Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 14 MARCH 2006
MR JAMES
HERVEY-BATHURST,
MR NICK
WAY, MS
FRANCES GARNHAM,
MR DAVID
FURSDON AND
MR JONATHAN
THOMPSON
Q80 Paul Farrelly: Most of the money,
of course, is not in DCMS, it is within ODPM and also the DTI.
You both suggest in your evidence that the Regional Development
Agencies, which come under the DTI, are not fully recognising
the value of the historic environment to economic growth and the
potential for development of areas. My experience in the Potteries,
where I come from, is of more urban issues, but I can sympathise
with that because I have a running battle with my RDA, as do my
colleagues. For instance, Burslem is the mother town of the Potteries
and has some great architecture and great buildings and yet to
get that town regenerated, to help stimulate the growth of the
potteries, it always comes up against crude targets and outputs
by which the RDA measures its investments. It is all about jobs,
never mind the quality, or hectares of brown-field land being
developed, and when you talk about things of quality, about the
environment, heritage or design they say, "Well, we do not
have any outputs or targets by which we can be measured."
How do you think that RDAs can better help you and help heritage
by improving what they are doing at the moment?
Mr Way: I think the contrast or
the differences that we have seen in the way that some RDAs have
approached this is interesting, and in a couple of areas in particular
in the north-west and in the north-east the RDAs have entered
this arena, this subject area, with greater willingness of their
own to understand and to see what the links are between heritage
conservation and tourism and employment. I am certainly not going
to apologise for mentioning that word, and I am sure you did not
mean it in that way either, but I agree with you about the quality
of jobs, that jobs are important, and they have looked at that
and perhaps in the north-east in terms of the wider contribution
of heritage to regeneration. I think there is a parallel between
how heritage is seen at different levels of government, including
the RDAs and how the countryside has been seen up to now. Perhaps
in the past they have both been seen too much as being a complement
to the major, the bigger, urban part of the economy and an area
which is perhaps more for recreation than it is for economic value.
However, we would see heritage as being part of the economic value
and playing a role in contributing to the economic value of the
wider regional economy. We have seen that that has been appreciated
to some extent in the north-east where the RDA has gone out to
the integrated rural estates to see how they can help to deliver
wider objectives, and we have seen it in the north-west where
there has been the appointment of the Heritage Tourism Executive,
supported by ourselves in terms of help in kind, to help the individual
heritage visitor attractions to improve their facilities for receiving
tourism as part of the wider regional economic growth. Those two
areas make good examples. Elsewhere I think we have encountered
some of the reservations that you refer to where the RDAs have,
as you hinted earlier, quite significant budgets but have tended
to work outwards from the urban areas and have not yet realised
the importance of the links between the rural economy and the
urban economy.
Mr Fursdon: It is a particularly
relevant time to be looking at this in terms of the RDAs because
they are a key factor in the delivery of the Government's rural
agenda, and, with the roll-out of natural England and the moving
of a lot of the commercial responsibilities to the RDAs, their
whole engagement with rural areas is at a particularly key developmental
stage and I think that this is obviously part of the whole process
and needs to be looked at very carefully.
Mr Thompson: There are signs of
improvements here. It would certainly be helpful to see more compulsion
on RDAs to include the historic environment very specifically
in the regional spatial strategies which they produce, and some
sort of performance indicator ought to be attached to that. The
regional historic environment forums, in which some of our members
are involved, should be given an input into that process. I think
English Heritage also has done a lot of work, given the budget
constraints on them in this area, and more budget would help them
to do more.
Q81 Philip Davies: In 2001 the Government
announced that a cross-Whitehall approach was needed for promoting
awareness of the historic environment and that Green ministers
will have a role in making sure that specific attention was drawn
to the relevance of the historic environment. How effective do
you think Green ministers have been in ensuring that the historic
environment is taken into account in wider decision-making in
government?
Ms Garnham: I think they have
achieved two positive things. Firstly, recognition of the Government's
leading role and also providing a focus for monitoring and assessment
but, as we heard earlier from the National Trust, I do not think
in terms of practical action we have seen very much heritage proofing.
I think the tools that were put in place for rural proofing—the
accountability, the committees, the champions and the targets—have
not been translated to the historic environment, and, whilst I
think it is fair to say that the Government have probably introduced
some heritage proofing in the way in which it has managed its
own assets, I do not think we have seen that translated to the
wider policy agenda.
