Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2005
MS HELEN
GHOSH, MR
BILL STOW
AND MR
ANDREW BURCHELL
Q60 Mr Reed: It is, and the biggest
cost?
Mr Stow: Probably the biggest
single area of improvement in transport is through the emissions
from cars, as through the European Voluntary Agreement which tackles
the level of emissions from cars, and so cars themselves, or vehicles,
are becoming more fuel-efficient and there is continued downward
pressure on that, at European level, on what is probably the biggest
single contributor.
Q61 Mr Reed: Is there any obvious
efficient policy co-ordination between Defra and DfT on this?
Mr Stow: Yes. As I said, the DfT
are now, since the most recent spending round, joint owners of
our climate change target and I think that has made a difference.
I think, on something like the Renewable Fuels Obligation it has
helped us get real engagement from the Department for Transport
and we have regular discussions together with them to look at
ways in which they can contribute more.
Q62 Mr Reed: Are there any significant
impediments?
Mr Stow: I think there is a clear
impediment, in the sense that I do not think any minister is very
keen on telling people they cannot drive or they cannot take cheap
airlines.
Q63 Mr Reed: That will be a political
impediment; are there any others?
Mr Stow: I think the impediments
to doing some of the things that people might like to do on transport
are more political than they are bureaucratic, if you like.
Q64 Mr Reed: Are there any structural
impediments, any Civil Service-based impediments towards reduction
of the meeting of this target, as we stand currently?
Mr Stow: Really we have worked
very well with the Department for Transport and DTI and ODPM in
pulling together this package that we will unveil shortly on the
Climate Change Programme review, and it has been a good process
of engagement and analysis. The decisions at the end are political
ones and there are some quite difficult political decisions to
be taken.
Q65 Mr Reed: The 12.5% of 1990's
emissions equates to what, in today's emissions, as a percentage?
A 12.5% reduction against 1990 levels, how does that equate to
a percentage reduction against 2005 levels?
Mr Stow: It depends what you are
measuring. Currently we are at around a 13% reduction in CO2 since
1990 and our aim is to get to 20% by 2010, so there is a big gap
to close, and existing policies will not get us there, that is
why we are doing the Climate Change Programme review. The 12.5%,
the Kyoto target, is for all greenhouse gases and we have already
met that target. We need to sustain that and we believe that we
are well on track not just to meet our Kyoto target but to exceed
it.
Q66 Mr Reed: Perhaps I have not been
clear enough. The 12.5% of the CO2 which we emitted in 1990 equates
to what percentage of CO2 that we emit today, in 2005?
Mr Stow: I do not think I can
answer that. I am not absolutely sure that I have understood the
mathematics of your question.
Q67 Chairman: I think what he is
saying is that, in 1990, if the amount of CO2 was 100 and now
we are trying to get 12.5% below that, we get to 87.5, so what
is 87½ over what we are doing at the moment? That is what
he is after. We are talking about an absolute sum.
Mr Stow: Yes, but what I said
was that we are now at that level of 12½, 13% below 1990
levels, that is where we are.
Mr Reed: I am not talking about that.
As a percentage, on 2005 levels, what is the percentage of 1990
levels?
Q68 Chairman: It is a percentage
on where it was in 1990 so it is an absolute figure.
Ms Ghosh: It is an absolute figure.
Mr Reed: Precisely, but as a percentage
of the carbon dioxide limit today, it is an absolute figure but
as a percentage, I would like to know?
Chairman: We may get impaled on percentages
and numbers. If you would like to formulate the question, I am
sure Mr Stow will do his best, with his team of experts, to produce
an answer that we can all fully comprehend.[19]
Q69 Mr Reed: If you were a betting man,
will we get to 20%?
Mr Stow: To use the earlier terminology,
I would say it is very challenging.
Q70 James Duddridge: I would like
to turn to the enabling programme and the movement of 320 IT staff
within Defra, moving them over to IBM for a seven-year programme.
I would like to understand how that is going, what the costs are
around that and, whilst recognising the need for some type of
long-term commitment, seven years in terms of IT seems a horrendously
long period of time. Is that too long a period to be fixing these
types of agreements?
