Examination of Witnesses (Questions 156-159)
MR JAMES
MARSDEN, DR
ALASTAIR BURN
AND MS
ALISON TYTHERLEIGH
18 JANUARY 2006
Q156 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies
and gentlemen. I apologise for the late delay in starting. It
was partly due to the earlier division and some rather extended
Committee business, so my apologies for the fact that you have
been kept waiting. Can I welcome the Natural England partnership.
We feel that having debated the birth in the previous Committee
of Natural England, it is quite interesting to see that you are
now part-way delivered and we look forward to eventually seeing
the whole of Natural England emerge with the right label, but
nonetheless you are very welcome. Your delegation is led by Mr
Marsden, who is the Head of Policy of English Nature, supported
by Dr Alastair Burn, the Head of the Water and Wetlands Team from
English Nature, and Alison Tytherleigh of the Rural Development
Service Partnership Team. You are all very welcome. I hope you
do not mind my saying so, but when I read your very comprehensive
evidence I began to think that you were having a sort of personal
love-in with the Environment Agency because I kept reading your
eulogies of praise on all the work they were doing and I laboured
very hard to find almost a scintilla of doubt or criticism that
the Agency were doing anything which was wrong or might cause
you a problem, or even just a flicker of the eyelid in terms of
lost sleep at night! Have I gained the wrong impression, or is
there underneath that something which you ought to make the Committee
aware of about the work of the Environment Agency, or is everything
so beautifully sweet and tranquil and untroubled that we should
believe everything in your evidence?
Mr Marsden: Chairman, may I start
by thanking you for the opportunity, before I turn to answer that
question, for joining you in your deliberations this afternoon.
I am rather pleased that was your reaction to our evidence, because
I think it is true to say that more so than at any time in my
career in English Nature we are now working extremely closely
with the Environment Agency. I think in the last week I have probably
spent two or three days with Environment Agency colleagues. I
am due to spend considerably more time with them in the current
weeks ahead. We are working jointly on looking at our corporate
plans, on the strategies of the two organisations. It is an extremely
close relationship and it is a relationship based on shared outcomes,
and indeed one of need.
Q157 Chairman: That is it, is it?
So you are all buddies together. Part of our attempt is to explore
the remit of the Environment Agency and to discover whether there
are ways in a positive sense in which its performance can be improved,
so have you got a little list, perhaps, of things which you can
tell us where in spite of the very cosy relationship you now have
developed with them there are things which they could do better?
Mr Marsden: There are one or two
things, and I am sure we will talk about them in the course of
this discussion. My starting point, I think, would be the breadth
and depth of the organisation. It is of necessity a broad and
deep organisation. Its remit is vast, the integration of air,
water and land. That is a daunting agenda for any organisation.
The challenges it faces now and in the future are staggering in
their scale. On the point of complexity, sometimes a little is
lost in translation, and I think you will find that in our evidence,
from what is agreed nationally to what is delivered on the ground.
If there is one thing I would point you to, that is an area where
we would like our relationship to be closer, stronger, better
and more efficient, which is how you translate the sorts of things
which we talk about in our evidence, the Memorandum of Understanding,
the collaborative programmes. We need to see those translate into
our corporate business plans, which we are working on, as I have
said, and then to see that translate into action on the ground
in a consistent and comprehensive way. That is the area where
there has been some tension, I think it is true to say.
Q158 Chairman: You do not think that
because of the enormity of the remit of the Environment Agency
what resources it does have are spread a bit thinly on the ground?
Mr Marsden: We would all like
to have more resources, and I am sure that is true of the Environment
Agency as much as it is of English Nature, or indeed of the future
of Natural England. They are very heavily stretched, yes, that
is absolutely right.
Chairman: Okay. Let us move on. As you
say, I am sure there will be points which will come out.
Q159 Mr Williams: In environmental
terms, probably the Water Framework Directive is going to be one
of the most important pieces of European legislation in the coming
years and it is the Agency's duty to handle the implementation,
but as I understand it Natural England is going to work jointly
with the Agency through the Catchment Sensitive Farming Programme
to tackle diffuse pollution, agricultural surface water issues?
Mr Marsden: Yes.
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