Examination of Witness (Questions 387-399)
1 MARCH 2005
MS FIONA
BRYANT
Q387 Chairman: I am very pleased to welcome
Fiona Bryant to the Committee. Fiona looked after many of us when
we came down to East Anglia at the back end of last year. Thank
you for that, Fiona. I am going to say you have not brought a
mate with you, you are very much by yourself. Are you speaking
on behalf of all the RDAs?
Ms Bryant: I am, yes.
Q388 Chairman: To get all the RDAs to
speak with one voice is a tremendous achievement. Let me start
off by asking you what I asked the Environment Agency a moment
or two ago. You have followed this discussion through more closely
than many people from Haskins through to the Rural Development
Strategy. What do you make of the Bill? Are there any surprises
there?
Ms Bryant: I think the RDAs are
broadly very supportive of the Bill. In general terms it carries
a lot of the proposals that Lord Haskins made through to the Rural
Strategy launch and then to the development of the bill with the
Integrated Agency, for example. I think, as Barbara said, there
are a few points of clarity which we would perhaps like to see
not necessarily within the legislation or within the Bill itself
but certainly within the policies underpinning it.
Q389 Chairman: Tell us what those points
of clarity are? List them out for us.
Ms Bryant: Lord Haskins proposed
that initially the Countryside Agency should actually no longer
exist and in our initial response RDAs were supportive of that,
not that we did not support the work of the Countryside Agency,
but in that we did feel that there was a lot of confusion out
there for the people in the regions and that less agencies could
only be better to address that confusion. However, we acknowledged
the Secretary of State's answer in saying that she would retain
the Countryside Agency and obviously within the Bill there is
the proposal for the Commission for Rural Communities. We do feel,
however, that there are certain parts of its remit, particularly
within the policy statement (not so much within the Bill itself
because that is actually less clear in the wording) which could
have an impact on work that is already being done within the Regional
Rural Delivery Frameworks by the regional rural fora activity
for example, and by the RDAs and other partners such as local
authorities in terms of their commissioning of research and data
collection. We understand and totally support their remit as an
advocate and as a watchdog but we would wish to ensure that they
actually consult with bodies, regional partners and local partners,
in terms of their commissioning of work and in terms of addressing
and approaching rural people to get their opinions because obviously
we will be doing similar activities at our level. That is one
of the points that we would look to address.
Q390 Chairman: Are there others? Let's
get them all out on the table.
Ms Bryant: Certainly we would
support the development of the Integrated Agency and the bringing
together of those agencies. We are committed to working with the
Integrated Agency in bringing together the delivery of the socio-economic
agenda and the environmental agenda on the ground and, with that
in mind, we have a draft principles paper which arose out of a
meeting that we had with the chairs of the Integrated Agency Confederation
and of the Environment Agency and Forestry Commission. It is a
principles paper which lays out our intent and our commitment
to work together to ensure that will happen. We also have had
conversations with the LGA and are hoping that they may be able
to join with us also in agreeing to that statement. So it will
ensure that for the bodies actually out on the ground we will
be joining up. On Monday we have the first of a number of meetings
on beginning to put together a framework for developing the successor
programmes for the socio-economic parts of the Rural Development
Regulation, and we have certainly insisted that the Integrated
Agency are represented at that so that right from the beginning
we are engaging with them in developing those programmes so they
will join up with the programmes that they will be delivering.
Q391 Chairman: There is a lot there.
Let's just stop with your final point, the successor programmes.
Let me be dreadfully naive and say that the Countryside Agency
funded a lot of things like Vital Villages and Village Plans.
Who is going to do that work with the demise of the Countryside
Agency?
Ms Bryant: Certainly part of the
work that they have been doing, and the legacy commitment to that,
is obviously transferring from 1 April to the RDAs and we are
committed to ensuring that that legacy is delivered. We will be
working with the partnerships who are delivering that legacy to
begin to ensure that they are built into the networks, to ensure
that the lessons learned from that work are taken into account
and are mainstreamed further into developing rural activity. We
will also be ensuring that it is joined up to a greater degree
with the regeneration programmes that we run already and will
be developing in future. For example, from EEDA's point of view
we have a major £230 million Investing in Communities programme,
which we launched last year, which is working particularly to
address socio-economic disadvantage and deprivation but also across
other areas. All of it is based on community-based regeneration,
working with local strategic partnerships, working with local
partnerships, working with groups such as market town partnerships
and bringing all of that together to ensure an investment plan-led
approach to future regeneration. Some of the work coming out of
the Vital Villages and some of the work coming out of the other
socio-economic programmes which are transferring from the Countryside
Agency to us will obviously be mainstreamed through that activity.
