Examination of Witness (Questions 120-139)
9 NOVEMBER 2004
LORD HASKINS
Q120 Chairman: Let me ask two final questions
and then we will come to Michael. You mentioned the Forestry Commission
and said you understood the politics of this.
Lord Haskins: Half understood
them.
Q121 Chairman: I was hoping you might
throw a bit of light on this because I do not understand the politics
on this. Give us the inside track.
Lord Haskins: I do not know the
inside track either. All I know is that the Forestry Commission
is one of those great institutions in English society which is
sacred and you must not shake it too much. It was invented by
Lloyd George for a totally different purpose than it is used for
now and when it comes to it, and I do not make a big issue about
this by the way because the policy side of the Forestry Commission
has been brought into Defra, as I think it should be. On the delivery
side I am still not entirely clear why there is a special case
for having the Forestry Commission as a separate entity outside
the new Land Management Agency. I think I am niggling because,
by and large, I am surprised at how strongly the Government has
gone for the new Land Management Agency and I am delighted with
that.
Q122 Chairman: You also recommended that
the Countryside Agency should go full stop.
Lord Haskins: Again, the issue
I was concerned about with the Countryside Agency was the delivery
side. I was quite happy to see the policy advisory responsibility
of the Countryside Agency continue. The argument was whether that
was done through a revised Countryside Agency or through the Rural
Affairs Forum. On balance, I think the Government was probably
right to go for the Countryside Agency because I think it is more
structured to give the sort of policy advice that is necessary.
The Rural Affairs Forum is not really like that. The Rural Affairs
Forum to me is still a bit of a talking shop and that is not necessarily
a good way for policy development. It is a good way for lobbying
but not for policy development.
Q123 Mr Jack: In echoing the Chairman's
thanks for your kindness in coming to talk to us today, you just
said something which made my hackles rise because you said we
are here—that is Parliament I think you meant—regulating
and passing new policy.
Lord Haskins: Yes.
Q124 Mr Jack: MPs do not. Do you think
it is right that the Government, apart from making a statement
about your report, has not sought the views of Members of Parliament
who represent rural or semi-rural constituencies in discussing
any of your recommendations or the Government's response to these
proposals?
Lord Haskins: That is a big question.
I would like to answer that in a general way, just from my experience
of the Cabinet Office. I feel that the relationship between Parliament
and government is very unhealthy in this country. I would like
to see Parliament playing a much more proactive role in the development
of policy rather than having this adversarial approach which exists
between, on the one hand, Parliament and on the other hand ministers
in Whitehall (but Parliament is to a large extent to blame). One
of the problems all the way through—and this applies to
my report—is I am very keen to get central government to
let go. The problem with senior civil servants letting go is that
you lot in Parliament, or certainly the Public Accounts Committee,
the moment something goes wrong in digging a drain in Hartlepool
and some public money is misspent, want to get hold of Brian Bender
or the Minister to say, "What is all this about?" That
is why there is a mutual suspicion. I would agree with what you
are saying, that you should be involved much more. The Government
having decided to accept this report in principle should consult
with parliamentarians more than they do. That is certainly my
view.
Q125 Mr Jack: I think in Hartlepool when
things go wrong they consign the Member of Parliament to be a
European Commissioner, but that is another story! I want to pick
up on a little bit of language that you used in response to the
Chairman's first question. You used the term "Integrated
Land Management Agency", but certainly in the Countryside
Agency's evidence to us they talk about the "New Countryside
Agency".
Lord Haskins: New Countryside
Agency?
Q126 Mr Jack: Indeed, they do. Which
do you think is the best description that the new body should
have?
Lord Haskins: There was a big
debate about whether we should have a name on it or not. I was
very clear what I would call it but people decided not to do so.
There is one brand which has got a strong identity and that is
English Nature. I think that my idea of a Land Management Agency
was English Nature with a broader remit. English Nature at the
moment is just purely about conservation. I am very keen that
we maintain that obviously but the whole remit of English Nature
is for conservation, and by the way also for policy advice, but
then to broaden that to incorporate it so that the new agency,
building upon English Nature's reputation and strength, would
take Pillar II policy implementation forward and be working closely
with the Environment Agency and bring English Nature a little
bit more into the harsher aspects of rural delivery. That would
be my answer to that.
