage that further integration
and a better, more discerning approach to rural policy design
and delivery.
Mr Borrow
109. For the benefit of CPRE, there is a range
of views amongst members of the Committee, when it comes to regional
government, and no doubt we will continue to debate those elsewhere.
But coming to this morning's area of work, we had a meeting here,
last week, where the RSPB came along, and I think the comment
they made was that the DEFRA still suffered from much of the silo
thinking, I think was the phrase they used, of the old MAFF. I
wonder to what extent, in your dealings with DEFRA, you feel that
that is still the case, and whether you think there is any change
taking place?
(Mr Hutcheon) As Neil said earlier, we are enjoying
very positive relationships, particularly at a senior level, with
the new DEFRA, where I think there is a significant degree of
buy-in to what DEFRA can offer, and the opportunities for a new
approach, a much more integrated approach, to the countryside,
which links farming, rural development and environmental issues.
At a middle-ranking level, I think we are coming up against frustrations,
that there is still a kind of territorial approach to issues;
for example, the approach to delivering on the farm strategy,
there tends to be a fairly hefty and old MAFF style attitude to
what Curry has set out in his vision, from certain sectors within
DEFRA, at that sort of middle-ranking level. And we find that
the dialogue that we would like to see happening across DEFRA,
so the environment and rural development and farming interests
are actually trying to come up with an integrated approach and
integrated solutions, is not yet quite happening. Whether that
is something to do with just time-lag and the fact that you had
a whole Ministry that had been working in a particular way for
many, many years is too much to expect DEFRA to deliver now, well,
we would argue, that may be the case, but the fact is, the challenges
are here now and the opportunities are here now, and we would
like to see them seize those opportunities more vigorously than
they are at the moment.
110. So that, if you are dealing with middle-ranking
officials, rather than very senior officials, would it be true
to say that you are having to speak to a large number of officials
when discussing a particular subject, because they are compartmentalised
within the Department, whereas, ideally, a group of officials
should have knowledge of a wider range of policy and be able to
liaise with you as one official, rather than half a dozen officials;
would that be a reasonable assessment of the situation?
(Mr Hutcheon) It would seem that way, certainly in
the last few months, and we are actually having also to explain
our rationale and the other arguments they might be hearing elsewhere
within DEFRA to those officials, because that dialogue obviously
has not happened yet.
111. Is there a sense that that problem is recognised
by DEFRA at a senior level and is being tackled, or is it not
recognised at all?
(Mr Hamblin) I think it is being recognised at the
senior level, both with officials and with Ministers, about the
need for a cultural shift, and that that requires a cultural shift
in staff, at all levels, right from the top to the front-line
staff. And, although it is early days, I think there are a number
of things which DEFRA could do, in order to try to encourage that,
new ways of thinking, that we have already discussed; and our
evidence included a paper, "New Ways for a New Department",
which incorporated a number of ideas about how we can ensure that
staff are looking at this new approach and what DEFRA is. So things
like training programmes, inductions for staff, are they aware
of the Sustainable Development Strategy and understand its relevance
to their daily work, are staff appraisals looking at how these
new documents and the Strategy is going to shift the way in which
they work, secondees, which have been used in the past, using
those more intelligently, and providing rewards to staff who are
thinking in new ways to try to deliver solutions. Even ideas like
providing assertiveness training to front-line staff, who are
actually wanting to question, perhaps, the status quo of
doing things and might find it a bit difficult, but giving people
confidence to say, "How can we tackle this problem in a new
way, which ensures that all those multiple objectives are addressed?".
Mr Mitchell
112. Can we just talk about the calibre of those
staff, ignoring the kind of penumbra of guff of sustainability,
that every Department feels itself obliged to utter, and ignoring
the fact that their agenda, DEFRA's agenda, does not quite seem
to tie in with yours, which I think is what you are saying, on
the ground, what about the quality of the people, has the Department
been able to attract a high level of talent, in its recruitment?
(Mr Hutcheon) That is a difficult question. In a way,
as we have said already, at a senior level, we have been very
encouraged and very impressed with the calibre of the staff at
DEFRA. We have also been frustrated at the apparent blindness
of middle-ranking staff to see the new opportunities, or to understand
the shift.
113. To see things your way, or to see . . .
(Mr Hutcheon) To see things, I think, our way, but
also the way in which the whole general public now view the countryside
and what they expect of the countryside, to deliver on the wider
Rural White Paper agenda, which goes much beyond what MAFF would
have sought to deliver. At a regional level, where we also have
contact with DEFRA officials, again, it varies; we have experience
of the regional consultation groups that DEFRA has set up, of
meetings, which have been extremely well run, where they have
sought active participation of our volunteers but also a whole
range of interests. We have also seen meetings where it has been
rather remote, as we are to you today, and where our participation
has not been encouraged, where our views have not been sought,
where simply we have been told what DEFRA is planning to do. So
there is a challenge there, and I think, as DEFRA begins to deliver,
it may, hopefully, become more attractive to the high calibre
staff that we would like to see in there.
114. So, okay at the top, where chaps talk to
chaps; patchy in the regions. Has it been a case of the same people
who were doing the job before carrying on in much the same way,
much the same people, in a new Department, with a new role, on
the ground?
(Mr Hutcheon) On the ground, again, it varies, it
is patchy, in some places there is a degree of movement, which
possibly is a good thing, at this time, to help people to understand
there is a new agenda; and where there has not been movement,
where people are stuck in their silos, then obviously that is
a more challenging situation in which to try to encourage change.
(Mr Sinden) The key issue for us here is the issue
of leadership from the top, and leadership within the regions,
to deliver the culture change that we are all looking for, I think.
