Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-228)
13 DECEMBER 2004
MR PAUL
FINCH OBE AND
MR RICHARD
SIMMONS
Q220 Mr Cummings: I was not suggesting
that, the AHL inquiry was.
Mr Simmons: The AHL inquiry said
that our commissioners are educated and trained to understand
the seven principles of public life and that we had taken reasonable
steps to ensure it is operating in accordance with those principles.
That is paragraph 8.3 of the report. If you are asking whether
we have responded to the recommendations in the report, then the
answer is yes, we are responding to all those recommendations
that apply to us. Some of them of course will apply to the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport rather than us. We think they will
improve our standards. I certainly believe, having come in as
accounting officer, that the commissioners have behaved in a way
which I would expect for example of local authority members, who
are also bound by similar rules to CABE. Their interests have
been declared, interests continue to be declared and people do
not take part in design review activities, for example, or enabling,
if they have declared an interest in the scheme. The alternative,
which I think was suggested by one of the witnesses last time,
that we should not have people active in the industry, because
of the potential for perceptions of conflict of interests, seems
to me to be one which would actually weaken our ability to influence
schemes.
Q221 Mr Cummings: A question to Mr Finch.
I believe you said in response to the AHL report that CABE just
needed fine tuning. The AHL report made 28 recommendations; some
were indeed more far reaching than the others. Do you now accept
that perhaps a greater overhaul of the procedures is required
to restore public confidence in CABE?
Mr Finch: I think several of the
28 recommendations, some for the Department for Culture, but most
of them for us, were already in place or on their way before the
AHL audit and a number of specific ones have already been addressed.
I give one example. Up until this year we had always recruited
members of the design review panel on recommendations and knowledge
that there were people who knew their stuff and were articulate
and were likely to be able to be fair in their judgments. We have
accepted that actually perhaps that was not perceived as being
as open as it should be and we now advertise and we had 100 applicants
for the few positions which were available this year and we have
appointed a very satisfactory group. We will continue to do all
those smallish recommendations; I would not describe them as major
but in aggregate there are a lot of them and we are working our
way through them and we do not have problem about that.
Q222 Mr Cummings: How far are you away
from working on updating your guidance note on managing future
conflicts of interests, as suggested in the AHL report?
Mr Finch: I think that is done
actually. I think it was in process before the audit concluded,
but it is a more substantial document than it was at the start
of our life.
Q223 Andrew Bennett: We are running out
of time. I have ministers to come next and we have a time slot
for them, so can I just press you on one or two final issues.
It is all right people putting down their interests in a register
that they have got at the moment, but how do you deal with the
issue of future interests?
Mr Finch: Since one does not know
what the future interest might be, it is not an easy task. One
has to approach that by having very clear-cut principles of recording
an interest, not when it becomes an interest but at the time when
you could reasonably think that there might be the potential.
If I can give an example, I think the advice is, for instance
supposing a commissioner were invited to take on some sort of
advisory role with a government department or perhaps a commercial
organisation or a significant statutory body, when they were thinking
about taking that up, and the rules of engagement are very clear
now, they would have to go to talk to our chief executive who
can then make an assessment of whether, if they did take it up,
that might lead to an increase in possible perceptions of conflict
and if that were the case, whether that was significant enough
to advise them, either not to do it, or, if they do it, they will
have to cease to be a commissioner.
Q224 Andrew Bennett: Basically, the development
world is a very small world, is it not?
Mr Finch: No, I do not think it
is a small world.
Q225 Andrew Bennett: As far as CABE is
concerned, out of 16 commissioners, eight of them are actually
connected to Stanhope for instance. It does become very small,
does it not?
Mr Finch: I do not think it is
a small world. If you ask them to write down every other organisation
that they were connected to in the development world, you would
have a list as long as your arm. Stanhope have been one of the
most active developers and property managers for 25 years in a
world financial centre. Because we tend to have good people on
CABE, I should be very disappointed if they had not been working
for Stanhope; they will also have worked for a whole other series
of developers, hopefully at the top end of the design patronage
range. The other point about Stanhope is that they made their
reputation, which is way Sir Stuart Lipton was invited to become
our chairman, precisely because of their reputation and their
track record as promoting and encouraging good architecture and
design.
Mr Simmons: To give you an idea
of how seriously the commissioners take this, one of the commissioners
on that list that you mentioned declared that he had supplied
two drawings to Stanhope which they then used in a brochure. That
was his only connection with the company but he still declared
it. I think that gives you some idea of just how seriously they
are taking this issue.
Q226 Andrew Bennett: What about the education
trust that you set up? I think that makes two education trusts
in an area where we are short of skills. Is it logical to have
two trusts?
Mr Simmons: Sorry, the other one
being?
Q227 Andrew Bennett: The one that was
set up by the Royal Fine Arts Commission.
Mr Simmons: The main public role
of the RFAC education trust is to organise the Building of the
Year awards which are presented by Lord St John at the Savoy each
spring. We have specifically set up our foundation to be a highly
active and we have partly done that in response to the JACBE recommendations;
I cannot remember what the acronym stands for. It is an encouragement
to take a broad-brush approach to the education of young people
across the built environment, including heritage. We are talking
to other bodies at the moment about having one organisation which
can deal with that highly important area of education.
Q228 Andrew Bennett: And lastly, returning
to housing issues, if you are looking for good design for housing
development, does Poundbury come into that category?
Mr Simmons: We have included Poundbury
in the Housing Order I mentioned as an example of a scheme where
they have managed traffic extremely well and also a scheme where
they have used local materials extremely well. Coming back to
the point we were making earlier on about what makes a bland and
boring housing estate, it is one which does not actually take
account of local materials. So we certainly picked up those two
issues. Views vary about Poundbury, but we have learned some good
things from it.
Andrew Bennett: On that note, may I thank
you very much for your evidence. Can we have the next set of witnesses
please?
The Chairman took the Chair
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