Q127 Mr Breed: Looking at the Government's
strategy, following your report (in other words what has actually
happened post that) we had some interesting discussions at the
oral evidence last week and there was a sense that perhaps the
Government strategy has amounted to not much more than a rearrangement
of the institutional furniture. You were saying earlier on that
you wish it had been a bit more radical. How would you respond
to that charge?
Lord Haskins: Remember, I was
not in the business of policy; I was in the business of looking
at delivery, and delivery is, by and large, about the organisation
of people on the ground, so therefore my main remit was actually
to look at the various and many institutions saying are they delivering
as they should do. My concern was that I think they were already
struggling with the existing agenda but with the developing agenda
in Pillar II and all the widening environmental agenda I just
felt they were going to fall over if urgent organisational changes
did not take place. On the issue of adding value, and I read the
report myself, the best value the Government can add to this delivery
thing is to provide a better service. That is where the added
value is and for people at the receiving end to say, "Yes,
I know what the Government is trying to do here and I know what
my rights are and I know what my obligations are." That is
the real added value that we are looking for. In most of the dealings
that government have with citizens, actually the making of policies
is much the simpler side of the thing; it is making those policies
credible to the people. That is what I was trying to do.
Q128 Mr Breed: So you would say there
is still too much bureaucracy in the system in order to give better
value for money?
Lord Haskins: Undoubtedly, but
I think, as I was saying earlier, the bureaucracy is there because
when you have a centralised system of government, bureaucracy
is there to cover people's rear ends. It is not accountability.
Bureaucracy is a guise for accountability but it is there because
people want to be sure that they are going to minimise the likelihood
of something going wrong in Hartlepool. I do worry about Defra
and some of the things I have seen coming out from Defra to the
RDAs about how they are going to implement this. There is a bit
of this second-guessing going on saying, "We are going to
give you this £27 million but you must achieve target A,
B, C, D, E and F and report back to us every six months in order
to demonstrate it." That is the sort of thinking that we
have got to try and get away from. We have to judge the RDAs and
the local authorities and the people on the ground on their own
merits and people on the receiving end should say this is working
or not working, but our system is not like that.
Q129 Mr Breed: So we are spending far
too much money in the monitoring and operational aspects which
is denying money to actually be used to do the things we want
to happen?
Lord Haskins: It is part of the
disease of Whitehall, I am afraid.
Q130 Mr Jack: I want to follow up on
the line of questioning the Chairman started following on his
challenge to you about the removal altogether of the Countryside
Agency. This new body is going to require a budget and a figure
of £10 million has been suggested.
Lord Haskins: The new?
Q131 Mr Jack: The New Countryside Agency.
Lord Haskins: The existing Countryside
Agency restructured, yes.
Q132 Mr Jack: Indeed. Is that going to
be adequate?
Lord Haskins: For a purely policy-making
operation I would have thought that was quite a lot of money,
bearing in mind that the money that the Countryside Agency is
spending on delivery is going to be still there but it is going
to be transferred to somebody else. I would have thought for a
policy-making process that is quite lot of money.
Q133 Mr Jack: Just looking a little bit
further forward on this Integrated Agency. One of the issues that
we touched on last week, which from your business experience you
will understand the importance of, was an appropriate IT strategy.
We are struggling to see much evidence that such a one exists.
What would you think are the key ingredients of an IT strategy
for the new integrated agency if it is going to be able to do
the multiplicity of tasks which it would have, and is Defra capable
of delivering it?
Lord Haskins: I did not in this
report look at IT, it was excluded from my remit, I am quite pleased
to say, but I did observe it. Again, Defra suffers like all government
departments in that you are introducing information technology
into problems which are of a scale that the private sector does
not understand and for which there is no precedent. Therefore
when you are introducing IT to the Rural Payments Agency, even
on the established set of requirements, it is quite complicated.
When you then come along and say we want Pillar II stuff, all
the environmental schemes to be put through the same IT system,
and they have got to link up with Pillar I, it is big stuff now.
I looked at it two years ago and thought is this going to be a
problem but the latest soundings I have had are that they are
quietly confident that they are moving in the right direction,
but the scale of the challenge they have got to meet is frighteningly
big.
Mr Jack: I have to say that most people
start off being quietly confident about government IT projects
and when confidence evaporates the "quiet" bit remains
because nobody wants to put their head above the parapet and take
any responsibility as far as that is concerned, but anyway, we
shall see.