And, as Paul has outlined, we put forward a number of proposals,
in the Annex to our written evidence to this Committee, which
could begin to achieve this change in approach, this wider perspective
and this recognition that we have moved on, that the Department
is about, as I said earlier, meeting society's aspirations for
a modern countryside and higher standards of environmental protection,
rather than simply looking after the interests of one particular
part of the economy of rural areas.
115. I get the impression that you see yourselves
as having a role to educate and almost to train them along the
lines you think the countryside should be developing; what is
your impression of morale in the new Department?
(Mr Sinden) We have been very encouraged, the high-level
contacts we have had with civil servants within the Department,
by the passion and the eagerness and the willingness to get to
grips with this broader perspective and these critical issues,
the future of farming, sustainable development, environmental
standards, and so on. But I think it is fair to say that we detect
a sort of growing sense of frustration at perhaps the inability
of the Department to make an impact where it matters on the centre
of Government, in terms of gaining resources, in terms of gaining
commitment across Government to sustainable development objectives,
and so on. So I think we are beginning to detect this sense of,
"Well, we're here, we're established, we've got our new structures,
we've got our new remit, we've got a set of strategies,"
and so on and so forth, but the next couple of years are going
to be critical, in terms of the perception that groups like CPRE
have of the Department and its ability actually to make an impact
and deliver on the ground.
116. So the problem, as you see it, is not troops,
it is not the officers, it is the impact on the general staff?
(Mr Sinden) Partly that, but I think the point I was
trying to make was that this is also a question of the relationship
between the Department and other parts of Government, and the
level of resourcing that it is able to command and to put into
its core objectives.
117. Just one final question; do you see strains
caused by personnel issues, different rates of pay between the
different parts brought together?
(Mr Sinden) I am not sure that we have the evidence
to comment on that.
David Taylor: I do not know whether I ought
to declare an interest, I will, as a member of the CPRE. Can I
be the only member of this Committee that finds this phrase "rural
proofing" pretty vacuous?
Diana Organ: You are not alone.
Mr Jack: Welcome to the Club.
David Taylor
118. I think that was unanimous, the record
should show. But, in other contexts, where we weather-proof, or
idiot-proof, we seem to be protecting something against the influence
of something else, and maybe "rural proofing" is doing
just that, protecting policy against rural involvement and influence.
Indeed, in the past, can I put to you what you have recorded in
your own submission, that you have argued against the establishment
of a rural department because of the concerns regarding potential
marginalisation, although you have moved from that stance now,
and you note the Countryside Agency report, which highlighted
the void that exists between what DEFRA say they want to do and
what they have achieved so far. Can I adapt the Chairman's very
colourful illustration of senior civil servants looking at themselves
in the shaving mirror, whether that includes women, or not, I
am not sure, to say that how would a senior civil servant, travelling
in from the rural vastness of green-booted Islington, into Westminster,
really know that rural proofing was actually taking place within
the work of DEFRA, because some of your earlier comments do seem
to suggest that DEFRA is more interested in farming and international
environmental policies and things of that kind? How can it measure
its progress in this regard?
(Mr Sinden) The CPRE, we have to say that we do strongly
support the rural proofing mechanism, and I think Paul would have
some detailed responses to your questions.
(Mr Hamblin) Whatever you end up calling rural proofing,
the idea of ensuring that all parts of Whitehall are thinking
rural is extremely important, if DEFRA is going to be able to
have a purchase on the activities of other Departments, and policies
are going to be amended, so that, for example, the Rural White
Paper can be implemented across Government. And I think that,
if you look at the Countryside Agency's first Annual Report, it
does show a very mixed picture, it has been variable how Departments
have applied rural proofing; we have limited infrastructure in
place, in the form of contacts in each Department, we have a checklist
which has been produced and circulated. But one of the things
that we were particularly worried by and disturbed by was that,
according to the Countryside Agency's Report, DEFRA itself had
not circulated the checklist widely within its own policy divisions,
it was not using it as a regulatory part of policy-making; and
if DEFRA is going to champion rural proofing across Whitehall
then it is essential that it is an exemplar in its application,
and, instead, it seems that it is more of a laggard, when it comes
to rural proofing. So, although we have the tools available, in
terms of the checklist, there is a real concern that Departments
are not using the tools available, and the Countryside Agency
has highlighted in its Report a number of problems. But we would
urge the Committee to consider what happens now; should the Government
be asked to respond formally to that Annual Report on rural proofing
and explain to those who are interested in this how they are going
to move forward and rectify the poor performance in rural proofing.
119. Is timing part of the problem? The impression
that one gets sometimes is that this vacuous concept is applied
at the end of the process, when the product of the policy wonks
is about to be released onto a startled world, and the finished
elements of their creativity are then measured against some rural
ideal, I suppose. Should there not be more involvement, as the
policies develop, and, if you agree with that, how could that
involvement actually work, in practice?
(Mr Hamblin) We would agree absolutely that rural
proofing, to be effective, needs to be incorporated from the very
beginning, and that is about looking at what is the rural dimension,
what are going to be the implications for rural areas and the
differences between different rural areas, in looking at the objectives
for Government programmes, or policies, or spending bids, and
that, if we simply apply rural proofing as a checklist towards
the end then there will be only marginal changes, and certainly
a lot of the potential for the tool will have been lost. But,
to answer the question directly, in terms of how you do it, one
of the problems is that rural proofing lacks transparency, at
the moment, it is very hard to know when policy decisions have
been rural proofed; it is easier perhaps to say when they are
not. But the Countryside Agency, in its own Annual Report, has
said that it is quite difficult, because there is no product,
as it were, from the rural proofing exercise, to see, clearly,
in a transparent way, whether policies have been rural proofed
or not.
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