Q82 Philip Davies: Do you think that
the DCMS are the best government department to promote heritage
or do you think that they are not doing the job properly and that
perhaps another department should take the lead in this area?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: I heard what
the National Trust said. We work well with the DCMS and I think
we have the same views. We would like the DCMS to be stronger
within government and we would like the DCMS to have the opportunity
to push the heritage agenda across all government departments
in the same way that the natural environment agenda has been pushed
across government as a whole. We would like to see the DCMS better
resourced and more effective, but it is not our place to say that
"historic environment" should be removed to another
department. We do not see another department that we would prefer
it to be in. We would like the DCMS to be more effective at what
it is supposed to be doing.
Mr Fursdon: I think it is a question
of leadership, and where that leadership comes from does not matter
fantastically, so long as there is somebody who is committed to
deliver it. There is so much interaction with the other departments
that it is a question of where can that best sit. Likewise, we
would not wish to presume where it should sit, so long as there
is enthusiasm for it somewhere and someone is prepared to take
it forward.
Q83 Philip Davies: Is your concern
that the DCMS does not have enough clout in government to achieve
the things that you think it would like to achieve?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: As far as
the historic environment is concerned, probably, yes. It has a
range of priorities, and the Olympics is a very important one.
I think a lot of attention and funding is going to be drawn in
that direction. We welcome the Olympics, because it is an opportunity
for us to get the whole historic environment up to a show-case
level for that event. The concern is that they are pulled in different
directions; they do not have the resources.
Q84 Chairman: Can I ask about English
Heritage. Both of your organisations have been quite complimentary
about English Heritage, but, on the other hand, you have both
flagged up the two different roles that English Heritage has,
one as a grant giver, a potential custodian, and the other to
some extent as a regulator and an adviser to government. Is this
a conflict which is causing actual problems? Do you believe that
there needs to be some change to the structure of heritage support,
or is this just a possible conflict of interest?
Mr Fursdon: From our point of
view, I do not see that we see it as a problem. In fact we could
say the reverse. The experience of having to care and be concerned
for the historic environment does help you develop the other role,
and the practical experience that English Heritage has, I should
imagine, is helpful in that process. I think if you had a regulator
that had no real experience of how it works on the ground, that
would be a dangerous route to go down.
Ms Garnham: I take the CLA's points
in that respect, but I would like to say that there can be concerns,
particularly at times of short funding, between the regulator
and the management role. We have seen instances, for example,
with the support that English Heritage have been able to give
us with the development of our learning and access work where
there have been pinch-points and they have had to focus a lot
of their efforts upon the delivery of objectives at their own
properties and have not been able to fulfil their role as sector
leader, which we are all looking to them to do.
Q85 Chairman: Would you share the
view of the CLA who have said that some owners have seen English
Heritage as being unhelpful to them.
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: That has obviously
been the case, and it is partly because English Heritage have
not always had a consistent approach towards conservation issues
and in different parts of the country different inspectors have
taken a different view as to what needs to be done. What we want
to do is to keep our buildings working, and often we have to get
English Heritage's permission to change them. In some areas the
changes are agreed and in others they are not. There are always
debates over conserving an old building. Which period do you conserve
it in? Do you take the Victorian bit or do you conserve it as
Georgian, or how do you mix it? It can be a bit of a mine-field,
but, generally speaking, privately owned historic houses have
worked well with English Heritage and many of the houses that
are performing now, both in terms of producing local jobs in the
rural economy, tourism, social inclusion and outreach programmes
in education, are doing so because they have had English Heritage
grants and they have been able to move forward, are less concerned
about their leaking roofs and put their resources into things
that work. Our main criticism of English Heritage is that they
lack the funding to do what they can do very well.
Mr Fursdon: Can I elaborate slightly.
I think that, with respect to our members who have completed our
surveys, sometimes there is so much frustration that actually
they are not quite sure who is responsible for the blockages and
the inability to move forward, and, although a lot of that is
directed in a general English Heritage direction, at times it
may well be a reflection of the inadequate local authority resourcing
and conservation officers' lack of understanding or confidence
to look at historic properties with an eye to how it can move
forward sensibly and economically. I think that the blame is sometimes
laid at English Heritage's door, but it may not be entirely their
fault.
Q86 Helen Southworth: In terms of
involving people in accessing heritage facilities, what do you
think are the key barriers for you in developing wider opportunities
for people to access but also in terms of structures to help facilitate
that?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: Perhaps Frances
and I can both answer. The first barrier that we have with historic
houses is an age problem. I think people stop coming to them with
their parents at about 17 or 18 and then do not come again until
they have got children. We need to get round that. We do that
by using houses as back-drops for concerts and other activities;
so we do get them coming in but they are coming in for a different
reason. I think that is just an age and stage thing. Over five
years the whole of the British population will have visited one
of our historic houses. We have 15 million visitors a year. We
are doing quite well, but we want to do better because there are
new groups out there. Frances, in particular, perhaps could comment
on the work we have been doing with some of the ethnic minorities.
