Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480-499)
2 MARCH 2005
SIR MARTIN
DOUGHTY, DR
ANDY BROWN
AND DR
TOM TEW
Q480 Mr Jack: Can you
tell the Committee, of the constituent elements that become the
Integrated Agency, what is their current total budget for expenditure?
Dr Brown: I think
if you add the figures up that Sir Martin Doughty gave earlier,
that is the total we expect to move into the new agency.
Q481 Mr Jack: I am sorry,
I am just trying to get some idea. What is your budget?
Dr Brown: £83
million.
Q482 Chairman: Do you
know the Countryside Agency's budget?
Dr Brown: £49
million and the RDS is £231 million.
Q483 Mr Jack: Of that
£231 million—it is not just the costs of running RDS,
is it?
Sir Martin Doughty:
No, it is the agri-environment programme.
Q484 Mr Jack: The figures
I am interested in, in terms of savings, obviously refer to some
of the issues that you are talking about: management, staffing
and estate. You have also put a series of costs down. I do not
know whether we are able to get down at this level of detail but
perhaps it is something that you might be able to share with us
because I want to know how valid these numbers are and, secondly,
whether, in fact, there is enough resource going to go in, particularly
in the context of the IT, to deliver. It comes back to what Sir
Martin was talking about, which is particularly in the context
of the programmes on the RDS side which have got to be delivered.
It is still something of a mystery to me how all of these savings
are going to be achieved at a time of re-engineering the way the
RDS operates, supposedly going from 100 down to three. I think
it would be helpful if you could give us a bit more detail and
commentary on that area of these proposals.
Dr Brown: We can
certainly help the Committee by giving a breakdown of the analysis
that we have done. What I would be very hesitant to do is to try
and give you an explanation of all of the changes in RDS. One
of the areas of uncertainty for us which I do not think has been
fully resolved yet is the costs of the department in terms of
corporate services to the Rural Development Service, because you
need to factor that into all of these other changes and take account
of it in efficiency terms.
Q485 Mr Jack: Let us look
at one or two things in paragraph 9 of your evidence which may
affect costs and perhaps you can help me to understand where these
come in. In paragraph 9a you say "powers for the Integrated
Agency to undertake, commission or support research, which will
allow the Agency to build on the scientific expertise of its component
bodies and the evidence-based approach of its work". Did
the new agency inherit your existing budget to do this type of
work? Did you get anything in addition from Defra? Where does
the old Countryside Agency fit into this? What kind of a budget
are we talking about?
Dr Brown: It certainly
inherits English Nature's research budget and the Countryside
Agency's. I do not know what the precise size of the research
budget is in either RDS or the Countryside Agency, but they will
all come forward into the new body.
Q486 Mr Jack: Are those
budgets the subject of efficiency savings?
Dr Brown: The efficiency
savings are across the board for the agencies. It is down to the
agencies to identify amongst all of these changes where to find
the efficiency gains.
Q487 Mr Jack: Is it a
question of doing more for less or the same for less?
Dr Brown: We are
always interested in doing more for less.
Q488 Mr Jack: I am interested
in your remit. If we go back to the list in 2(2), I do not know
whether anybody has produced a budget that goes alongside that.
It is alright writing lists down, but unless this body has got
adequate resources then clearly it is going to struggle to deliver.
Sir Martin Doughty:
Those are all functions which the three agencies are already carrying
out within their present budgets.
Q489 Mr Jack: So those
are going to be squeezed, are they not?
Sir Martin Doughty:
They are not necessarily going to be squeezed. As Dr Brown has
said, there are efficiency savings, things like how many fewer
people are going to go up a farmer's drive.
Q490 Mr Jack: Perhaps
you could address my concern that there is going to be enough
money to do the positive things and if there are going to be efficiency
savings, they will come out of the natural reduction and duplication
by marrying these three bodies together. You have the power, as
English Nature does at the moment, to enter into management agreements
and those obviously affect things like SSSIs and other land which
you manage. Under your current budget you have a line for all
of that. Is that unchanged, increased or decreased under the new
arrangements?
Sir Martin Doughty:
It carries through.
Q491 Mr Jack: So there
is no squeeze as far as that is concerned. You also comment about
experimental powers to develop "new methods, concepts or
techniques" and it refers to land management and ecological
activity. Are you going to have a budget for experimentation which
will satisfy that list of things?
Sir Martin Doughty:
Again, I think we are talking of budgets carrying through. One
issue that we are looking at at the moment is the ability of different
methods of land management to affect carbon sequestration, to
be helpful or otherwise towards climate change.
