Examination of Witness (Questions 60-79)
THURSDAY 13 MARCH 2003
SIR GEOFFREY
HOLLAND
60. Finally, are there things you have not achieved
during the last five years that you regret? I am sure there are
but would you just like to give an indication. You quote the proportion
of the recommendations from your Panel that have been wholly or
partly achieved as a high proportion, but we have the analysis
here of recommendations in particular sectors and there is a distinct
pattern whereby the easy targets, those that are directly determined
by central government or by regional government, have a 100% strike
rate and, the more difficult target, that is the general public
and the workplace, is at the lowest percentage strike rate. So,
there is a criticism that you have got the easy targets and—
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) I too have an analysis here
of what we have not achieved! I think we were very slow to move
in the area of informal learning and that is very, very important
indeed. Informal learning in the sense of, for example, the agencies
of the youth service in various parts of the country who can move
things forward. I think early on we saw that one and tried to
get things moving. Informal learning as well in the shape of,
for example, the museums and all that they offer and libraries
in this country. I find myself now in my semi-retirement as chair
of one of the regional councils for museums, archives and libraries
and there is no doubt that that is an under-utilised resource
in terms of awareness and so on. I referred to a jellyfish and,
if ever there were a jellyfish, it is informal learning, but we
were slow to cotton onto that and your Sub-Committee, Chairman,
will have noticed that because the fifth annual report, from which
Mr Chaytor has his extract there, was the first time we had really
done anything serious in that area. So, I think we were slow there.
I regret also that not more progress was made in the workplace
and I think we were slow to realise that the words—and you
may like to explore this more generally—"Sustainable
Development" are, on the whole, a great switch-off to people.
For many an employer, talking about sustainable development in
education is one more chore at the margin and is long term whereas
we have short term problems, etc, etc. We have not really quite
come to grips with the fact that you have to go in on a business
problem of some kind, something to do with the supply side, something
to do with reputation, something to do with disposal of waste
and build from there. We were a little slow coming to that.
Mr Challen
61. I wanted to ask about momentum. If there
were a scale between compulsion and encouragement, where do you
think you would stand on that?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) I think that the
Panel and I stand very much on encouragement. If I may say so,
it all depends what you mean by compulsion. In our strategy, which
has gone to ministers, there is much emphasis on the remit given
by departments and secretaries of state to agencies for which
they are responsible. Those are remit letters. They are not compulsion
in the sense of legislation, but they are serious and I hope that
agencies are held to account as to the remit letters. There is
a great deal that can be achieved in remit letters, for example
to the Learning and Skills Councils and, for example, the Sector
Skills Councils. So, I think it is important for a clear message
to go out, not just words but actually followed up, of expectations
and a clear behaviour at the end of the year, or whenever the
review time is, to review progress and to expect those agencies
and others, in their annual reports, to say something specific.
It does stop short of legislation. I have to say that I do not
quite see how you could legislate in this area.
Chairman
62. Just before we leave this sequence of questions,
I really wanted to ask you, knowing of your very long and distinguished
career, if you could perhaps suggest to the Committee, were you
in a position of being a government minister with responsibility
for introducing this right the way across the board, how would
you be introducing the work that your Committee has done to the
sounding board that has now been set up? How would you be wanting
it to be introduced in order to maintain the momentum and to acknowledge
the work that has been done? What would your main focus be?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) I would seek to
communicate, Chairman, a sense of urgency and opportunity. Urgency
in the sense politically of the Decade for Education for Sustainable
Development, of the commitment—
63. If I can just interrupt, do you mean the
United Nations?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) The United Nations Decade and,
as I understand it, the commitment of this Government to that.
So, I would say that there is an urgency here politically but
there is an urgency because these things are important. I think
that the general public at large is ready for some action and
is much more understanding and much more committed than it is
given credit for. Utter the words "sustainable development"
to the general public and they will go blank, but utter the words
"petrol blockage", "floods" and also "no
cod in your fish and chips" and so on and people can actually
relate to it and I think are ready to do so. So, I would try to
communicate a sense of urgency coupled with opportunity. The Government
have major policies and programmes now beginning to be in place
in the schools, not least the school building and refurbishment,
in the Learning and Skills Councils and in the sectors out there.
It has those in place and huge sums of money have been made available
and the name of the game is not add on at the margin but integrate
with everything that is happening and that is why one of the thrusts
of our strategy, Chairman, is that no additional resources financially
in our view are needed. There are big financial resources allocated
already. It is a question of what you do within them and how.
So, I would try to communicate that and then I would identify
the particular areas—and I have done it already and I will
not repeat myself here—and then I would set out an agenda
of what is wanted to happen and happen within the next year. I
would not let people, as it were, flounder around. The strategy
that we have put together we have worked very hard at and the
document is there and, in our view, you may take soundings if
you like about the document but we hoped it would be a matter
for public consultation and public consultation early.
Mr Ainsworth
64. Sir Geoffrey, you have been very clear about
what you would like to communicate to the Government but what
is not so clear perhaps is whether or not the Government are going
to listen. We have had some written evidence from organisations
who actually say that there is no reference to sustainable development
in any of the major initiatives which the Government have launched
in education in the last five years. So, although your work has
been going on, it does not appear to be hitting the target. Do
you think that the DfES has an attitude problem?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) First of all,
it is not quite right to say that there have been no references
to sustainable development. Firstly, sustainable development is
explicitly referred to in the national curriculum now and the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority have a web-site which
is extremely helpful to people. All the remit letters to the Learning
and Skills Council at national level and the Sector Skills Council
at national level refer to sustainable development. What there
is not is understanding of what that is and an urge to carry it
forward. Does DfES have an attitude problem? I think you had better
ask them!
