Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-124)
MR GREGOR
HUTCHEON, MR
NEIL SINDEN
AND MR
PAUL HAMBLIN
WEDNESDAY 3 JULY 2002
Paddy Tipping
120. You told us earlier on that you wanted
to talk about sustainability, and the Department's own Sustainable
Development Strategy was published last month, `Foundations for
our Future'. The Department tells us that stakeholders were involved
in its preparation; how were you involved?
(Mr Hamblin) CPRE was involved. We attended a number
of workshops which were held to look at themes which might come
through in the Sustainable Development Strategy; and, as an approach,
and as a process, to engage stakeholders in the development of
the Strategy, this is something that CPRE very much supports.
I think, as with many of these strategies, the real issue is going
to be ensuring that we get the buy-in and the subsequent delivery
of what the Strategy is trying to achieve, because there was not
a huge amount of new material in the Strategy, it was more an
explanation of how the Department was going to look at issues
in different ways and measure progress in different ways, through
a suite of indicators. That said, we need to ensure that the Department
actually ensures that the Strategy is used, day in, day out, and
is not put on shelves with a range of other strategies. In addition,
we would also say that we would want to see progress being made
in the development of the Countryside Quality Indicator, which
has been long promised. It was initially one of a range of the
sustainable development indicators, it was promised in the Rural
White Paper, it is continually under development, and, even in
the departmental Sustainable Development Strategy, there is not
a deadline for when this is going to become available to help
inform policy-making, and we believe that was an omission that
should be addressed.
121. So are you saying the process was good,
there is a product, you might have anxieties about the product,
but it is down to implementation now, and that is where your real
concerns are?
(Mr Hamblin) That is our main concern. One can always
improve things. But, as a document, we think it reinforces what
DEFRA should be doing in the future, and the real challenge is
implementation, yes.
(Mr Sinden) I think I would like to emphasise the
point that Paul has already raised. This issue about the Countryside
Quality Indicator, the CPRE, with its focus on landscape and landscape
protection, is particularly concerned that the new Department
actually embraces that dimension of its responsibilities, and
there is a real danger that the qualitative aspects of the environment
in rural areas, particularly the quality of the landscapes, are
absent from this approach to sustainable development. Until we
have a robust Countryside Quality Indicator, we fear that, it
is difficult, it is not an easy concept to work on, but, nonetheless,
it is an important one and a significant issue, which I think
many members of the public respond to, in terms of what they see
happening in the countryside. And, until we have this Indicator,
I think we would be very critical of the capacity of the Department's
own approach to sustainable development actually to embrace the
full range of public concerns and interest in what is happening
in the countryside. We will be very disappointed if this Indicator
is not in place next year, three-plus years after the Government
first committed itself to developing one, prior to the Rural White
Paper.
122. Conceptually, it is not difficult to put
forward a number of outputs by which to measure, but there is
a kind of broader question, which you talked about earlier on,
which is, of course, other Departments set the landscape too,
on the rural environment, housing, for example, transport, for
example; and I think one of the things you have been telling us
is that maybe the Department is not a sufficient champion in this
area, you have got anxieties there?
(Mr Sinden) We do, and we are seeing this coming through
very strongly in some of the initiatives being promoted by other
parts of Government. I mentioned previously the review of planning.
I know this is not a central concern of this Committee, but you
will be aware that your colleagues on the Transport, Local Government
and the Regions Committee have recently issued a very critical
report of the Government's proposals on planning, and particularly
stress the absence of any convincing and robust analysis of the
environmental dimensions of the planning process, the environmental
objectives that planning has a critical role in delivering. And
we have been concerned, in our dealings with the Department, that,
at official level but also ministerial level, I think the impact
on the purchase of DEFRA on that particular review has been minimal,
at best, and I think this is an important aspect of the sustainable
development agenda, that we would like the Department to be much
more proactive across Government. I think, to sort of step back
a bit from the planning review, the temptation, in dealing with
this question, is to argue that there should be a sort of sustainable
development unit at the heart of Government, which is actually
responsible for leading the Government's thinking and policy development
in this area. But we believe that that is not necessarily the
right solution, we believe that DEFRA could have the ability and
the capacity to be an effective leader for sustainable development
across Government, but it does require buy-in and commitment from
other Departments, particularly the Treasury, and particularly
No.10. And I think that if you compare the relatively low importance
attached to sustainability considerations with the strong, with
the multi-departmental axis that there is on promoting improvements
in productivity and competitiveness, you begin to see, and we
would rank sustainability alongside those other important objectives,
you will see, I think, the relative weakness of the Government's
approach to sustainability and the relative ineffectiveness of
the Department to put this issue at the top of the agenda of Government.