Ms Garnham: We heard earlier today
about a lot of the barriers that are there; and some of them are
real and some of them are perceived. They are real in terms of
transport and getting there, and perceived in terms of what people
expect and how they may feel they are welcomed. We have been doing
a lot of work with organisations like the Black Environment Network
to try and reach out to new audiences. We are just about to set
up a learning advisory service to try and get support and help
to some of our smaller members who want to reach out to new audiences
but lack the experience, the skills and the resources to do this.
Altogether, as James has said, we have 15 million visitors. I
would estimate that about 30% of the open houses have some kind
of education programmes going on, but what we are finding is that
for some of the smaller houses trying to get started and make
the connections, finding out who is on their door-step, who the
audiences are, how they can begin to connect to people and to
deliver to people what they want, they need help just to get started.
Q87 Helen Southworth: I was very
interested with the comparison between 15 million visitors and
everybody in the population has visited a home. I thought that
was very optimistic of you. I was wondering whether you had any
kind of research that would support that or whether you had 15
million incidents of visitors rather than 15 million individual
visitors.
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: We have 15
million a year. I was just pointing out if you set that over five
years. Of course, it will not be all the bits of the population
that we want to get to, but those are the statistics.
Q88 Helen Southworth: I was just
wondering what research you have got. Who is doing repeat visiting
and who is never going? Are you able to do that or is that outside
your ability?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: We do not
within the Historic Houses Association have those records, but
we know from observation that it tends to be retired people at
one end and families at the other. Frances mentioned some of the
things we do, but also people are beginning to participate in
heritage open days now, and that does draw people in because they
are free and so we are getting people who might not otherwise
come.
Ms Garnham: I also think the DCMS's
current research programme, the Taking Part survey that
is going on, is throwing up some interesting conclusions, and
I think the key statistic is that more people are participating
in the historic environment than in any other part of the DCMS's
responsibilities, including sport.
Mr Way: Very briefly to add to
that, later this year the sector as a whole is looking at ways
to enable the public to express their support for the heritage
when they visit sites, whether it be HHA houses or National Trust
or whatever, and it may be, in the way that they respond to that,
that we will have a better picture of who is coming to heritage
sites of one type or another.
Q89 Helen Southworth: The odds are
that there is an incredible market out there that you are not
reaching yet, and it is knowing actually how to get to them, is
it not? This is not just philanthropy, there is actually a very
active market there of support?
Mr Way: Yes, support for the future,
and it has been interesting in the way that some houses have tapped
into that market perhaps ahead of some of the others. The Alnwick
Garden, for example, has got a means for attracting local people
in at reduced rates—season tickets and so on—so quite
a wider spread of the local population uses the Alnwick Garden
than might have visited the castle up to now but are therefore
getting interested in what else there is to see.
Mr Fursdon: Can I make one point,
which is perhaps slightly more from our perspective, which is
that there is an awful lot of rural heritage which is not visitable,
it is not really quite as grand, it is work-a-day farm buildings,
and so on, which increasingly are not the sort of buildings which
are easy to fund in terms of visitor income or to find easy and
economic uses for. I would not want those areas to be missed in
the debate about what I quite agree with you could be opening
up markets for some of the more iconic sites and finding ways
of doing it. One of the challenges that we have is trying to find
an economic use for redundant farm buildings as a result of changes
in agricultural practice, and so on, which are not necessarily
going to be solved easily by visits. We have to be a little bit
more lateral in trying to find ways in which we can give them
a proper use.
Q90 Helen Southworth: This is a bit
of a complicated question, but is there enough creative advice,
information sharing or best practice opportunities about what
kind of diversification will be effective for those types of buildings
and how they could best be preserved but given a new role into
the future that will give them sustainability, and which department
should be giving the lead on that? Is it DCMS? Is it Defra?
Mr Fursdon: I would say that we
would not be looking to DCMS to give us that advice at the moment.
Defra would be the department that would be trying to do that.