Q392 Chairman: I will let Mr Jack in
in just one minute but let me stick with that one point. The RDAs
are big agencies that by definition cover the regions. Sometimes
small parish councils feel a bit isolated, a bit by themselves,
and maybe a bit remote from the action. It is sometimes put to
me that you seem a long way away from them. How are we going to
handle this? If I am blunt, there is a bit of disbelief that some
of the isolated rural parishes are actually going to get the continued
services from RDAs?
Ms Bryant: RDAs are a regional
body, as you say. We do not necessarily have sufficient staff
resource to be seen and be active and be working in every single
parish within a region. However, we do have quite a lot of strategic
influence at a regional level and we do use sub-regional and local
bodies to deliver for us. We have great links into things like
the local strategic partnerships and we will definitely be encouraging
parish councils and working with things like the Beacon councils
and market town partnerships and the town councils to ensure that
they can feed into the Regional Rural Delivery Framework development
led by the Government Offices which we are absolutely committed
to using to underpin our future activity. We will be influencing
at region and at sub-region and where we can through working with
local authorities, working with others, and hopefully also engaging
and making sure that the real local people and the parishes can
feed into that framework and therefore they can engage with us,
even if it is not directly, because that work will underpin whatever
it is we are delivering into the future.
Q393 Mr Jack: I want to explore first
of all the fact that you are not in any way, shape or form referred
to in the Bill. Everything you do is because you get it sub-contracted
to you by the Secretary of State or you take it upon yourselves
because it says so in your aims and objectives that you have a
rural dimension. What I am not certain about in the new architecture
is who is in charge? If I look at the Agency's general purpose,
for example, in the Bill, it says "securing the provision
and improvement of facilities for the study and understanding
and enjoyment of nature; promoting access to the countryside and
open spaces; and encouraging open air recreation". RDAs have
a big role in promoting tourism. Those two agendas, if you like,
one a statutory responsibility, the other an economic responsibility,
cross over. If I look at the Commission for Rural Communities,
again this body talks about dealing with rural needs and that
means "the social and economic needs of persons in rural
areas of England, especially the needs of those suffering from"—an
undefined set of words—"social disadvantage and economic
under-performance", so we have the Commission with an economic
responsibility, you have an economic responsibility, and then
the government offices of the North West or any part of the country
seem to have the responsibility for everything. We have also got
regional assemblies who have a spatial involvement in this. We
have got the dear old local authorities whose noses have been
put well out of joint because they do not have a part in this
statutorily either. Together with you there seem to be an awful
lot of rural players and nobody who is going to say "Right,
you all have a place in the firmament, this is what I would like
you all to do, and I am going to be the ref to make certain you
do not go trampling over each other's playing fields." Who
is going to be the ref?
Ms Bryant: I agree with you about
the Bill. We are mentioned in the policy statement and our remit
for socio-economic work is mentioned there. In terms of the socio-economic
agenda, which is hinted at in the objectives for the Integrated
Agency, the RDAs feel that is very important. We feel that it
is very important because although there needs to be clarity about
what their major aim and objective is I certainly think in terms
of the question you asked Barbara at the end, the five objectives,
they are in the right order, but we feel very strongly that sustainable
development and socio-economic development, number five or whichever
one it was, does need to be in there because it provides a support
basis for us to be able to work closely with them. There is a
balance out there in the countryside. It is inevitable that if
you are trying to encourage farmers and landowners to increase
the benefits that they can provide in terms of biodiversity, they
will need to be able to run a sustainable business in order to
be able to underpin that, and the benefits of those environmental
assets can provide huge socio-economic benefits.
Q394 Mr Jack: That is a lovely statement
but you have not actually answered my question.