Q134 Chairman: We were talking about
exclusions. You were not asked to look at IT systems but nor were
you asked to look at the Environment Agency or, for that matter,
the Rural Payments Agency—
Lord Haskins: —or the Vets.
Q135 Chairman: Absolutely. But this new
Integrated Agency is around land management and the EA are big
into water, for example, so you think the boundary between the
new agency and the Environment Agency is clear?
Lord Haskins: I hope so. I was
not required to look at the Environment Agency because somebody
else had looked at it not long before, but obviously I took a
great interest in it because one of the options might have been
to give the Environment Agency total responsibility for the environmental
agenda and there are lots of people who thought that would be
a good idea. I decided in my view it was better to keep them
separate because the regulatory requirements of the Environment
Agency (and that is what they are essentially, they might be lightened
regulation but that is what they are) are in contrast to the incentive
side that the new Land Management Agency has. I had to find a
way that they would complement each other, learn from each other
but they would be distinctive and separate. I believe it is right
or I would not have recommended it.
Q136 Chairman: In a practical sense is
it going to work on the ground? I think Barbara Young described
it as a "rich relationship" when we talked to her. I
was not quite sure what a rich relationship means.
Lord Haskins: We all have to be
grown up about this. If people want structures to work they will
work but if they go on resenting and wishing—and I am not
saying Barbara Young is saying that—they will not. I think
what I have tried to do is to make as clear as possible a separation
of the responsibilities for the two agencies so if they knew where
they stood and where they worked together there is no reason why
they should not work together.
Q137 Chairman: You said that the new
integrated agency should be called English Nature. Is the argument
against calling it English Nature that in people's perception
it would skew it to a conservation agenda? Have you got worries
about that, that in a sense it is a rump of English Nature taking
the—
Lord Haskins: That was the argument
that was made but of course if the remit is spelt out correctly
as to what the new Land Management Agency's remit is, then it
is up to everybody, including yourselves, to make sure that it
sticks to its remit. Just as in the way there was a lot of criticism,
and I think quite rightly so, for giving more responsibility for
rural affairs to the regional development agencies because people
said they were not giving enough attention to the rural agenda.
That varies a bit up and down the country but the criticism is
a valid one. My answer to that is if they are given the responsibility
then it beholds everybody to make sure they deliver on those responsibilities
as they should rather than duck the issue. The same thing applies
to local authorities. Lots of people complain to me on the environmental
agenda that the local authorities were very inconsistent as to
the way in which they implemented and all that, and I have got
plenty of evidence and that is fine, I agree with that, but if
they are meant to be carrying out that role then they should be
carrying out that role, and the reason why the local authorities
are so important to the thing is they are the ones who really
have, now we do not have elected regional assemblies, the democratic
contact with people on the ground, particularly in the countryside.
I saw that working in my own county, East Yorkshire, which is
a fantastically effective rural county council. Kent is another
one. We must look at where the thing is working best and build
on it and learn the lessons there.
Q138 Chairman: You think the new integrated
agency is going to use local authorities as partners to negotiate
arrangements?
Lord Haskins: I do and I think
it must and if it starts creating its own empire—I think
that delivery on the ground should do it by exception, so if you
take the Environment Agency, the Environment Agency's interest
in farming is going to rise very substantially because of the
new regulations coming through on climate change—and I agree—pollution,
flooding, and all of this. At the moment the Environment Agency
is interested in about 5,000 farms. Nobody quite knows how many
farms there are in England. You can choose a figure between 90,000
and 170,000, quite a big spread, but that is the sort of argument.
Let's say it was about 120,000, I do not think that the Environment
Agency needs to be represented on every one of those 120,000 farms.
I know that the local authority does have to be represented because
they have to go there for all sorts of reasons. So use the local
authority to do low category environmental regulation or enforcement
and then the Environment Agency comes in on those farms close
to river banks where there is a high risk factor, so let them
deal with that.
Q139 Chairman: Mr Jack was talking to
you about new technology and I mentioned the RPA. The two do not
go very well together, do they? The RPA is a bit of a mess but
you were not allowed to look at it?
Lord Haskins: I did not look at
it, no, I was not allowed. I did not volunteer to look at it either!
I have to say on two counts that I thought that what the RPA—and
I did have a conversation with them—were trying to do was
quite sensible. Declaring an interest as a father of a farmer,
we have our fun and games with them but, by and large, the quality
of what they deliver is a lot better than what it was. What concerns
me is the mounting new agenda that is coming towards them. That
is a real issue.
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