Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
DEPARTMENT OF
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND THE
ROYAL PARKS
2 NOVEMBER 2005
Q80 Mr Davidson: Do you think it
is reasonable for me to get the message that you had not thought
of this until you came along to this hearing and I raised it with
you?
Mr Camley: I do not think that
is true.
Q81 Mr Davidson: You had thought
about it before?
Mr Camley: About the number of
volunteers. One of the things that comes out in the National Audit
Office Report is having a database which includes a breakdown
of the type of users.
Q82 Mr Davidson: Is it not typical
of the Department that you do not seek to appeal to the broad
range of social groupings? It is something I accept you inherited
from the past but insufficient steps are being taken to make sure
that the whole range of taxpayers who fund these services get
the usage of them.
Dame Sue Street: The Report makes
clear—and this was of course 18 months ago—that we
have asked the parks to realign their priorities with ours. Our
priorities include children and young people and communities and
under-represented groups. I think the parks have done very well
in non-user research, in particular events. You may not be particularly
interested in minority ethnic groups but we have seen huge changes
in participation.
Q83 Mr Davidson: To be fair, I did
not say I was not particularly interested; I said that was not
the question I was asking. It was a slightly different point.
Dame Sue Street: We have been
unable to satisfy you on so many points of information that, where
I have some information, we know that children from black and
ethnic minority audiences attending summer entertainment programmes
rose from 8% in 2003 to 14% in 2005. We know that the Prince's
Trust young offenders' programmes have been working in Bushy Park.
Every effort is being made and we certainly do not have sufficient
data but non-user research is one of the targets which the parks
are now pursuing.
Q84 Mr Davidson: Can I ask about
accessibility, particularly the significant point in 2.9 where
it mentions the reception areas of park offices are only open
from Monday to Friday during office hours. It reminds me rather
of a German restaurant that used to close for lunch. They were
not particularly geared towards the users. Do you regard it as
acceptable that you have reception areas which presumably shut
when most people want to use a park, when they are not at work?
Mr Camley: I agree. I do not think
the organisation has thought about the users and customers of
the park and really focused on what they need. I have looked at
the London Wetland Centre and the reception areas they have there,
to see how they deal with visitors and what lessons we can learn.
Secondly, in terms of looking at other parks around the world,
people have looked at Central Park to see how they deal with visitors.
In terms of Bushy Park, one of the things we are keen to get there
is a new visitor centre that looks at what people's needs are
and tries to address them.
Q85 Mr Williams: When we finish very
shortly I wonder if you would come to meet the chief whips with
us to explain your concept of "volunteer". I think you
are very lucky—I mean this quite genuinely—and it
must be very satisfying to be administering something that is
genuinely recognised as a national asset. Not many people have
that sort of opportunity. You have set up The Royal Parks Foundation
which is an independent charity. It is not that I am against it
in principle, but we are about accountability and I assume, C&AG,
that like the Royal Collection Trust this will therefore be a
fund of money to which you will have no access and there is no
accounting. If it gets big it is important to us. Can you tell
us a little about its remit and about where it is so far and how
it raises funds?
Mr Camley: It was set up because,
as a charity, it is able to claim back taxes which we are not
able to do. It has been there supporting us. It has raised something
in the region of £1 million so far.
Q86 Mr Williams: In how long?
Mr Camley: 18 months.
Q87 Mr Williams: That is very good.
Mr Camley: They are very supportive
of the parks. They are learning from the Central Park Conservancy
Group, including looking at whether they can get legacy gifts,
looking at corporate memberships. They recently had an adopt a
duck campaign and they are generally looking at us along with
other projects to see how they can help raise sponsorship funding
and so on for them.
Q88 Mr Williams: How are they achieving
that? £1 million in 18 months is a very good performance.
Do they have the right to impose charges or is it all contributions?
Mr Camley: There are three main
ways in which they have done that. First, they hold an annual
dinner and have an auction as part of that. That is one way of
ensuring that, as well as the income that is raised for us, The
Royal Parks get a bit more status. Secondly, they have been involved
in going to corporate groups, individual groups, other foundations
and trusts that make grants. I mentioned the adopt a duck and
tree campaigns, where what was done in the agency we have now
asked the foundation to take on.
