Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
14 DECEMBER 2004
MR TREWIN
RESTORICK AND
MS ALEXANDRA
WOODSWORTH
Q180 Chairman: How does the government
do that?
Mr Restorick: By being more explicit
about what it means and would like to see in terms of policy and
change. We heard about climate change and the fact that people
are seriously concerned about it. We know that we have to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. People understand that when it is put
in those basic terms. They also understand that by doing that
there are financial and social implications. They start to work
through those things but by being explicit, by saying, "We
cannot continue to consume carbon dioxide at the rate we are",
people understand that. People understand that there is a limited
amount of holes in the ground we can continue to put our waste
in. They understand the financial implications of transporting
it further and the social implications of having a landfill in
your nearby area and the social implications of incineration.
People make the connections if they are given a specific issue
to concentrate on. People understand about finite water resources.
People understand about fair trade issues but you have to be specific.
The trouble with education for sustainable development is that
it is so nebulous and it is in the interests of quite a large
number of players to make sure that it maintains its nebulous
status so that they can slap the title on the many things that
they do and feel that they have addressed it.
Q181 Mr Challen: Can I ask about your
magazine, Ergo, which I think was fairly recently launched
and whether you have done any leadership research to see whether
you are hitting the new audiences that clearly it is designed
for?
Mr Restorick: It has had more
relaunches than the government. It is reaching the 18 to 30 age
group predominantly and it is reaching predominantly women in
the 18 to 30 age group. All the research that we have seen on
environmental issues shows that that is one of the hardest target
groups to hit. We feel it is hitting a new audience. We have evidence
that people buying it are shifting some of their purchasing habits
towards things like green energy. To really embed long term behaviour
change, we still feel that you need people to participate in social
groups and to get more positive feedback but in terms of people
who are already on that road or people who are looking for something
to get them enthused and engaged and to hit that broad base, that
magazine has enormous potential. You just have to look at the
way that many companies now, particularly the bigger companies,
are looking to keep the loyalty of their customers, people like
Vodaphone and Orange. They are using magazines that they are producing
to get the messages across that they want to in a very subtle
way, to make sure that people that Orange stands for these certain
brand values. If we are truly going to hit the mainstream with
messages about environmental and social change, we have to start
using the methodologies that have proven successful for many international
companies.
Q182 Mr Challen: We heard from Groundwork
last week that they think there is a lack of leadership in DfES.
Does that reflect your view?
Mr Restorick: I think this Committee
did a marvellous job to get DfES to produce an action plan. The
action plan was produced in response to this Committee. There
is no commitment at all, I believe, within DfES civil servants
on this issue. They are being cajoled by their Minister. The Minister
has set views at the moment about the way to respond to it and
the way he feels they should respond to it is through the creation
of a website. The website is being developed. The consultation
on the website is being done in a very poor manner and if I was
being cynical I would say it is being done in a way so that DfES
can come back to this Committee and say, "We are doing this
and we are doing it in consultation with other people."
Q183 Mr Challen: Apart from resources,
what do you think could be done to get some concrete results?
You have criticised DfES and the action plan for delivering only
limited concrete resources.
Mr Restorick: I am in danger of
playing buzzword bingo and picking out certain words that we have
heard a lot. There is a big question about leadership and desire
here. I do not think DfES have the desire to deal with this particular
issue. The mantra that is coming out of DfES civil servants when
I speak to them is that they want to push the resource down to
the schools for the schools to make the decisions about what they
want to spend their budget on. It does not correspond with what
is happening on things like sport. What DfES do not seem to be
willing to take a leadership role on and an understanding of is
that, if schools get to the stage where they decide they want
to embrace this agenda and they need support to do it, they need
an infrastructure that can provide them with that support. They
need localised, specific, thought through support. DfES are avoiding
that whole particular part of the need to promote environmental
education in schools. They are not willing to put any investment
in at all, not just resource but also intellectual thinking, support
and guidance into the infrastructure that will enable schools
at all levels to take the lead in this.
Q184 Mr Challen: On top of all that,
you mourn the loss of the landfill tax credit and say it is particularly
damaging to the voluntary sector and it is going to lead to a
reduction in your own work capacity, as I understand it. How much
funding did you receive from this source in the action for schools
programme?
Mr Restorick: In the last year
we received around 300,000 for schools work and we worked out
as best we can, having talked to the rest of the sector, that
the total funding is probably in the region of at least nine million.
That has gone.