65. I thought I would ask you, Sir Geoffrey.
I know that you have worked very closely with them.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes and a long time ago I was
Permanent Secretary of the Department for Education as well. During
the Panel life, our relationships with DfES fluctuated. They began
extremely close and supportive. The Green Minister at that time
inside that department was the present Secretary of State and
he met with the Panel and he opened doors for the Panel to Ofsted,
for example, and to the Teacher Training Agency, extremely helpfully.
His successor as Green Minister, Jacqui Smith, likewise. Then
there was silence for a while and, on the whole, not too much
could be heard to be happening in DfES quarters. I am very glad
that the Secretary of State, Charles Clarke, returning in that
capacity has taken to himself the green responsibility, as I understand
it—and I think that is very good news from the point of
view of what we are discussing—and it was noteworthy that,
at the last Panel meeting, the Permanent Secretary of the Department,
Mr David Normington came to that last meeting with Mr Meacher.
He said to the Panel that he recognised that the Panel had been
rather frustrated with the Department over the past years and
he wanted to assure us that things were going to be taken much
more seriously and much more actively in the future. That was
good news. For about a couple of years or so, apart from our secretariat,
we have not really had sight nor sound of a minister or a senior
official.
66. Do you think it is for the Department to
develop a vision and a strategy or do you think it is enough to
rely on you to offer one?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) I think two things. Firstly,
I do not think that it is only DfES. There are at least four major
departments involved in this. They are, in addition to DfES, DEFRA
of course, the Department of Trade and Industry certainly and
the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which incidentally
has been highly supportive to the Panel in the informal learning
inquiries that we have made. So, there are at least four departments.
It is not just one department's responsibility, it seems to me
and the Panel, it is across departments. Should DfES develop its
own strategy? I hope we have given them a start. I do not myself
want any of those departments, any minister or any official, to
adopt the strategy we have offered unless they are convinced by
it. I think it is important that they think about it and, if they
want to amend what we have said, that is fine. We have put it
forward, the words are draft actually, and we called our fifth
annual report—your Sub-Committee will have noticed this—Understanding,
Conviction, Commitment and that is the sequence that I
think one has to go through.
67. You called your 2001 annual report more
relevant than ever.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
68. I am not sure that that message has actually
gone home. Is it reasonable for the Committee to infer from what
you have said that there is in fact no strategy at the moment?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) There is no strategy being
handed down by Government because—and we are slightly circular
here—they were looking to the Panel to advise them about
the strategy, but there was no strategy handed down at the beginning.
We were brought into existence to advise and help the Government
and to help the Government make progress and I have to say that
some elements of Government, Mr Meacher particularly if I may
say so, has been extremely supportive of what we have been doing
all the way through in detail, but they have not sought to dictate
to the Panel. They have asked the Panel to do things; they have
asked the Panel to do things for green ministers; they have asked
the Panel—two years ago was the request—to do this
strategy and we have done it. I think now that they have to take
it and consider it carefully. I hope they are convinced by it
and I hope then that they will move ahead.
69. It is a case of the ball being in their
court.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes, it is.
70. Can we turn to some of the indicators which
the Government have published and set itself and they have submitted
a memorandum to us. I very much welcome your views on whether
the indicators that the Government have set themselves are really
germane to the whole issue of sustainable development as we tend
to understand it. For example, lifelong learning, adult literacy
and numeracy; lifelong learning, learning participation, investors
in people. These are all worthy aims and initiatives but it seems
to me that they have been plucked out of another document and
put into one under a heading called "sustainable development"
without actually having anything to do with the environment or
sustainable development in its original sense.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) It all depends on what you
mean by sustainable development and how wide it is and, if you
are not careful, sustainable development is everything. One of
our concerns has been however that sustainable development is
certainly more than greenery and is about the quality of life
and I think that all those indicators which you have just read
to me—and I have not seen that special list and would not
expect to have done so—are relevant to quality of life and
potential. What the Panel feels about indicators, and not just
DfES indicators, is firstly that there are too many of them; secondly
that most people do not know what they are; and thirdly that they
are not actually highlighted and it is all or nothing, as it were.
We thought that there should be fewer, that there should be a
focus; that there should be a clear effort by Government to explain
why this indicator is significant; and furthermore that there
might be highlighting and reporting on this indicator and where
we are now but not actually all of a very large number. Simultaneously,
I think that, in that sense, while indicators are useful no doubt
as objectives, I am not sure that they are terribly helpful in
communication with the general public on awareness.
71. Of course, they are not at all helpful if
the targets are set too low.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
72. The document to which I was referring was
Quality of Life Counts which is the December 1999 document.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
73. Did they consult you about those indicators
before they published them themselves?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) No.
74. Would it be fair to say that many of those
indicators are desperately unambitious?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) I think that probably they
are unambitious but they may also be realistic at this stage.
Seen from the Panel point of view, we are at a moment of take-off
and start, as it were, in all these directions and, at that stage,
you can deeply depress people and switch them off by setting targets
which are much too high and unachievable. What at least they are
at the moment is, I think, realistically achievable targets.
75. You did, in your first report, lay great
store by the process of monitoring and assessing.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
76. So it seems that this is a crucial area,
is it not?
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
77. And that it must be got absolutely right.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
78. And more works need to be done.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) Yes.
79. It may be that a sounding board is not quite
the right body to carry it out.
(Sir Geoffrey Holland) It may well be.
Mrs Clark
|