Q89 Mr Williams: Do they have any
freedom under their remit to introduce charges?
Mr Camley: They have a membership
scheme which has different levels. You get a news letter, binoculars
and different things at each level. It is similar to the scheme
in Central Park.
Q90 Mr Williams: I assume this is
very welcome to the department because it now means you can reduce
their grant?
Dame Sue Street: That is not how
we see it. It is certainly very welcome. The Foundation funded
the preparation and application for a lottery grant which yielded
a further £2 million to The Royal Parks. We should put on
record our thanks to everybody who works in the Foundation for
everything they are doing.
Q91 Mr Williams: That £2 million
would not go into the Foundation? I guess they are involved in
negotiating it. It has gone directly into the management?
Mr Camley: Absolutely correct.
Dame Sue Street: All of this we
take in the same way as we look at museums and galleries, where
we give them their grant and we are pleased that, on top of that,
they are earning about 40% of their revenue themselves. We are
looking to The Royal Parks, who are currently at about 28%, to
increase the revenue and the Foundation is invaluable in that.
Q92 Mr Williams: Do you have internal
targets for them?
Mr Camley: We do not set specific
targets for them because they are not a government body or a public
body as such. They are a charitable body.
Q93 Mr Williams: Can I ask the C&AG:
is this a development that caused you any concern in terms of
the accountability of the agency? Is it something you feel you
are quite happy with? You are always cautious about ceding powers
to the private sector.
Sir John Bourn: I am concerned
about it in the sense that it is a way of creating money by a
body which has a separate legal status. I am not the external
auditor of it and I do not have access to its books and records,
although I do see, like anybody else, the accounts and the money
that comes from it. I do regret it as part of my general approach
to the idea that public money should either be audited by me or
I should have access to all the books and records of the body
producing it. In that sense, I do have a regret as I do across
a range of remaining activities of that kind.
Q94 Mr Williams: Like the Royal Collection
Trust, which flatly refuses to allow you access. I have written
to them and they have said that when every other charity has access
you can have access to them. They have a very significant income.
Is there any marker we could put down with the Minister on this?
Sir John Bourn: This would be
a matter for the Committee to consider in its Report and if the
Committee did this I could discuss the issue with the Accounting
Officer.
Q95 Mr Williams: 250,000 a year upkeep
cost seems quite high for something that is a static exhibit and
it works out at £700 a day. That is a lot of money.
Mr Camley: Almost half of that
is made up with the supervision and staffing costs.
Q96 Mr Williams: Upkeep includes
not just the maintenance?
Mr Camley: No.
Dame Sue Street: 120,000 is for
staff supervision and the remainder is the specialised maintenance.
Mr Camley: That includes everything
from the ground maintenance to electricity to keep the thing running.
Q97 Mr Williams: How did it come
to be double what you originally envisaged?
Mr Camley: It was the issue round
the supervision where we did not initially anticipate the numbers
that would be using it, the way that people would be using it
and therefore there was a need to make sure we put some proper
control on it.
Mr Williams: I get the clear impression
that the designers have never taken their young families to Waterworld
or anything like that, to anticipate the imagination with which
children can utilise such a tempting asset. That is a shortcoming
for their families.
Q98 Mr Bacon: Page 19 of the Report
talks about the Green Flag award scheme run by the Civic Trust.
It is an independent award scheme that aspires to give voice to
public expectations about what parks can and should offer. The
fact that it is independent seems to be a rather good thing and
it only costs your agency £3,400 to apply for the award for
all the parks. Have you done so?
Mr Camley: We have a programme
in place. Two parks received Green Flags this year. They were
Greenwich and Regent's Park. Parks have to apply each year. A
further three parks, Bushy, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens,
will apply next year and it will be all parks in 2007.
Q99 Mr Bacon: Is part of it that
you want to be sure that parks are in a good enough condition
to get one when they apply?
Mr Camley: Part of it is making
sure that all the paperwork that underpins it, the management
plans and regimes, are properly in place.
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