Q185 Mr Challen: In terms of your own
programme, have you identified any replacement moneys and, in
the wider scheme of things and the nine million, have other voluntary
organisations, NGOs etc, been able to see new options emerging?
Mr Restorick: We have scoured
high and low, as have most of the other organisations we talk
to. We have managed to pick up a pittance from some charitable
trusts and local authorities and some companies. There is no large
source of funding to replace it. There is a new lottery fund aimed
at young people and you could, at a really tight squeeze, get
environmental education into that, but that is the only source.
Q186 Mr Challen: What has the government's
response been to this? You have obviously made them aware of your
concerns.
Mr Restorick: Yes. It has been
a fantastic game of pass the parcel. The fact that DfES have taken
a lead on this particular issue has been a great opportunity for
Defra to throw the ball to them and say, "You run with it."
Defra have therefore taken out the environmental education aspect
and the environmental action fund, which is one of the few grants
that are available to environmental education. DfES have not caught
the ball, basically. They have been highly specific in saying
that they will not put more resources into these areas. They have
been specific in what they wrote in the action plan and in conversations.
Q187 Mr Ainsworth: You obviously do not
feel the need to be polite to the government any more, judging
from your remarks this afternoon. Within the context of the informal
learning agenda, we had a question on that and your answer was
quite interesting because you picked up on the Carbon Trust scheme
to tackle climate change. You appear to be critical of it because
it was focusing on technological solutions rather than training
to change behaviour. Surely, if the net result is that businesses
reduce their climate change emissions, that is okay, is it not?
Mr Restorick: It is okay to a
point. If you get businesses to make changes which reduce their
direct emissions, that is absolutely fantastic. That frees up
more resources for other things. If people within the business
do not understand the big picture, it may well be that they are
making certain carbon savings on their direct emissions but their
indirect emissions are increasing because they have not understood
the whole importance of reducing carbon dioxide across the wider
remit. Technological changes are great but we are getting more
and more companies coming to us saying, "We have done the
technical fixes. We have the most elaborate boiler system in the
world. The caretaker or the facilities manager does not know how
to use it" or people have the air conditioning on and the
windows open, even though the technology is there, because they
do not know how to use it. You have to have a parallel process
and we are very concerned that the social learning aspects in
schemes like the Carbon Trust and WRAP, the Waste Recovery Action
Programme, are not there. I am not saying do not do it; you need
both.
Q188 Mr Ainsworth: Obviously you need
to have people who are trained to use the kit but do you not think
there is a case for saying that technological development is capable
of driving behaviour change, partly because people like new gadgets
and if they are cheaper to operate they are going to install them?
Mr Restorick: Partly, I agree,
but I have also been to too many businesses where they have the
latest technology and it is too complicated for them to use in
an efficient way. They have not learned how to use it. There is
a definite role for it but I do not think it is the only answer.
Q189 Mr Ainsworth: What do you think
are some of the most interesting examples of informal learning
and training in this field?
Mr Restorick: You have to look
at where the successes have been. Taking it in a very broad way,
the successes have been on things like fair trade and the whole
organic food market. The growth in those areas has been absolutely
significant. Why is that? Because of the very close links back
to personal wellbeing and health. There is quite a lot of very
well backed celebrity engagement on things like the trade issues,
for example. There have been very coordinated, successful campaigns
at a variety of levels by partnerships with groups like Oxfam
and Christian Aid, backed up by people like Bono and U2, giving
a credible edge. There are successes in certain areas.
Q190 Mr Ainsworth: Does this suggest
that the Third World development NGOs are just better, better
organised and more able to capture public opinion than some of
the environmental NGOs?
Mr Restorick: Personally, I think
so. It sounds terrible but I think they are more willing to work
constructively together.
Q191 Mr Thomas: Turning to the government's
own action on this, you are very critical in the evidence you
have given to the Committee of the continuing use by Defra in
particular of information campaigns. You say that Defra's own
review of sustainability and communications demonstrated that
those campaigns were not working to a change to more sustainable
behaviour. You single out WRAP Recycle Now as an example of this.
Do you know what the thinking was behind that? Was it that Defra's
own communications review did not happen in time to stop a campaign
like the WRAP campaign happening or was it that Defra just carries
on with its campaigns regardless of what their internal reviews
tell them anyway?
Mr Restorick: It has been fascinating.