One of the interesting recommendations of the Heritage Protection
Review is that one could start to look at rural sites in the round
and to actually try and look forward over a period of, say, 10
or 15 years to the diversification opportunities and to the development
of that site and the various listed buildings that actually form
that site in a much more constructive and longer term way than
has happened up until now with endless quick applications for
consents under different regimes in different areas and a lack
of cohesion to it. I think that sits quite well with the Heritage
Protection Review and is a really important part which I hope
will come through in the legislation, but the answer to your question
is that Defra are working on diversification much more and DCMS
I do not think are.
Q91 Helen Southworth: From that is
there sufficient vision in Defra and DCMS or does that need to
be enhanced? Perhaps both departments need to have that vision.
Mr Fursdon: I think they do, and
I think it is a classic example, a practical example, of where
perhaps the cohesion and leadership and the joining up between
the departments is not perhaps happening in the way that one would
hope that it might.
Q92 Helen Southworth: In terms of
barriers to educational visits and opportunities, what do you
think are the key barriers?
Ms Garnham: I think we have probably
identified quite a lot of them already this morning. In terms
of really ensuring that we can get the expertise and the capacity
at historic sites and houses so that they can actually develop
programmes, I think the recent manifesto for outdoor learning
has been hugely positive for the environment and the heritage
sector, but there is a concern that it is not coming through with
any funding to implement it, and, if it is just going to be words
on a piece of paper, then it is not going to be translated into
action. We are urging DfES to really try and put some resources
behind this.
Q93 Helen Southworth: Are there any
issues around risk assessments, for example?
Ms Garnham: There will be issues
around risk assessments. Our members who participate in education
work, of course, do risk assessments, and we hope that there will
be help from DfES for the smaller houses, because at a place where
there is limited staffing we will need expert help, advice and
commitment to make sure all those safety tools are in place.
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: It is very
important for our members that the generic risk assessment for
a house could be taken on by a range of different schools and
potential visitors without requiring the teachers themselves to
come and do their own individual risk assessment, unless they
have particularly challenging classes to deal with, because that
is a barrier from the schools' point of view to making the visit.
I think Ruth Kelly has encouraged schools to continue with external
visits and not to be frightened by that particular issue.
Q94 Paul Farrelly: One of the things
that we were quite impressed with when we went to Lincolnshire
was the number of ways in which the owners of Doddington Hall—and,
Nick, you were there—had diversified and left no stone unturned,
and that also rang true of navigating their way through the labyrinths
of what pots of money are available when and, in particular, that
they have done some really good things, which were quite creative,
through the Heritage Lottery Fund. How aware generally are private
owners through your own good services of how they can benefit
particularly from Heritage Lottery Fund grants and other pots
of money? Is it a confusing maze or do people find it pretty straightforward
to nail down where the money is and what it is for?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: The number
of pots available are quite limited. We would start at the top
end of English Heritage. We know there is not much available there,
and our members are certainly very much aware of that because
they know English Heritage from their visiting houses and seeing
what is going on. RDAs have been mentioned and discussed, so it
is quite limited but there has been a start; so there is a good
precedent in the north-west of how money can be used for capacity
building, which we welcome. Local authorities generally do not
have much money for historic house private owners. The HLF is
a very interesting case, because they have done wonderful things
for the publicly owned historic environment. In the private sector
we have had one or two conferences around the country telling
owners how they can get HLF funding in the same way that Doddington
and Burghley House have, but there has not been much precedent
apart from that. They are aware that the money is out there and
we are telling them to go to their local HLF committees, but,
as you say, it is labyrinthine, and it is quite limited. The priority
for most houses still is repair and restoration. You can have
as many school visits as you like to a house that has a good structure
and is safe to visit, but, if the roof is leaking and it is starting
to fall down, then you cannot. That is how it is generally structured.
Q95 Chairman: Could I press you on
that. Does it not seem a little strange that you can get grants
for projects like creating a sensory tour or a Braille map, which
are very desirable but they are not much use if the roof has fallen
in? Do you not feel that there should be a mechanism of helping
owners address the fundamental requirements in terms of basic
repairs before we start providing help for that kind of peripheral
but desirable activity?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: I think it
was certainly our hope at one stage when the HLF was set up that
they would be, but I think additionality was not considered. It
had to be new funding for new activities or new areas, so we did
not get very far with that argument. We certainly do feel that
we would rather see the money go to restore a building: because
if the money does not come from outside, and some owners obviously,
Doddington, for example, successfully earn a lot of money and
put their own money in, but inevitably works of art get sold and
that has been a process that has been going on for a very long
time. The success of government in the last 30 or 40 years has
been to slow this process up, partly through grants and partly
through allowing people to have weddings in their houses and generally
be active, and it would be a great shame if, having preserved
so many houses so successfully with their contents, that through
lack of funding or difficulties in getting funding, the contents
began to start to leave the country again. Houses are interesting
to visit in France but they are largely empty. The great thing
about our houses is that they have got stuff in. The answer to
your question is that we do think it is strange and regrettable
but we would like to see it changed in due course.
