Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)
16 MARCH 2005
MS JILL
RUTTER, MR
BOB ANDREW
AND DR
ANDY DAVEY
Q260 Chairman: When was the survey you
referred to undertaken?
Dr Davey: 2003. We can provide
the reference source[1].
Q261 Mr Chaytor: On the question of EU
leadership, you say by 2009 you want to be a leader but not necessarily
the leader. Do we know who the leader is at the moment and how
do you define being a leader? There are only 25 countries in the
EU so anybody presumably in the top eight can have a reason to
claim to be a leader. It seems to be a fairly vague objective,
wanting to be a leader.
Ms Rutter: At the moment, the
perceived leaders are the Scandinavian countries and we will be
clearer about that when we see the results of this detailed benchmarking
exercise. I would have thought a reasonable estimate would be
at least top quartile in the EU. You would have to look at the
distribution as well. It is a bit difficult to say we want to
be the leader because that gets you into some competitive thing
and this is very much giving a sense of direction of where we
want to go. There is a similar aspiration in the EU that all countries
are up at what is now average, so we need to move beyond that.
We do not want the UK to just be average so that is how our Secretary
of State has chosen to specify this objective.
Q262 Chairman: From where we are at the
moment, it sounds as though average would be quite good.
Dr Davey: The EU study inspired
the principle of bench marking, setting targets and trying to
drive forward performance across the EU, but I do not think the
approach was sufficiently robust in order to set meaningful targets
which is why we started a programme of work with the European
Commission to set more robust, reliable bench marking and targets
within that.
Ms Rutter: The leaders at the
moment, according to this study to be sourced, are Denmark and
Sweden at around 40% and 50% respectively. The UK is at 22% and
the EU average is 19% so we are slightly above the average. The
idea is that the average goes up and the UK should go into the
top division. We may not yet be Chelsea but we will certainly
be premiership rather than whatever they call the first division
now.
Q263 Mr Chaytor: Are there any obvious
reasons why Denmark and Sweden are up there? It does not come
as a surprise to many of us but are there any obvious lessons
that we should be drawing as of now? Are there particular models
of good practice that could be easily transported to the United
Kingdom?
Ms Rutter: I would say where they
lead is on buildings. Their buildings standards are significantly
higher than ours.
Q264 Mr Chaytor: You mean in terms of
energy efficiency or sustainable materials or both?
Ms Rutter: Recycling.
Q265 Mr Chaytor: This is the surprising
thing to most of us. This is not rocket science. For donkeys'
years everybody has known that Denmark, Sweden, sometimes Norway
and Germany have done far more than we have in terms of recycling,
energy efficiency, use of sustainable materials. Why does it take
so long? When the light finally dawns, why do we have to construct
a framework and then why does the framework suggest a strategy
and then why does the strategy not suggest the action plan? It
seems an incredible bureaucratic prolongation of the agony to
get it to the point that everybody knew we should have been at
20 years ago.
Ms Rutter: There is no barrier.
Nobody is having to wait. Every permanent secretary who went to
that meeting and said, "Yes, this is very helpful and very
good", is now going to have to publish their own sustainable
procurement strategy. There is no barrier. We are not telling
people they have to wait for these. We hope this will add value
and give further impetus. I would say very much that we should
be putting in the recommendations so that the laggards are pulled
up but there seem to be some barriers to doing this so it is quite
important to have a systematic look across the piece. As we said,
redundancy is perfect. If we are doing so well that we do not
need this that is great. It would be very reassuring that it was
just that we did not have the information collected in one place
well enough.
Q266 Mr Chaytor: In terms of your relationship
with the OGC how do you characterise this because both the department
and the OGC have a responsibility for leadership here? What is
the nature of the relationship? Are you the providers of the expertise?
Are you there to prod them along? Do you feel they are recalcitrant?
If not, why have they not been doing it already? Can you say a
word about how the relationship works and what mechanism there
is between Defra and the OGC to drive this forward?
Dr Davey: A simple split in the
responsibility if you like is that the OGC shows how it can be
done and Defra identifies what standards there should be.
Q267 Mr Chaytor: Who is responsible for
the quick win list?
Dr Davey: Defra identified the
quick win product standards.
Ms Rutter: It is on an OGC website
because that is where people will go to get that information.
Procurement professionals do not come to Defra. There has been
a slightly different division of responsibility in the areas of
food and timber in the work that Bob has been doing.
Mr Andrew: In my experience with
timber, as this committee will remember from a few years ago,
we probably took longer than we should have done to implement
and achieve what we have done now because we did not project manage
it properly, so the plans that we have now for sustainable procurement
generally have taken a lesson from that particular experience,
on food in particular, in that where we have had a better project
managed initiative progress has been more rapid.
Q268 Joan Walley: In terms of the changes
you have made to project management are you sure that we would
not end up with non-sustainable timber being procured for the
doors of the Cabinet Office any more?
