Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-111)
17 DECEMBER 2003
LORD HASKINS
AND MARCUS
NISBET
Q100 Paddy Tipping: The EA provides
a lot of policy advice to Defra, the overlap between Defra and
the EA sometimes appears to be interchangeable. Its primary role
is a regulator, but it is into some service delivery as well.
Do you think there is a case for somebody, maybe you, maybe not
you, to have a good look at the EA and its management structures?
Lord Haskins: There has been an
interesting relationship between the Environment Agency and British
Waterways, for example, which I did not get into. Really, it is
for you to ask the question and I would be interested to see the
outcome.
Q101 Ms Atherton: Lord Haskins, if
Defra were a child it would have just got to nursery, it is less
than three years old. Do you not think we have not really given
it a chance to toddle, let alone really be making strides, that
all your recommendations are just too early?
Lord Haskins: I think the Government's
position is that they recognised that in creating Defra it had
to look at the complex and varying delivery systems that Defra
was inheriting from different departments. That was the first
point, and I think that was right, for a new department. There
were a lot of different cultures, the old MAFF and the old DETR,
which had to be brought together, in terms of delivery. The second
point is, of course, that we had this massive CAP reform programme
underway, which requires Defra to be in a position to deliver
that.
Q102 Ms Atherton: There are two other
reviews going on, there is the Lyons Review[5]and
the Gershon Review[6]and
clearly they are all going to come together in some sort of great
conflict. How do you think they will impact on your recommendations?
and_legislation/lyons/consult_lyons _index.cfm
Lord Haskins: We spoke to Sir
Michael Lyons about our review and he felt that what we were suggesting
complemented very much what he was doing, and that we were doing
it for just one department, but, in fact, the whole tenor of what
we were suggesting was in line with his broad approach across
Whitehall.
Q103 Ms Atherton: Yes, but imagine
you are one of the 7,000 staff who have found themselves moved
from pillar to post, they are in Defra, there are these two other
reviews going on, there is your review and you are trying to do
your job and probably you have only just moved into the office
which has been allocated within Defra. The union are saying to
us, in their submission[7]that
they feel morale is really low among Defra staff. You have talked
about the senior staff being involved and engaged, but those in
the middle-ranking Civil Service and in the lower ranks of the
Civil Service, how are they feeling, how did you detect their
morale?
Lord Haskins: It depends. Large
numbers of Defra people already operate out in the regions and
we talked to people in the Rural Development Service, which is
a Defra service in the regions. People in the Government Offices
are in the regions but experience top-down control from the centre,
and they welcomed very much the idea of devolving and giving them
more responsibility. You are talking about people in Defra here
in London. My experience is that people know that change has got
to take place, and actually the worst thing that you can do is
to leave people with uncertainty. This is wrong. MAFF had been
under severe criticism, fair and unfair, much of it unfair, over
the last 10 years, and the idea was to help everybody to know
where they stand going forward. There are going to be painful
changes, but I have no doubt that in the process of decentralising
many people's jobs and careers will be much more satisfactory
than they are in this great big pile in the centre.
Q104 Ms Atherton: You mentioned top-down,
but would it not be fair to say that, in effect, what you have
done is come in and, from the top down, you are making recommendations?
Would you accept that as a criticism?
Lord Haskins: In a very large
organisation big decisions have to be made at the top, but obviously
they are made in close consultation with the people who are going
to be affected. I am satisfied that this process is going on,
and it is difficult. It is not just in Defra, it is right across
Whitehall. Once you have taken a big decision that "This
is the way we're going to go," you just have to persevere
and handle the problems patiently and sympathetically, and there
is nothing to fear but fear itself. If people know where they
stand, they are much, much happier than if they are left dangling
in the air.
Q105 Mr Lazarowicz: What is the likely
timescale over which you could see the recommendations being implemented,
insofar as organisational change is concerned, not the legislative
change but the organisational change?
Lord Haskins: Putting aside the
legislative changes, my guess is, two years would be an achievable
target. The worry I have is getting IT in place to deal with these
changes, but I think that problem is going to be there whether
they accept my recommendations or not. The problem is in trying
to design IT systems for policies which are not entirely clear
yet. The agri-environmental schemes have not been defined, and
yet they are putting a lot of effort into developing IT systems
to deliver them, and it does trouble me a bit.
Q106 Mr Lazarowicz: Can you expand
upon that?
Lord Haskins: Usually, when you
are designing an IT system, the person you are designing it for
says, "That is exactly what I want," and the good IT
designer will not move until the customer has spelled out precisely
what is expected of the system. If you start off without having
a clear remit, you get into difficulties. I do not think Defra
had any alternative except to embark on this computerisation
process. It may be alright, but the worry is that the schemes
that they think are in the pipeline may not be what emerge in
practice. That is one of the reasons why Curry is testing the
entry-level scheme, and maybe enough will be learned from that
entry-level scheme to be sure of the IT specification. I am not
an IT expert, but I do worry about IT in Government, and I sympathise
with the people who have to apply it, because the schemes, compared
with the private sector, are enormous. Usually you are designing
something from scratch, you cannot go and buy an IT system for
an agri-environmental scheme off the shelf, and really it is a
big challenge for all Governments. That is why the French IT system
fell down completely.
Mr Lazarowicz: That is a question for
another day perhaps. Thank you.
Q107 Paddy Tipping: Can I ask about
urban biodiversity. There are people who think that you can have
biodiversity only in the countryside, but there are different
landscapes, different plant life and wildlife in the town. Under
your new plan, who would be responsible for this?
Lord Haskins: The new agency.
Q108 Paddy Tipping: It would be an
English Heritage legacy that is there?
Lord Haskins: Absolutely right,
yes.
Q109 Chairman: You have given us,
Defra and anybody else listening an enormous amount of further
food for thought, and certainly it has stimulated a very interesting
discussion. I take it, with your commitment to the new agency,
should the opportunity arise, you would volunteer to run it perhaps?
Lord Haskins: No, no. You can
rest assured, I shall not do that. I have passed this report over
and somebody else can do what they want with it.
Q110 Chairman: You might find yourself
on its management board. Nonetheless, I am grateful to you for
your observations. I think it would be helpful, in the light of
a comment you made, that some of the criticisms which have come
forward about what has happened have been perhaps ill-founded
simply because people did not understand sufficiently the totality
of what you were saying. When you reflect on our line of questioning,
if there are areas where you think that perhaps we could do with
a little more illumination of what you were saying, so that we
might get a better understanding, then certainly we would welcome
any further comments by way of a follow-up to what you have said?
Lord Haskins: Certainly I can
make some comments in response to what I have heard today.
Q111 Chairman: If you feel that there
are areas from the Committee's questioning where you think, "Um,
perhaps they don't quite understand what's what," or something
which needs to be teased out, I think we would all value an additional
piece of commentary?
Lord Haskins: I would be delighted
to do that.
Chairman: Can I thank both you and Mr
Nisbet for coming before us this afternoon. It has been a useful
exchange of views, and obviously we will look forward to Margaret
Beckett's response to it in due course. Thank you very much indeed.
5 HM Treasury, Independent Review of Public Sector
Relocation, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/consultations Back
6
HM Treasury, Review of Civil Procurement in Central Government,
April 1999. Back
7
Ev 44 Back
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