Ms Bryant: If I may, what I am
saying is I think inevitably there will be some overlap. The Commission
for Rural Communities will be acting as a watchdog and a monitor
and an advisory body within the socio-economic scene, but as I
say we need to clarify and make sure the roles of each organisation
are clearly clarified.
Q395 Mr Jack: Fine, but you use the words
"we need to clarify". Who is the "we"?
Ms Bryant: I think to a certain
extent the Government will need to lay out exactly what they feel
the policies underpinning each organisation should be and I think
the Bill should make that clearer to a certain extent.
Q396 Mr Jack: So do you want that statutorily
defined? When I probed Barbara Young about that she was more of
a view that memoranda of understanding or documents outside with
some guidance from the Secretary of State would do to deal with
some of these issues. Do you prefer to have something in statute
defining these relationships?
Ms Bryant: I think with the RDA
Act and the draft Bill we probably already have enough in terms
of the statutory basis. I think it does need some clear policy
content. I think it is more important for those people out there
on the ground to know exactly who is doing what rather than us
here centrally. If it is in a Bill they are not likely to read
it. For them I feel it is much better to get some really clear
policy and communications statements that can be put out there
into the regions so that they know. In terms of pulling it together
at regional level, the Regional Rural Delivery Frameworks should
be the underpinning and pulling together of exactly who is going
to do what to deliver what is needed out there.
Q397 Mr Jack: Let me ask you this question:
under clause 18(2) where for the purposes of this chapter it gives
definitions, one of the areas that we are talking about is social
disadvantage and economic under-performance. In other words, those
are functions of the Commission for Rural Communities. How when
the Commission is established do you envisage it interfacing with
the RDA? You set currently your own priorities according to the
strategic plans which RDAs develop currently. You are also going
to receive and are now receiving increasing resources from Defra
in pursuance of their own rural economic development strategies.
And we now have a third player, if you like, in this mix, the
Commission for Rural Communities, which may have some very clear
views as to how matters of social disadvantage and economic under-performance
are going to be addressed. How do you propose to work with the
new Commission to find a way forward if they come to you and say,
"Look, I do not like in the East of England the priority
you are showing in this particular area for that matter"?
How are you going to resolve that kind of difference?
Ms Bryant: We would certainly
hope that the Commission for Rural Communities is primarily a
national body in terms of its position and they will therefore
be working with government departments such as Defra and no doubt
they will have advice to provide to Defra on developing areas
such as the RDA tasking framework which we agree with government
departments, and as EEDA leads for Defra we have agreed with Defra.
No doubt we will be engaging with the Commission on that. Also
they will be working very closely with regional bodies such as
the regional rural affairs fora and ourselves and government offices
and I hope we will have a mutually beneficial relationship. We
will build on that in terms of engaging right at the beginning
in designing programmes having worked through the priority needs
of the customers out there through the delivery framework which
we will all have had some involvement with, whether they have
it from a higher degree of national policy level and us from regional
level, or working with local authorities.
Q398 Mr Jack: Help me to understand one
thing, and I apologise if I have missed it, is there any mechanism
where round one table all of the players that we have discussed
do meet or should meet in the future to try, where appropriate,
to have some degree of co-ordination in these policies?
Ms Bryant: Certainly in terms
of the organisations you are talking about—the Integrated
Agency and the Commission and RDAs—
Q399 Mr Jack: I reeled off a list, apart
from the ones you mentioned, of the government offices, the local
authorities, the regional assemblies. There are an awful lot of
players with a rural finger in the pie. There do seem to be a
lot of opportunities for people to be going off and doing their
own thing and having some conflict unless there is some mechanism
to bring them occasionally round the same table to make certain
that everybody a) knows what is going on and b) roughly speaking,
is travelling in the same direction?
Ms Bryant: Certainly in the East
of England—and I could not absolutely confirm this for the
other regions but certainly in the East of England—we have
a Delivery Framework Group which evolved out of what we called
the Rural Network Core Group, which involves all of those bodies.
The local authorities are represented by the regional assemblies
in that but it certainly involves all those bodies. In particular,
the leaders from the Pathfinder project are also now represented
at that. So certainly in our region those bodies do and have always
for the last five or six years got together round the table and
they have also sat in with the Rural Affairs Forum to listen to
what those members have to say as well.
Mr Jack: Thank you.
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