Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
Wednesday 18 June 2003
SIR
BRIAN BENDER,
KCB, MR PAUL
ELLIOTT, MR
ANDREW BURCHELL
AND MR
DAVID BILLS
Q60 Mr Lepper: I am always glad to
see The Sun corrected! I can understand why you need to change
the names on buildings, etcetera. This Committee has deliberated
for the last two years on the ways in which the merging of MAFF
and the other departments was going along and how important it
was to establish that new identity. I can understand that, but
we are talking still about £300,000-odd on developing a strategy
for communicating with stakeholders and customers. Was that done
by engaging an outside firm of consultants to tell you how to
do it?
Sir Brian Bender: Some of the
costs were larger than they might otherwise have been because
we did not have the capacity in-house so we used consultants,
some of whom we would have used anyway, and we used a bit more
consultancy because we did not have the resource available in-house
but it included not simply a communication strategy but actually
testing with stakeholders, testing with staff, testing with customers
and so there was a programme of research along the way, not just
design, if I can put it that way.
Q61 Mr Lepper: Has that all now reached
the stage where you are happy with the way in which communication
is carried out, for the time being at least?
Sir Brian Bender: I am happy that
the work on the identity, as the experts call it "the corporate
branding", has reached a stage where we just need to ensure
it happens. Am I happy with the way the Department communicates?
Well, never entirely, no. There is always room for improvement
on these issues.
Q62 Mr Lepper: Could I just throw
one other comparative figure into this just to make sure I have
got the facts right again and have not been misled by The Sun.
We are indeed talking about an overall sum of £500,000, and
you have broken that down helpfully for us in a variety of ways
now.
Sir Brian Bender: Yes.
Q63 Mr Lepper: What is the financial
contribution of the Department towards the debate on GM which
got underway on 3 June?
Sir Brian Bender: Mr Burchell
thinks it is £300,000.
Mr Burchell: There is a total
budget, I believe, held by the Central Office of Information of
£500,000, of which we have contributed, I believe, £300,000.
Q64 Mr Lepper: So £300,000 for
developing a strategy for communication and £300,000 contribution
to the GM debate?
Sir Brian Bender: Can I repeat,
it is not simply developing a strategy of communication, it is
actually forging the identity of a new department and how that
is communicated.
Mr Lepper: All right. We will consider
those comparative figures. Thank you.
Q65 Mr Drew: I am going to ask you
about PSAs in a minute, but if we are talking about budgets I
put a parliamentary question in the other day and I have to be
careful how I phrase this but I was told that because of the overspend
on the Rights of Way mechanism that the Vital Villages programme
had had to be reduced. I will start with the specific, I would
like to know if that is true, but is this a particular problem
with this Department, that it seems when one thing goes wrong
what some of us would see as a pretty important part and a symbolic
statement of the sort of things we do in a rural area immediately
just gets left off the edge?
Sir Brian Bender: Perhaps Mr Elliott
can respond.
Mr Elliott: It is true that the
Countryside Agency has had to prioritise its expenditure within
the budget we have given it for the year and one of their decisions
was to scale back on Vital Villages by, I think, 2—£3
million for this year. The Countryside Rights of Way Act expenditure
is clearly a high priority. None of us is happy that Vital Villages
had to be scaled back but it is a continuing programme so it may
be possible to catch up, as it were, next year.
Q66 Mr Drew: That takes me into PSAs
and I suppose the targeting of the Department. If I could start
with just a general observation. I ask that question with a purpose
and that is that looking at the PSAs they do not seem to pick
up very coherently much to do with rural issues. There is a lot
of stuff on agriculture, quite a number of environmental targets
to meet the PSAs, but the rural domain does seem to be rather
left out. I suppose the argument is, "Well, we've given a
clear steer to the Countryside Agency and in their annual report
they will approve this," so you have got the tag "rural
affairs" as part of the Ministry and I just wonder—
Sir Brian Bender: I am sorry,
I did not mean to interrupt. We have a Public Service Agreement
target on rural affairs, which is target number 4, which relates
both to rural productivity, to improve economic conditions in
the poorest performing areas, the least well performing quartile
of rural areas, and also the other half of that same target is
about rural services. So that is intended to address the rural
dimension. Whether that is the right target, whether it is a perfect
one, we will be working on in the context of the next Spending
Review.
