Examination of Witnesses (Questions 202-219)
11 JANUARY 2005
MS BRONWEN
JONES, MS
KELLY FREEMAN
AND MR
BOB RYDER
Q202 Chairman: Good afternoon. I would
like to welcome you to our Select Sub-Committee this afternoon,
and thank you for taking the trouble to come along. To go straight
into the series of questions we have for you, one of the things
that we did want to establish for the record, before we begin
to discuss the detailed questions that we have for you, was to
confirm that the memo we have from the DfES, to which you have
contributed?
Ms Jones: Yes.
Q203 Chairman: In terms of Defra it stands
alone as the Government's response? I want to check that you agree
with all the points made in that memo because it seems, to us
at least, a bit odd, your taking such an important role in this
whole agenda. It is difficult for us to see how you contributed
to it. We wanted to confirm that you are happy with all the points
in that?
Ms Jones: Yes, we did make a contribution
to that and we are happy that it stands not just as a joint memorandum
from the DfES and Defra, but actually I understand from DfES colleagues
that it includes points made by other departments. So it is really
a government-wide response submitted by DfES on our behalf.
Q204 Chairman: One of the things that
we wanted to look at as well, in the memo that was submitted by
the DfES it said that Education for Sustainable Development is
"a good description for the enterprise of making people in
all sectors of education and skills `aware of how our actions
affect the people we interact with,'" and it goes on to say
that, "The DfES believes that most people today would acknowledge
the importance of this activity." Do you think that is right?
Do you think that is a little bit over optimistic or do you think
that that is where people are at or where the professionals are
at? How much currency do you think it has?
Ms Jones: I do not think Defra
can answer for the educational sector specifically because DfES
know their clients rather better than we do. But we lead on communications
for SD in general, and it is our experience that professionals
and practitioners understand the term Sustainable Development
and, by extension, the term Education for Sustainable Development.
But with the general public it has less resonance and the research
that we have commissioned recently certainly backs that up. So,
yes, it is understood by professionals and practitioners, but
for wider public communications Sustainable Development and ESD
are less useful terms. I do not know whether Kelly wants to add
to that?
Ms Freeman: I do not think so.
Q205 Chairman: Mr Ryder?
Mr Ryder: By extension there are
parallels with other forms of communication around sustainability
and I deal particularly with the theme of Sustainable Consumption
and Production, which perhaps trips even less easily off the tongue.
But Defra and the DTI have produced a policy framework and are
building a number of frameworks around that theme. We think it
is something which, again in very similar terms, can be understood
by practitioners, policy makers, opinion formers, but is not at
all suitable for general messages to the public, and in that case
one has to segment the audience to find what kind of behaviour
changes we want particular stakeholders to make and then to communicate
in those terms.
Q206 Chairman: Our dilemma is that if
so many people are unconvinced or do not recognise the importance
of this and are not, if you like, converted to understanding this,
what is Defra's role in helping to make them aware? It is very
difficult to see how Defra is carrying out that role.
Ms Jones: To clarify, we are talking
about the general public now or the education sector?
Q207 Chairman: We are talking about the
general public who are not convinced about the need for all of
this, who are not necessarily in the education system per se,
or who could be, and this split between DfES responsibility and
Defra's responsibility, who is actually responsible for it?
Ms Freeman: I can see where the
Committee is coming from. I think for our part, with Defra, there
is enough evidence that we have to suggest that people actually
understand environmental issues. The greater challenge for us
is getting them to focus on what behaviour change is required.
We have to educate all audiences and obviously young people are
very important within that, which is where we really cross specifically
to the work that the Committee is reviewing today. But on the
wider scale we know that we have to work harder and that is a
bigger challenge for us as a department. I can either pick up
now, or later on when you ask us about how we are getting the
message across, to tell you about where we are and how we are
going to move that on. How would you like to play that? Would
you like that now or later?
Q208 Chairman: It might be helpful to
have a brief overview of it now and we may well come on to that
in a bit.
