APPENDIX III
Transcript of evidence given on 30 January 2002
to the Transport Sub-Committee by Mr Willy Rickett,Director General,
Transport Strategy, Roads, Local and Maritime
MEETINGS WITH LORD BIRT
Q110: How many meetings have you had with the Lord
Birt?
(Mr Rickett) Oh, goodness, I see Lord Birt
almost every week
Q111: Every week; gosh.
(Mr Rickett) There is a formal steering group
for his study, which I sit on; but I am in regular contact with
his team.
LORD BIRT AND POST 2010
Q113, page 33: Can I just clarify; does this mean
that Lord Birt is actually involved in the review of this Plan,
and that his efforts are not simply confined to beyond the Plan
time?
(Mr Rickett) No. We are carrying out the review
of the Plan, we are responsible for that.
(Q114): But you are talking to him about it, that
review of the Plan?
(Mr Rickett) Because, if he is looking at
2010 to 2020, that is likely to provide some information that
will be useful to us in looking out to 2010.
Mrs Ellman: But is it not working the other way on;
surely, in all these regular meetings you are having, Lord Birt
has some comment to make on the review that is going on now? Does
he never comment on anything you are looking at now?
(Q115): He never questions your assumptions, as we
do, in a vulgar manner?
(Mr Rickett) As I say, he is looking at a
long-term, unconstrained, blue-skies study of what we might be
able to achieve between 2010 and 2020. The review of the Plan
is a detailed review that will lead to decisions in the Spending
Review.
Mrs Ellman: But, surely, Lord Birt's view, all these
years ahead, must see that there is some relevance of these blue
skies ahead in what is going to happen in the next ten years;
are you telling me he has no view on that time?
(Q116): What has he got to say about the clouds,
before we get to the blue sky?
(Mr Rickett) Insofar as his review has any
implications for our 10 Year Plan then we will take account
of them.
OPENING EXCHANGES
(Q2): Mr Rickett, may I ask you, in view of the communication
that we have had, you have got at least two projects looking at
possible future scenarios for transport in the United Kingdom,
what value does the work of the Forward Strategy Unit add to that?
(Mr Rickett) Perhaps, first, I could pick
up the statement that you made at the beginning, because I think
the position is that if and when any decisions are made, in the
light of the Forward Strategy Unit's work, then Ministers will
be accountable to the House for those decisions and you will have
a chance to question them, no doubt. It is traditional that internal
advice to Ministers is confidential, so I do not think there is
an issue of accountability here. But, to answer your first question,
what are they adding, well, we have worked for years with policy
units and other advisers in the centre, they add an independent
and fresh view of things and they can bring additional resources
to bear on what we are doing. The sort of work that Lord Birt
is doing, I have to say, he has not produced a report to the Prime
Minister yet, he has given some advice about the emerging analysis
but he has not produced a report, so there is not even a report
on which he could be accountable. But the sorts of issues are
going to be issues about longer-term projections of travel demand,
looking out to 2020, looking at what is happening to traffic,
looking at what is happening to congestion, looking at potential
policy packages that can deal with those, higher levels of investment
than we looked at in the 10 Year Plan, for instance, those sorts
of things, using our model to look at what outcomes those achieve,
looking at what new technological developments might come, over
that period, and how some of the longer-term instruments, like
changes in land use planning policy, might affect things. So it
is very much a long-term look, looking 2010 to 2020, some overlap
with the sort of work we did with the 10 Year Plan. I have
got no problem with that, we always thought we were going to have
to look beyond 2010 to 2020, in due course, anyway.
(Q3): Who would supply the information for this?
(Mr Rickett) It is a joint project; you always
get more out of these things if you work together. And, clearly,
we have the modelling capability in the Department and we have
most of the expertise; and there is a small team that has been
set up to support Lord Birt, we work very closely with them, indeed
some members of ...
(Q4): Are they people from your Department?
(Mr Rickett) Some of them are, yes.
(Q5): So they are not just second-guessing your work,
they are actually Department of Transport officials who have been
seconded to the policy unit?
(Mr Rickett) I would not say it was second-guessing,
because, as I say, it is looking further out than we had looked
in the 10 Year Plan, and it is the sort of ...
(Q6): Yes, in the 10 Year Plan; but, Mr Rickett,
you are not telling us the Department never thinks longer than
in terms of ten years, are you?
(Mr Rickett) No, no, of course not, no. Some
of this we would have done anyway, but it is useful to have, as
I said, fresh minds who can challenge accepted thinking. I do
not think the Department has a monopoly on advice to Ministers;
indeed, you know, we always take your advice readily, and we welcome
it
Chairman: This comes as a great revelation to us;
we are delighted to hear that, Mr Rickett. We are firmly of the
conviction that you always do take our advice, but only after
having rubbished all our reports for at least three months beforehand.
However, that is probably prejudiced.