Q492 Mr Jack: The reason
I ask those questions is because we have got an Integrated Agency
where expectations are going to be raised with a sharper focus
on the function. You quite rightly said in answer to a question
a short while ago "and climate change is presenting us with
new challenges". My judgment is that there will be an ever
increasing amount of work for you to do. We are also aware from
this Committee's work into SSSIs that there is still a deficit
of activity in those areas. The message I am getting is that it
is more work that you are going to be responsible for but with,
at best, carry on budgets. Is that a fair assumption?
Dr Brown: The budget
for the new agency has not been set at this point. The work has
focused on the costs of bringing about the change and some of
the efficiency gains that can be realised as a result of that
change. The starting point for the budget of the new agency is
obviously arrived at by adding up the existing budgets of the
three parts coming together to form the new body.
Q493 Mr Jack: With respect,
I take the point you make, but you cannot produce a table of costs
and establishment costs and savings unless you actually have some
budgetary information. You said the budget has not been established
and yet here we are talking about levels of efficiency savings,
costs of establishment, costs of reducing current lines of expenditure
which are in existing budgets, and you are telling me that those
budgets are being parachuted through to the new organisation and
then you tell me you have not got any budgets.
Dr Brown: The budgets
have not been finalised. Nobody has talked about what the final
figures will be for the new agency from 2007 onwards. To some
extent that is going to be influenced by the next Spending Review.
My best guess is similar to yours, ie there are going to be tremendous
demands on this new body to deliver. The Government has made it
very clear that the driving force behind this is to create a powerful,
independent and effective body. It is not driven by an efficiency
agenda. If Government wants more things to be delivered by this
organisation then one would expect the budget to go up from simply
adding up the existing bits and pieces of budget that we have
already talked about.
Q494 Chairman: There is
a view around that the Integrated Agency is nothing more than
English Nature with some bolt ons. What is your response to that?
Sir Martin Doughty:
I gave you the figures for the RDS staffing budget. It is far
bigger than English Nature for one thing. I guess that view comes
from the fact that it is the whole of English Nature going into
this organisation and only parts of the Countryside Agency and
parts of RDS, albeit the biggest parts. I do not agree with it.
I think the joining together of nature and landscape is long overdue.
The idea that nature is for enjoyment is long overdue. This agency
has an exciting future, given the right budgets and all the other
things we have been talking about, to do things much better than
in the past and to be much bigger than the sum of its parts.
Q495 Chairman: And it
will be seen as a new agency, something different, something that
is going to accomplish the very adventurous purpose that it has
been given.
Sir Martin Doughty:
Absolutely, yes.
Q496 Chairman: You are
dependant upon guidance from the Secretary of State which appears
to be a bit vague at the moment. There is some tension between
acting as a delivery agent for the Government and getting guidance
from the Government. How is this process going to work? Is it
going to compromise your independence at all?
Dr Brown: I think
we need to make sure that there is nothing in the Statute that
does undermine the independence of this body or even has the perception
of undermining the independence of the body. As far as guidance
is concerned, there will certainly be areas where some guidance
will be helpful, the delivery of agri-environment, for example,
where there are lots of different people interested and it is
big money. I think publishing guidance helps preserve a degree
of independence, it is very transparent and people are very clear
what is being said. I think there may be a helpful addition to
put into the Bill, which is clarifying that the guidance is something
that the new agency would have to have regard to; in other words,
it is not necessarily being dictated to, but it is something that
they must have regard to and demonstrate that they have regard
to.
Q497 Chairman: You are
going to give us a note about the RDS budget and how it might
be broken down. Martin, you talked about the purposes and we are
very clear on the purposes. Andy, you have helped us a little
bit on the budget. One of the ways of defining success is by having
not just a set of input measures but output measures. When will
we get a feel of what the output measures are for this new agency?
How would you define them? Who will define them?
Sir Martin Doughty:
Funnily enough, we have just come from a meeting of a body called
the Integrated Agency Steering Group, which comprises members
of my Council, the Countryside Agency Board and RDS's new non-executives,
and we have been doing what has been called "horizon scanning".
We have been looking at what will be the scenario in 2020, what
are the political constraints, economic constraints, technological
changes and environmental changes and how do we see the success
of an agency like this in 2020.
Dr Brown: Perhaps
I can pin it down slightly further in terms of timescales. We
would hope that there is some sort of draft strategy and plan
available shortly after a shadow body is created.
Q498 Chairman: When will
that be?
Dr Brown: That
depends on when the Bill is introduced to the House.
Q499 Chairman: What are
your expectations on that?
Sir Martin Doughty:
Defra's expectations are a Bill maybe in May or June, with a shadow
chair, a shadow board and shadow chief executive appointed in
the autumn. I guess these things are dependent upon legislative
pressures which you would know more about than me.
| 