Ms Garnham: We certainly will
continue to put pressure on the Heritage Lottery Fund to look
more favourably on maintenance projects in private heritage where
they are associated with public goods. Bearing in mind that two-thirds
of the heritage is in private hands, I do feel that HLF are missing
a trick in not extending its support to us.
Q96 Philip Davies: Which would have
the greater impact: increased grants available or a reduction
in VAT?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: Thank you
very much for raising that. We are delighted that the new VAT
Annex K Directive has been extended, and we are, in the built
heritage sector, very much encouraging the Chancellor to sign
up to that. Even if it is not implemented, at least he should
sign up to it by 31 March. It would be extremely helpful. I think
we would prefer higher levels of grant, because I think that would
just involve more money. From what we have been seeing, grant
levels have been typically 25%, 30%, 40% of the cost of repairs,
whereas VAT is only 17.5% and to reduce it to 5% would be a 10%
benefit, so the answer is it depends on the level of the grants,
but it has been recognised in listed places of worship that for
the Government to fund the cost of the VAT makes a real difference,
and so we would certainly like one, if not the other, and preferably
both.
Mr Way: I think to take on James'
point, there is a point, as you said, that we have to face the
fact that English Heritage grants are not going to be on a scale
that is going to be sufficient to meet the scale of problems that
there are in terms of the size of the backlog of repairs and so
on. We heard the National Trust figure earlier. HHA did a survey
about four years ago which suggested that the backlog of repairs
in the private sector was something approaching £500 million,
and last year, looking at 70 major houses, it was still in the
region of £60 million for those 70 houses alone. English
Heritage grants are unlikely to be able to meet that scale, and
so looking at grants and tax together is a coherent way to do
it so that the overall policy framework encourages owners to go
and do the work over a period—the stitch in time approach—rather
than having to react to the need for major repairs.
Mr Fursdon: Can I make a point
on the grants and so on. A lot of the grants have historically
had conditions attached. You have had to get building firms to
give quotes; you have had to have quantity surveyors involved.
On the whole question of VAT, very often local craftsmen are not
registered for VAT and therefore they do not have to charge VAT.
An awful lot of what happens here is actually at too high a level.
Just now we were talking about the HLF and the role that the HLF
play, certainly in the development of skills in the sector, and
by encouraging more people to get into the trades that are useful
in the heritage, you might well be able, in other ways, to get
down the cost of actual repairs in properties over and above the
way that private owners are currently facing large sums of money
which are fairly prohibitive. I think that more clever ways of
looking at cheaper solutions is possibly the way forward.
Q97 Mr Hall: Following on from that,
the Historic Houses Association have put forward a proposition
that there should be some relief to historic building owners on
top of the grants that are already available. It is not clear
from the evidence you have submitted whether that is in terms
of the income in general of the particular owner of the property
or an income that is derived from the property. Would you like
to say a little bit more about that?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: Yes, I would.
What we are proposing is what we are going to call "historic
properties maintenance relief". The idea is that this would
be an annual relief capped at a certain level to allow people
to offset the cost of repairs against their own income.
Q98 Mr Hall: Their own income?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: Yes, because
until about 2001 there was a tax election that a number of houses
and farms made whereby the cost of maintaining the house could
be offset against the whole estate income, and that was deemed
to be slightly anomalous—64 houses had the benefit of it—and
that was removed. In the three years up to its removal a huge
amount of work was done and people really used that. We feel that
if a new maintenance relief was introduced this would be a great
stimulus to people to get on with their repairs. There are over
£400 million worth of repairs outstanding, say £70 million
from the major houses that we surveyed last year, and English
Heritage grants of £1.8 million available; so there is a
big gap to fill.
Q99 Mr Hall: Would that be maintenance
and repairs?
Mr Hervey-Bathurst: It would be
maintenance and repairs. I think most owners now take a pretty
responsible view towards maintenance. Day-to-day maintenance they
can probably do, but it is catching up with the backlog of repairs
that is the problem. In the National Trust case of Tyntesfield,
it is absolutely clear what can happen when a house is neglected
for a period of time. I do not think many of our members neglect
our houses, but they have taken them on in a state where in the
period from 1900 to 1970 not much was done, for reasons that you
can understand.
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