Mr Andrew: We are confident that
with the system in place now government buyers should have enough
information and direction and guidance to be able to source legal
timber as a minimum. We have a system where there is an option
for suppliers to provide sustainable timber if they can in recognition
that it is sometimes not that easy to acquire. We are addressing
the same issue with food assurance. We are trying to raise the
standards of food production and specify that in contracts. The
latest information we have from the Sustainable Development
in Government report indicates that there has been quite a
significant increase in the volume of certified products being
purchased by central departments and there is some anecdotal evidence
from the timber trade, from local authorities and from various
actors and players in the market that the government initiative
has had quite a significant effect and the Timber Trade Federation
are now developing their own responsible purchasing policy in
response to that, so it has had a positive effect over time but
we think we possibly could have done it more quickly if we had
project managed it better in the first place.
Q269 Sue Doughty: First a quick query
about timber. At the moment we seem to have moved into the legal,
which is progress, but we cannot guarantee that we are into the
sustainable yet. We will get sustainable timber when we can. What
are the barriers to getting sustainable timber? Is it that somebody
is specifying non-sustainable timber and, if so, why?
Mr Andrew: There are not that
many barriers for the majority of timber that central government
purchases. Most of the timber that we purchase will be from northern
boreal forests where certification, governance and so forth is
quite good. The barriers will be where we need to buy hardwood
from the tropics where there is very little certified timber and
it is quite difficult to get that. If the Environment Agency want
to buy greenheart to do coastal protection or river protection
or something like that because that is the only species that they
have identified would be sufficient, it is quite difficult to
get that timber certified as sustainable. It may even be difficult
to get it with evidence of legality but that is a minimum requirement
so we have to assume that our suppliers are able to comply with
that.
Q270 Mr Chaytor: I am still slightly
unclear about the distinction between your role and the OGC's
because you clearly have the expertise in timber and in food,
but if I am a procurement officer in another government department
presumably I come to you in the first instance. There is no point
going to the OGC website if I want to know about timber and I
want to avoid Greenpeace camping outside my department when I
am replacing all the internal doors.
Mr Andrew: Yes. It is a sustainable
development government website which we hope to change into a
central point of expertise website in the not too distant future.
Q271 Mr Chaytor: I have had a good look
at two websites. I have got the quick wins website which is the
OGC website and I have got the SDIG website which is the Defra
website.
Mr Andrew: That is true at the
moment, yes.
Q272 Chairman: Is that not confusing?
Mr Andrew: We have the quick wins
on the Defra website too.
Chairman: Can you not rationalise it?
Q273 Mr Chaytor: Are there any more websites?
We are talking about these two websites. Part of the evidence
we have had from previous witnesses is that the cultural change
needs to reach deep down into organisations to the procurement
officers who are doing the day-to-day work. It is fine to have
the overarching strategy but unless the people doing the job and
filling out the order forms are fully au fait it will not
work, and surely it needs to be made as clear and simple as possible
and there needs to be one source of advice they can go to for
almost everything.
Ms Rutter: We would absolutely
agree with that. One of the issues on sustainable development
is that there is some wider social dimension and quite a lot of
government departments currently are working with the OGC on guidance
on some of those social dimensions as well which the Environment
Agency gave evidence would be useful to have brigaded together.
One of the key things we want to be looking at and one of the
barriers in the work that the Green Alliance is doing is about
why it does not happen is that people do not know where to go
for the information and it would be easier if they had one place
that was very obvious. That would be a quick win we could make,
rationalising where the advice is. What the incentives are is
another important issue, whether procurement officials on the
front line feel empowered to make decisions about choosing more
sustainable options and whether they are skilled to do it. Some
of those barriers are the ones that we need to address and, as
you rightly say, there are quite important cultural issues about
environmental procurement and officials saying, "What do
I think my job is?". I may have perceived that my job is
to get what is in a sense the least cost deal for the department
and I can always justify that. Anything more sophisticated than
that makes me more vulnerable. I had a very interesting conversation
on Monday with somebody who is trying to persuade the Fire Brigade
in Nottingham to change to more of a prevention approach. He said
that people who join the Fire Brigade join because they want to
put out fires, so saying to them, "We will have fewer fires
if we invest more in prevention strategies" is not why they
joined the Fire Brigade and it is that sort of mindset shift that
you need to get, that the safe option is the cheap option. The
sustainable option is the best value for money option in the long
run but it takes a degree of courage and empowerment to feel comfortable
in going for that. How do we get that information to people? How
do we make them feel they can make those choices and how do we
incentivise them to say, "We will rate you better if you
do it like that" is an important set of issues that we need
to be addressing now.
Q274 Mr Chaytor: As things stand now
how do you inform or influence other departments or have we just
got to wait for the action plan, the Green Alliance report, before
we can move forward? Is there a regular bulletin or newsletter
or circular or is it informal, word of mouth, somebody rings up
as and when? Is there any regular structure of communication between
Defra and other departments to inform them about the benefits
and mechanisms of improving the sustainability framework?