Q67 Mr Drew: So I suppose the issue
there would be to what extent are the PSA targets helping you
manage the Department in a way different to that which you used
to and is this an evolving process so that when people like myself
say we do not think the rural issue is being correctly highlighted
and that that ought to be beefed up in terms of a clearer PSA
and targets which follow from it you can respond to that?
Sir Brian Bender: The first thing
I would say is that I certainly would not pretend that the PSAs
cover the activities of the Department. We do not have a PSA target
on fisheries and we do not have a PSA target on Water, both of
which are very important parts of the Department. So they are
a selection of our activities but are certainly priorities but
not the only priorities. That is a discussion we have had with
the Treasury and that as a matter of logic and fact they have
to accept. However, they do identify priorities and the way we
tackle them, as I tried to say earlier, was through them having
delivery plans for the way we will make these things happen. So
there is a delivery plan for the target on rural productivity,
the sub-target on rural productivity and the sub-target on rural
services, and there are particular elements of the second of those
in relation to things like rural transport, rural education and
so on, which we then discuss and put pressure on the department
primarily responsible in those areas for making it happen. Of
course we need to respond then to what it is like out there, whether
through elected representatives or other means coming back. So
the target is not the only thing but it is a guide and a way in
which the Department is accountable.
Q68 Mr Drew: So those areas which
do not have PSAs in place at the moment, is that because they
are too difficult to assign PSAs to or is this something you will
be moving to in due course so we can expect to see a PSA for water,
and I know Austin would love to see a PSA for fisheries?
Sir Brian Bender: The guidance
from the Treasury in the last Spending Review was that departments
should not have more than ten PSA targets. We have a set of objectives
and water and fisheries and other activities that members of the
Committee may identify which are not picked out in targets are
part of our objectives. Therefore, we are not going to stop activity
on fisheries simply because we do not have a PSA target on it.
But the targets are the ones which in the course of the Spending
Review discussions are identified as particular priorities worth
picking out. Now, this is an imperfect process but do we attach
importance to the other areas? Yes. Do we have arrangements in
place and performance indicators? We do. For example, in the area
of Flood and Coastal Defence we do not have a PSA target, we have
a Service Delivery Agreement target and I think we are about to
publish on our website a summary of our delivery plan to achieve
it. I think I have probably said all I can at this stage.
Q69 Mr Drew: I suppose again from
what you have said, Sir Brian, there would be an issue of how
you communicate that within the Department?
Sir Brian Bender: Yes.
Q70 Mr Drew: So that people who may
not be working according to a PSA know that they are working to
a delivery target. But then you have got to try and communicate
that externally as well, not just to the Treasury but to people
who may be interested in why you have chosen these PSAs to target
activity and not others?
Sir Brian Bender: I agree entirely.
Q71 Mr Drew: Is that just something
that you take as part of the day job or is this something where
you have to steel yourself to come before people like ourselves
to try and explain?
Sir Brian Bender: No, it is part
of the business planning process. If you take the area of floods
as an example—and we are about to bring that area together
with the Water directorate in the Department—the business
plan in that area will make it clear what it is they are trying
to achieve over the period ahead and the senior management of
that part of the Department is responsible for ensuring it happens,
and they know that. So it is part of the day job in the way you
put the question.
Q72 Mr Drew: The final question.
When you are actually moving between PSAs, which obviously you
do over time, how easy is that to manage in terms of staff accepting
that they have come to the end of one sphere of activity and they
are moving on to something else? Traditionally this is an area
where people have not necessarily moved that easily, partly because
of course you had a lot of offices in parts of the country where
people will tend to want to continue living. Is this something
which is causing you particular difficulties or is this something
which can easily be built in?
Sir Brian Bender: It is not easy
because essentially one may be dealing with well-motivated staff
to whom we are saying this is no longer a priority. In any business
planning process choices are being made and there will be parts
of the Department where in the current financial year activities
will be being run down in order to release resources for other
areas and motivating those staff and making it clear to them that
they have been doing a good job but this is less of a priority
is part of the job of management. So this is not an issue which
relates to PSAs specifically, it relates generally to how one
re-allocates resources in an organisation while keeping people
motivated and it comes back to some of the earlier questions about
qualities of management and leadership.