Diana Organ
123. Following on from that, earlier you talked
about the difficulties that the Department have about getting
over its territorial approach, its silo mentality, its change
culture, to reach across its own Department, but, following on
from what Paddy has just said, in the DEFRA publication, they
are saying that they are leading across Government on sustainable
development; and we have already talked about the difficulties
because the Department does not have the responsibility for land
use planning, and there have been criticisms about how that particular
Department has shown the way about sustainable development. I
wonder if you can give us any evidence of actually DEFRA really
reaching across Government Departments on sustainable development,
or is there none?
(Mr Hamblin) I think there are two ways of answering
that question, or two parts, rather. There is the extent to which
DEFRA is engaging in big policy debates and then there is the
Machinery of Government and the tools, in which DEFRA can ensure
that sustainable development is being applied throughout Whitehall;
and, if time permits, we would like just to share some evidence
on the Machinery of Government. We have talked about the planning
review, but there are other major policy initiatives under way
where DEFRA seems to be absent from these debates, at least, not
visibly, air transport, for example, where the talk is all about
growth rather than how do we address managing demand more effectively,
and yet the growth in air transport poses a huge threat to achieving
climate change targets and objectives. The review of the Ten-Year
Transport Plan, which forecasts increasing traffic levels of 21
per cent in the next ten years, despite traffic being a headline
indicator for sustainable development, yet DEFRA does not seem
to be visibly engaged in the review, which has focused rather
narrowly on the pursuit of reducing congestion and losing out
on not addressing these wider traffic impacts. In relation to
the Machinery of Government, one of the main mechanisms that DEFRA
could use is environment appraisal, really to ensure that the
environment is being examined as part of policy-making processes
throughout Whitehall, and DEFRA takes a lead in that respect;
yet the Green Ministers Annual Report shows that, in 2001, only
55 environmental appraisals were produced for the whole of Government,
which you might think was a rather low figure, even more so when
you consider the fact that 45 of those were produced by one Department.
So 11 Departments have not produced a single environmental appraisal;
and a number of questions have been raised on this matter by Peter
Ainsworth MP. And, just to illustrate the problem, an answer received
from DCMS said that, "My Right Honourable Friend, the Minister
for the Arts, has not had occasion to request a formal environmental
appraisal since her appointment." The Civil Service College
runs training courses on environmental appraisal, to assist Whitehall
to use this new technique, yet nine Departments still have not
sent an official to those courses, despite the training course
being described in the Green Ministers Annual Report. And, finally,
if you look at the Cabinet Office website, which lists Government
cross-cutting issues, sustainable development, and the Sustainable
Development Unit, is absent from that list; and I think that,
although small, in terms of whether it is on a website or not,
is symptomatic that the environment is not at the heart of Government.
124. So it is not working, their intervention,
their lead, is not happening; and you talked earlier about how
you do not think a unit needs to be there, but it needs to be,
if you like, commitment and signed-up from No.10, and Treasury,
in particular, which might be one way that DEFRA could actually
have the capacity to do that. You also talked about the environmental
audit, would you want to see DEFRA officials actually being responsible
for the flagging up of a need for an environmental audit, and
actually to supervise that, or should it remain within the discreet
environment? How can we do it, other than saying, clouting over
the head in Treasury and saying, "Right, loads more money
for DEFRA because they actually do have this remit;" how
else could it be done, because there is a problem within the Department,
is there not, because they are civil servants that have a particular
task and it is difficult to reach out?
(Mr Hamblin) I think that DEFRA provides expertise
and can help champion the need for sustainable development and
for the use of environmental appraisal. I do not think it is appropriate
to suggest that DEFRA officials should be involved in every single
appraisal, or audit, that is undertaken by all Government Departments;
but what we do need to see is much more effective use made of
that tool. And that requires, for example, the Cabinet Office
to lend its weight behind the use of integrated policy appraisal,
which is being developed with DEFRA and the old DTLR, which tries
to incorporate the multitude of different assessments which officials
are asked to undertake, rural proofing, environment regulatory
impact assessment; it is being developed but has not really won
support yet from the Cabinet Office, and needs to. In terms of
the Treasury, which you highlight as clearly an extremely important
actor here, we have seen progress with the Spending Review; the
Treasury have issued guidance to all Departments, as part of the
Spending Review, saying that all Departments need to submit sustainable
development reports with their bids for additional funding. Those
are not going to be published, because they are incorporated as
part of departmental bids; and it is a good process, it shows
movement and it shows commitment on the part of the Treasury to
try to address these wider issues, but, really, the jury is out
until we see the product, in terms of the Spending Review, to
see whether this has been just an assessment exercise, or whether
it is actually biting on big decisions that matter and have led
to sustainable outcomes in the Spending Review.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed
for that. If there is anything you would like to add, please let
us have it rapidly; and then no doubt we will see you ere long
in another context. But thank you for coming today.
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