Ms Freeman: I think from where
we are, we know that there are a number of national campaigns
that have been run that have focused specifically on raising awareness
but have not specifically translated into behaviour change, and
what we have tried to do over the last year to 18 months is to
step back a bit and look specifically at what are the drivers
for changing behaviour. How might we better plan our communications
to support that because we felt that we needed to stop and to
learn some lessons. So we have commissioned some research, which
has been received very well both across government and also within
the wider NGO communications groups and I think that will help
us to move forward.
Q209 Chairman: We may go into more detail
in a short while, but in terms of UK Sustainable Development Strategy
and the review that is taking place there, am I right in thinking
that Defra is part of the inter-departmental working group?
Ms Jones: Yes, Defra is leading
the review, although clearly Sustainable Development is a responsibility
right across government for all departments, but we have a particular
role to lead and champion it, so we are coordinating the review.
The inter-departmental working group was a temporary and informal
group involving Defra, DCMS and DfES, which met, I think, only
twice.
Q210 Chairman: Did that include then
the Sustainable Development Commission or not?
Ms Jones: I do not think it did
although they have seen a lot of the deliberations on the Strategy
Review, so if they were not formally in the meetings they were
certainly involved. The group only met twice and its remit was
to take the consultation responses and analyse them and generate
ideas and proposals and analysis for consideration in the review
of the Sustainable Development Strategy. The group has now closed
because they have completed that task.
Q211 Chairman: In terms of the membership
of the group, were there other organisations or government bodies
or agencies that you think could have been added to the debate
that was going on there? Was the inter-departmental working party
as comprehensive a group as it could have been?
Ms Jones: It was not that nature
of group. What they were doing was taking the consultation responses,
which included all of the groups that you might imagine would
have a view on this topic, and produce some analysis in order
for us to take the work forward. So I think maybe inter-departmental
working group is perhaps too grand a title and sounds a little
misleading; it was simply to analyse the results of consultation
because we did not want to do that purely in Defra, we wanted
other departments to feel part of that as well.
Q212 Chairman: With the benefit of hindsight
do you think that there were others that could have been included,
or was it as comprehensive a group of people as you could have
got around a table?
Ms Jones: Clearly there are other
people who could have been involved.
Q213 Chairman: Who do you think they
might have been?
Ms Jones: I cannot give you names
off the top of my head, I am sorry. But their input had already
been made, we felt, through the consultation exercise. So we had
a very wide range of views already and the task was to put those
into some kind of manageable summary so that departments and Ministers
could make sense of them, and that was the task.
Q214 Mr Thomas: Could I just ask on that,
what is happening now? The inter-departmental working group may
be a grandiose title, but if it has done its job and dealt with
the responses to the consultation how are you taking forward the
strategy now, because you are the lead obviously within Defra?
Ms Jones: Yes, there are inter-departmental
discussions.
Q215 Mr Thomas: Is that on an ad hoc
basis? It is not formalised as such? I am just trying to get a
grip on how it is happening.
Ms Jones: It depends what you
mean by formal.
Q216 Mr Thomas: Everything in government
is formal, I know!
Ms Jones: Okay, then it is formal.
It is being taken forward at various levels. There is a Programme
Board that is looking at various papers that are coming out as
part of the review strategy. That includes the Sustainable Development
Commission, the devolved administrations are involved, and that
will soon go for ministerial clearance.
Q217 Mr Thomas: So everything is coming
back to one department rather than going into an inter-departmental—
Ms Jones: No, this is an inter-departmental
process. Defra is leading and supporting it but other departments
are involved and it will be cleared by the Ministers through Cabinet
Committee.
Q218 Chairman: Just returning to the
Sustainable Development Strategy and the new strategy that is
being drawn up at the moment, from the work that you have done
so far do you think that Education for Sustainable Development
is going to be playing a greater part in what comes out of the
new strategy than the previous one?
Ms Jones: Yes, I think it is fair
to say that education has been raised by many consultation responses
and it will be a major theme. Education in its broadest sense,
that is, so including informal education, social learning and
behaviour change.
Q219 Chairman: If that is the case now
why was it not the case when the previous strategy was drawn up?
Ms Jones: I think anything I say
on that would be speculation. I was not in this post in 1999.
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