Q73 Paddy Tipping: You carried some
PSA targets through from the Spending Review 2000 that in a sense
you have inherited?
Sir Brian Bender: Yes.
Q74 Paddy Tipping: Could I just quiz
you on a couple of them. One is on air quality, where you say
there is "some slippage". I am ambivalent about this
because the Air Quality Expert Group's draft report on nitrogen
dioxide in the UK suggests that you are going to be a long way
off this target. What is your current thinking on this?
Sir Brian Bender: In most respects
we are moving in the right direction, so nearly all pollutants
have fallen in the last decade. I think the headline indicator
for 2002 does show a continued long-term downward trend but there
are some (of which nitrogen dioxide is one) where there are problems
and that is addressed in these delightful words "some slippage"
in the Departmental Report. We are now at the stage where we are
actually considering and discussing within Government what can
be done about it and there are a number of different areas. There
is the review of the 10 year transport plan and what role can
that play, and this is the target which is jointly owned with
the Department for Transport. There is the review of the climate
change programme. There are issues around EU and international
negotiations and there is a review of the Air Quality Strategy
itself. So in those various fora and in those discussions we are
looking at what other policy instruments we might bring to bear
to try and get it better on track.
Q75 Paddy Tipping: One of the Chairman's
initial points was that some of the targets are not entirely in
your gift, as it were, that you have got to work across Government?
Sir Brian Bender: Yes. I am not
sure I would say there are any which are entirely in our gift
in the sense that we sort of snap our fingers and they happen,
but there are some which are more directly our responsibility.
Most of them either involve some sharing in some way across Government
or actually involve some delivery through bodies which are not
Defra. I suppose the only one which is almost entirely in our
control is the one on the Rural Payments Agency, the unit cost
of administering the CAP. We have discussed earlier the risks
associated with that. But all the targets involve other players
and indeed we recently prepared a table which I sent round to
other departments to alert them to the areas where we were looking
to them to help support the delivery of our PSA targets.
Q76 Paddy Tipping: Yes. Let us talk
about one which again is shared but which you are the lead player
on, which is waste and the target of 17% for recycling or composting
by next year. You say you are on course for that target. Are you
going to meet it?
Sir Brian Bender: Challenging.
Q77 Paddy Tipping: Yes, I think so.
Sir Brian Bender: Very challenging.
The latest data for 2001/2 says we are at 12.4% in that year.
Since then we have published the Government's response to the
Strategy Unit report, which has a number of proposed policy instruments.
We have got the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill going through
Parliament at the moment. The Chancellor has announced the changes
to the landfill tax and we are going to be reviewing in September
or October what impact we think those changes are having through
some of the sort of economic analyses the Chairman was asking
about earlier, what effect those are having on the predictions.
My brief uses the phrase "The targets through to 05/06 remain
within reach though very challenging."
Q78 Paddy Tipping: So I think it
is a no, you are not going to meet it?
Sir Brian Bender: No, I would
not say that. The intermediate milestone is 15% for 2002/3. We
will have the early results available, I think later this month,
and we will have a better idea at that stage. It is not impossible.
It is an important area, not only for the recycling shorter term
but for the Landfill Directive target for 2010.
Q79 Mr Jack: A quick question on
air quality. I was intrigued by the comment you made a moment
ago on the fact that you were going to do some economic analyses
in these areas. Would you be including in that economic analysis
any valuation of the factors which have yet to see a serious uptake,
for example the production of bio-diesel and bio-ethynol in this
country, because clearly they would make their contribution to
your air quality targets but there are some barriers to their
universal adoption? The agricultural community has made that clear.
So what is Defra's economic analysis, or if it is not available
when will you publish it?
Sir Brian Bender: The direct answer
to that, which is not a very helpful one, is that the Department
for Transport, as their part of the shared target, would do the
analysis of the impact they would expect bio-diesel to make. I
cannot answer as to where we have got to on that.
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