Ms Ghosh: Just to give a sort
of overview, again from my 10-day perspective, I think the relationship
is going very well. Yesterday I met David Dockray, who is with
IBM UK, to talk about how he felt the partnership was going and
to look at some of the performance indicator stuff, which suggested
that the handover had gone well, that there continued to be some
issues but probably there would have been before, in terms of
availability of some systems, and so on, but that if you looked
at the basic metrics of the service that they were providing that
was good. An area we need to explore more is really taking advantage
of the sort of innovative elements of what the IBM contract can
offer us. Personally I am very interested in some of the work
that they can do, it is more like the wider consultancy element
of what they do, to look at our policies and programmes and see
how, for example, they can help us think about developing policy
more quickly at the beginning of the process so that we have fewer
change requests in the IT at the end of the process, also just
to help us look at how to benchmark ourselves in IT terms against
other organisations. I think the relationship is going well. I
think it has been the catalyst for some very good work within
the Department on how we manage our IT in general and I have been
very impressed by the work that Chris Chant and Andrew and his
team and Francesca Okosi have done on a proper analysis of the
issues around the failures and successes of our IT programme against
some of the OGC criteria for success, and putting in place measures
to put it right. We have set up a Project and Programme Management
Unit, we are going to do a much more intensive prioritisation
exercise, looking at all our change programme, which Andrew will
be in charge of, and we are developing a much better intelligent
client function on our side to deal with IBM. Actually, coming
from where I have just come from, seven years does not seem very
long at all, it seems just about long enough to really get a relationship
going, to really drive out some of the benefits we can, in terms
of service delivery and innovation, and so on. I was actually
quite pleased to see that we have options, I think, within the
contract for extension beyond seven years, and where I come from,
in Revenue and Customs, we had just signed up to 10 years with
Capgemini, so the norm is for IT contracts of that kind.
Q71 James Duddridge: That would be
the norm as well in future, that type of period? It is not because
it is the first period and there is a staff transfer, so there
is a greater need for security?
Ms Ghosh: No. I think it is just
the norm. Because you are really trying to get the full benefit
for the taxpayer out of the partnership arrangement, you cannot
build a decent relationship and really drive out your benefits
for less than that sort of period of time. Obviously, I do not
know precisely what our thinking was or why we hit on seven.
Mr Burchell: It is very much a
partnership, as opposed to just a contracting out of the provision
of your standard desktop services. Therefore, we were looking
for a strong business change element and supporting our IT strategy,
rather than simply just buying our desktop services from another
provider, like Fujitsu, or wherever, therefore we do need that
length of period. A question which came up at last year's hearing
was whether or not, as a result of that period of time, there
was a risk that you were not subjecting the incumbent supply to
sufficient competition to keep them on their metal. In terms of
the contract, we have open-book accounting and annual benchmarking
of day rates against industry standards, therefore we can adjust
a day, where it is in the contract, over time as industry averages
change. Also, IBM do not have exclusive rights to all of our IT
work, although they have a presumption that they have an inside
track and a strong case for assisting on many of our projects
and applications development, but there are no exclusive rights
under the contract and indeed we still use some other contractors,
other IT firms for particular pieces of work. Through that mix,
we do maintain that competitive element.
Q72 James Duddridge: It was not until
I visited Defra that I came across this term, as I am new to the
Select Committee, core Defra and executive agencies. Given the
experience of IBM and that the agency status is shifting people
away perhaps from the direct control of Defra on a day-by-day
basis, do you think that some of those agencies, or indeed some
of core Defra, also could be outsourced?
Ms Ghosh: I am sorry, I was answering
a question which I thought was a different question, which was
going to be, are IBM also going to serve those agencies, but that
was not the question you were asking.
Q73 James Duddridge: No. It was more
whether the executive agencies and other elements of core Defra
could easily be outsourced, as you have outsourced the IT to IBM?
Ms Ghosh: Obviously, where I am
today, I do not know what ministers have said about those issues.
I imagine it will be an issue that we are asked to look at by
our Treasury colleagues in the Comprehensive Spending Review,
because the issue about what is the best way to serve customers
and achieve efficiency, I guess, will be one of the underlying
issues there. I do not know if we have got any particular plans
announced already, or not, as the case may be.
Mr Burchell: No. As some may be
aware, we are reviewing the three science agencies, in terms of
recognising that we want to place them on a more sustainable financial
footing, in terms of the business they do in relation to the costs
they generate. No decisions have been taken about whether or not
one needs to move those to a different ownership model.