Ms Rutter: When we produce things
like publishing the new procurement section to the government
that goes round both the sustainable development officials group
and the estates managers group, so we have various ways to access
people so that we keep them informed. People throughout Whitehall
know very well Defra's activities on timber and food so would
know to come to Bob and colleagues on that. One of the issues
we have had about the creation of a website is, "We will
build a website but will they come?". It is necessary but
is it sufficient to get them to go? That is one of the issues
we have to look at, how do we best communicate? At a time when
people are being bombarded with quite a lot of guidance why should
they look at your guidance?
Q275 Mr Chaytor: People will look at
the most authoritative guidance.
Ms Rutter: Yes, and that is why
we need Defra and OGC on this set of issues to work very closely
together. There must be a sense of competition between the two
of us.
Q276 Mr Chaytor: Do you have responsibility
for tracking how departments are performing? Do you know how departments
are performing, particularly on the question of risk assessment,
because I understand one of the issues in the SDIG questionnaire
was this question of carrying out risk assessment and it seems
to be a very variable practice between departments.
Ms Rutter: All departments will
have to cover risk assessment in their sustainable procurement
strategy and how they go about it. What we did for the first time
this year was ask independent consultants to audit how they thought
the government was doing, to look at the information that departments
are supplying, and that is something that we think added quite
a lot of value so, rather than us sitting and assessing it, we
will do that and play those results back to departments. When
they have explicit policy statements we will be looking at benchmarking
from that what is best practice. What we want to do in the first
place is to get advice on how to do that to make sure that they
are embedding best practice. The Environment Agency can help on
environmental risk assessment.
Mr Andrew: We also would look
to use the regional centres of excellence that are being created
for local authorities and I believe there are similar collaborative
arrangements for central government to pursue these policies and
strategies.
Q277 Chairman: Can I just come back to
where people go to look for information? It seems to an outsider
such a straightforward quick win to obtain because, as you say,
a single source of information would be a real help for people
and much less confusing. The problem is that this is not new.
I am going back to the Sustainable Procurement Group January 2003
report which recommended that there should be a single website
of sustainable procurement by the autumn of 2003 so, far from
being a quick win, you are already 18 months behind and you have
not one. What is the reason for the delay? Why is that so hard?
Dr Davey: OGC Buying Solutions,
in response to that recommendation, developed a pilot website
called `sustainable solutions'. I understand that that website
began with listing the 27 quick win product categories by describing
what the specification was so that any procurer could essentially
`cut and paste' the specification into any contracts they were
letting over the forthcoming period, but also added links to where
they could buy those products immediately off OGC Buying Solutions'
catalogues or elsewhere from other government catalogues. I am
not sure when that website was first developed but that has been
in place for some time. I understand that now it is part of their
commitment in the Sustainable Development Strategy that they are
looking to roll that out beyond the 27 quick wins to provide a
central source or information portal.
Ms Rutter: The advice is all drawn
together in the joint note on environmental in purchasing which
was published in October 2003 and which gives you a series of
other places to look, but that is a comprehensive note on what
you can and in a sense cannot do as well on embedding environmental
considerations. A lot of the comments we have had from people
at various workshops such as those organised by the Sustainable
Development Commission or at conferences on procurement have said
that people know there is a lot of advice there. How to make sense
of the advice and rationalising, how to make this more usable
to people is a key issue going forward. Whether people find it
too difficult to find I do not know because I personally have
not had to do that. There is also quite a separate issue which
was certainly a big issue when I worked at BP where people were
very concerned to put everybody through the key suppliers. There
is also quite a lot of concern that in a lot of government departments,
for quite sensible reasons, people do not always go through central
procurement to procure. Sometimes it is easier just to nip off
down to Rymans or whatever. Do you need to deal with the nipping
off to Rymans culture? It is quite difficult to do that and that
very often may be the easiest route and why we under-perform vis-a"-vis
getting at the procurement process. The other thing is getting
to the whole department.
Q278 Mr Chaytor: Is there a paragraph
in the guidance about nipping off to Rymans?
Ms Rutter: I am just looking at
it to see if there is anything like, "For God's sake do not
do that".
Q279 Mr Chaytor: Is that a Defra document?
Ms Rutter: No. This is the OGC's.
I think we supplied it to the committee earlier. It is the joint
note issued in October 2003 by Paul Boateng and Margaret Beckett,
jointly issued by the Office of Government Commerce and the Department
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on environment issues
in purchasing. There was another SPG recommendation which is still
in a follow-up phase, which was to deliver a parallel joint note
on social issues in purchasing and that is going to be coming
out some time later this year. This gives you clear guidance on
what you can and cannot do. This is one of the areas where we
have to look very much to OGC guidance on what is compatible with
EU procurement directives. You have had earlier evidence on some
of the constraints that they may impose because it is very important
that we procure legally as part of sustainable procurement.
1 Survey on the state of play of green public procurement
in the EU-Final Report The International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives, July 2003. Back
| 