I have met the head of communications at WRAP with whom I had
quite an interesting meeting. I also spoke with the sustainable
development unit at Defra and I have had meetings with Margaret
Beckett's adviser, Stephen, on this very issue. The message coming
from Defra centrally is a recognition that these sorts of campaigns
do not work. That recognition has now come to the extent that
the new sustainable development strategy, when it comes out in
March, has an entire chapter about behaviour change and how to
facilitate it, which has been done by Surrey University. When
I went to see the head of communications at WRAP questioning why
this campaign happened, I was not very popular at the meeting
and I brought all the evidence from this Committee in the past
and the evidence that Defra had through their review of communications
for sustainable development. There was a total lack of awareness
of that work happening. I think Defra's agencies operate fairly
freely in terms of what they try and do.
Q192 Mr Thomas: There is a lack of strategy?
Mr Restorick: Yes. All the reasoning
behind the campaign I had heard four or five times before, the
"Are you doing your bit?" climate change campaign, the
energy efficiency campaigns. The message is all the same. The
question about how they would measure has a fairly poor answer
in terms of behaviour change, as far as I can see. There was a
total belief that that campaign was going to achieve its objectives.
It might well do.
Q193 Mr Thomas: We will wait and see
but you are sceptical obviously. You mentioned that Defra will
be concentrating more thoroughly on behaviour change in their
next work. Have you had any liaison with DfES on this as to whether
they are being more innovative or will be more innovative now
they have environmental education as part of their remit?
Mr Restorick: There is a radical
difference. We finally persuaded Defra to do our eco team programme
with their employees which is a big and very positive step forward
because there is an understanding in Defra that you have to a
bit cuter about your information in campaigns.
The conversations I have had with DfES have
been at a much lower level within the civil servants at DfES and
they are incredibly defensive on this subject. I would not even
get close to having a similar sort of discussion.
Q194 Mr Thomas: Is that because the drawbridges
are up and you just cannot get to the level where you need to
be to have those sort of discussions?
Mr Restorick: Yes.
Q195 Mr Thomas: What about at the more
local or regional level? Again, you refer to a lack of coherence
in the government's efforts here at a local and regional level.
As we have discussed Wales, let us look at England and the Regional
Development Agencies. How are they committed to education for
sustainable development? Are there any examples of a Regional
Development Agency that has taken this on board thoroughly and
integrated it or are they all just as bad as each other?
Mr Restorick: I think the north
east has done quite a lot practically and the north west has done
a lot theoretically.
Q196 Chairman: What about the West Midlands?
Mr Restorick: We have not had
many dealings with the West Midlands so I cannot really comment.
We have had more dealings with the south west. It has not been
so positive. The overwhelming impression I get from all the RDAs
that I speak to, again at not a very senior level, is that financial
imperative overwhelms anything else.
Q197 Mr Thomas: All the RDAs are working
to the same establishment, if you like. They are set up by the
government in the same way. The only difference should be geographical,
not in terms of what they are trying to achieve. There might be
different priorities in a geographical area but in terms of an
approach to education for sustainable development it should either
be there or not. Does it not go back to the government?
Mr Restorick: No. I think it comes
back to the problem in terms of sustainable development which
has environmental, financial and social. Some of what we would
consider to be the more enlightened RDAs see environment as being
perhaps not on an equal footing but more important than some of
the other RDA work. You can say you will do what you like on those
three things but when you get down to decisions it is the financial
driver, the economic development of a region, that overpowers
in most of the RDAs.
Q198 Mr Thomas: What about the funding
specifically for advancing the cause of education for sustainable
development within the RDAs? Is there any funding scheme available
in any of the RDAs at the moment?
Mr Restorick: The only direct
experience I have had on that is that in the south west we ran
a partnership project with the Environment Agency, Groundwork
and two other environmental organisations to encourage small and
medium sized enterprises to be more competitive through better
environmental performance. We get funding from the Objective 2
regional development fund and European fund which we have to match.
Previously we matched it with landfill tax funding. We have now
lost that and we have been to the RDA to ask them to match it.
We have had absolutely no joy at all in getting the match funding.
That has jeopardised the entire project.
Q199 Chairman: Does that mean you have
lost the European funding?
Mr Restorick: We have a decision
to make in April, because the first three years ended in March,
about whether we as an organisation take the risk and say yes,
we will take European money, knowing that if we do not get the
match for it we will have to return whatever percentage we do
not match. We are in a financially precarious position anyway,
so it is probably a risk we will not be able to stand.
| 