Mr Stevenson: Very quickly, on what Mr Rickett has
said. I was a member of the Committee. I have little problem with
the confidentiality of advice to Ministers, and I surely take
the point that Ministers would be accountable to this Committee,
as and when decisions are imminent or being made; that, I think,
I could readily recognise. But, I say, with the greatest respect,
to explore the issues that advisers would be engaged in, without
compromising advice, or without compromising decision, is something,
I think, legitimately, this Committee should be about. And, just
in passing, myself excepted, of course, there are some very fertile
minds around this table that might have some new ideas and new
thinking.
Chairman: I do not know that that was quite a question,
Mr Rickett.
Mr Stevenson: What do you think about that?
Chairman: I think, "discuss", was the question.
Andrew Bennett:
(Q9) What impact will Lord Birt have on the Department's
Estimates?
(Mr Rickett) The Department's Estimates, of
what, spending, or ...
Andrew Bennett: Spending, yes?
Chairman: (Q10) We thought he was looking at transport;
is that a misperception?
(Mr Rickett) As I said at the beginning, he has not
actually yet reported to Ministers. Ministers have not taken any
decisions yet, so it is rather hard to say what impact ...
Andrew Bennett:
(Q11): No, I did not ask you about that. I can understand
that you may have a defence that advice to Ministers is confidential,
but the question of how the Department spends its money is something
that we have a full entitlement to ask you about. So is he costing
the Department's Estimates any money?
(Mr Rickett) Sorry. I understand what you
are saying. Well, only in the sense that a couple of members of
his team are being paid for by us, because they are our employees.
(Q12): So it is costing the Department some money,
so it is an area in which we are entitled to ask questions. Now
how do we judge whether the Department is getting value for money,
in spending that, if the noble Lord does not come before the Committee,
at least to establish his credibility, that he knows anything
at all about transport?
(Mr Rickett) As I say, since it is a joint
project, I hope that we ...
It does not matter, I am not pursuing the joint bit,
I am pursuing your bit of it?
(Mr Rickett) I think, if you really wanted
to judge the value for money of a study, we would have to wait
to see what decisions were taken as a result of it, and, indeed,
we would have to know what the report said; in a sense, it is
a hypothetical question, which I cannot answer. But these are
members of staff who would be otherwise employed by the Department.
I do not think that employing them on this sort of long-term work,
which is, as you said, the sort of work the Department has a close
interest in, is likely to involve any waste of money.
But we cannot judge that, and we should be entitled
to judge that, should we not?
(Mr Rickett) But you will have a chance to.
Mr Rickett, when we have an annual report, we ask
your chief financing officer to come before us, with his Ministers,
and, indeed, we had both of them here quite recently, as you will
remember, to discuss with us the work of the Department. It is
not unreasonable, therefore, to ask what your civil servants are
doing?
(Mr Rickett) Well, as I said, someone from
the Highways Agency is on secondment to this team, and the Department
is paying for one part-time member of the team. I cannot imagine
that adds up to more than about £50,000 to £100,000
a year.
That is not an acceptance of the fact that they are
working in long-term transport planning, and this Committee interests
itself in what your Department is doing in long-term planning?
(Mr Rickett) Yes. I have told you what the
Department is spending on this. If you want the other side of
the value for money equation, you have to know what the output
is; well, there is not, as yet, a report from the group, there
are not, as yet, any ministerial decisions on that report, and
I do not think I can make a judgement on the value for money until
that has happened.
Chairman: Thank you for that.
Mrs Ellman (Q15): Would you feel more impelled to
follow Lord Birt's advice than you would the advice of this Committee?
(Mr Rickett) Lord Birt is advising the Prime
Minister and the Secretary of State, jointly. I advise the Secretary
of State. I am not sure that Lord Birt is advising me. And I think
whether we follow people's advice rather depends on its quality.
Would you feel that the Prime Minister, being behind
Lord Birt's appointment, is likely to wield more influence on
your Department than this Select Committee, as Members of the
House of Commons?
(Mr Rickett) The Secretary of State remains
the Secretary of State, he is going to be accountable for decisions
to the House. I imagine he will want to be satisfied with any
decisions that are taken.
Chairman
When you talk about your model, is that the one where
you bounce the robustness of your plan, your 10 Year Plan,
on future trends and travel up to 2030, in a project with Mott
McDonald and the University of Southampton?
(Mr Rickett) It is the National Transport
Model that we have been developing out of the variety of models
that we had to forecast road traffic and rail demand, and things
like that, and the early version of which we used to help us construct
the 10 Year Plan.
So are we assuming that Lord Birt is not interested
in what happens until 2030?
(Mr Rickett) You can run projections on the
model to any timescale; the longer you go out the less reliable
they are likely to be. The sort of period really he is concentrating
on is 2010 to 2020.
To be published on the Committee's web site as
HC 558-i
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