Q74 James Duddridge: Did you say
the three science agencies? What are those?
Mr Burchell: Yes. The Veterinary
Laboratories Agency, the Central Science Laboratory and CEFAS,
which stands for the Centre for Environmental Fisheries and Aquatic
Science.
Q75 Chairman: We are going through
a period of change in the management of rural Britain. In terms
of the PSA target three, on bringing the SSSIs into favourable
condition, are you on target to achieve the 95% target by 2010?
Ms Ghosh: We have made very good
progress. I am just looking at my WRAG status here. I understand
that the baseline figure was 56.9% and now we have got to 67.4%
of SSSIs on target by March this year. In fact, as we speak, or
two months ago, we got to 68. English Nature have done an excellent
audit, and in each case, of reasons for why the state of the particular
SSSI may not be quite as good as we want. I understand that it
is, of course, one of those targets where it requires only for
something to go wrong with particular SSSIs at the last moment
for some external reason for the target to be missed, but I think
we are pretty confident that we will achieve that.
Q76 Chairman: Almost by definition,
as you have done impressively two thirds, the rest are going to
be more difficult?
Ms Ghosh: Exactly, and all sorts
of external factors could hit us off course at the last moment.
Chairman: I suppose what is going through
my mind is whether, in terms of the changed arrangements, with
Natural England coming into existence, there may be some disruption
of progress on this, and in some cases some SSSI work depends
on local authorities and their funding and they continue to tell
us, as Members, that they are under pressure. Again, I think it
might be quite useful if we could press you for some further commentary
on how you see that area of your future work.[20]
Q77 Mr Williams: Can I ask whether the
Department has received Peter Hain's Guide to Devolution,
which I understand he is sending out to all central government
departments?
Ms Ghosh: I am not aware that
I have received it. I am looking round at my private office. Tell
us a bit about it.
Q78 Mr Williams: My understanding
is that central government departments do not really understand
the devolution settlement and how they should react within it.
Do you have any special arrangements within your Department for
working with the Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales?
Ms Ghosh: I understand that we
do, for which I am pleased.
Mr Burchell: Yes. Ministers and
officials hold regular meetings with their counterparts in devolved
administrations. Because many of the issues which we lead on in
the European arena around fisheries and agriculture, many of these
sorts of domestic arrangements are of course devolved under the
devolution legislation, it is important that we get an alignment
between the interests of devolved administrations and our national
lead responsibility, so there are regular meetings at both ministerial
and official levels.
Ms Ghosh: I know that I have just
agreed that we should have a Management Board trip to meet our
Scottish counterparts in the New Year sometime, and I guess we
will do the same with the other devolved administrations.
Mr Burchell: Yes, and in relation
to the agencies for which we are responsible, the SVS is actually
a GB-wide agency and on the ownership board of which I am a member
has representatives from both Wales and Scotland, and, of course,
the Environment Agency covers both England and Wales and has very
close working relationships with the Assembly.
Mr Stow: As somebody said, relationships
are quite complex because of the very varied situations. We have
to make sure that we understand at each moment whether we are
speaking for England or for England and Wales or for Great Britain,
or whatever. This is partly because a lot of our business is done
at EU level, where the United Kingdom Government has a responsibility,
but, as Andrew says, the follow-up and implementation is at the
level of the devolved administrations, so it is absolutely essential
that we work very closely together. Certainly, on my side, the
Environment side, we have regular discussions with our devolved
administration counterparts.
Q79 Mr Williams: In drawing up legislation,
does the Department look for an enabling type of legislation dealing
with functions that are transferred to Wales? Does the Department
have a particular style, because it seems to me that certain parliamentary
draughtsmen achieve this in different ways, or try to achieve
it?
Mr Stow: What we are trying to
do on environmental legislation is, on the implementation, which
is mostly about the implementation of the EU Directives, we have
now a formal project management approach to each piece of legislation.
The Welsh Assembly are represented in our project management teams
and sometimes will choose to piggy-back on English legislation
and sometimes will choose to do it themselves through the Welsh
Assembly, but they know from the very beginning how we are approaching
these issues. The Scots are somewhat more distinct because they
do everything for themselves, but nevertheless, again, we bring
them into these discussions.
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