Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
PROFESSOR PATRICIA
NUTTALL AND
PROFESSOR MIKE
HULME
12 DECEMBER 2006
Q280 Dr Harris: I would like to talk
now, Professor Nuttall, about what is happening at CEH and your
restructuring? Can you give us an update on progress generally
such as timetables for closures and so on?
Professor Nuttall: Following the
Council's decision in March this year we have been going through
a process, a complicated implementation plan. We passed a milestone
at the beginning of November when we were able to tell most of
our staff what roles they would have in the future CEH. We are
now in the process of agreeing leaving dates and working with
our staff; particularly our key staff, to retain those key core
skills. That is the issue with staff, it has caused a lot of uncertainty
but we are now moving through that phase. In terms of actual physical
restructuring, the first site to close will be our site down in
Dorset, and that will close on 1 June next year. We have made
that announcement and we are currently putting in place plans
to provide the facilities for staff who will move from the Dorset
site to other sites, especially at Wallingford. We will probably
have a small group located somewhere down in the South West in
order to undertake the Countryside Survey, so there are science
needs for having a small location down there, but that will be
all. It is a complicated transition and integration programme
that we are following; we estimate it will take four years in
total. We will need new facilities at our Wallingford site and
we are currently drawing up plans and going to planning permission
because we will need more laboratories there. We are well on the
way to developing those plans at our Edinburgh site where we will
need some more facilities to relocate some of the staff, particularly
from Banchory. So building facilities is a time-limiting fact
for some of the moves and some of the closures of sites; also
the science, particularly the Countryside Survey and an Environment
Agency audit which is related to the Water Framework Directive,
requires that people are in place at some of the closing sites
for a defined period.
Q281 Dr Harris: Is it unfortunate
that the Environment Agency's funding problems and the Defra moratorium
come at this time; is that making it more difficult to plan your
restructuring?
Professor Nuttall: We are working
to our original plans at the moment, but we will have to see next
year whether there is going to be a major impact from Defra.
Q282 Dr Harris: It is difficult,
is it not, because you are trying to say to certain people, "Please
stay, we want you, we are going to bid for this money, it has
been funded before, normally you are part of our core work",
but because of the Defra moratorium you might be saying that,
but they are not stupid these people and they know that that funding
might not arrive and that the Environment Agency is in difficulty
as well, so they might say, "Well, you may say that, but
you cannot give any guarantee and we are a bit fed up anyway because
we are having to move house."
Professor Nuttall: We know that
the relevant people in Defra are very, very supportive of the
Countryside Survey; this is a priority initiative, so we are working
on the basis that it will be funded.
Q283 Dr Harris: It is just perhaps
this perception that there is this risk. I am asking you whether
realistically—we can agree that that might be a factor in
the minds of the people you are seeking retain, but have you found
that that is an issue?
Professor Nuttall: We have not
found it is an issue with staff at the moment. The more pressing
issues are dates of closures and where people are relocating.
Q284 Dr Harris: What is morale like
and how many people have already left because they have been identified
as seeking to leave when their site closes?
Professor Nuttall: I do not believe
morale is now rock bottom; I would say probably at the beginning
of November before we were able to announce to staff that they
had roles it was pretty much as low as it could get. People are
coming out of it now, particularly those people—most of
the staff—who know what their roles are, but there is still
a lot of uncertainty about what the future will look like. So
I would not say morale is great; it is for us to move with staff
and get them involved as much as possible in building the future.
Q285 Dr Harris: And the other part
of my question?
Professor Nuttall: In terms of
numbers who have left. From memory, about 40 staff have left so
far; the bulk of staff will leave at the end of this financial
year, so the end of March 2007.
Q286 Chairman: And that is how many,
what is the total figure?
Professor Nuttall: In total we
are losing more staff than we want to lose, 224 at the last count.
That will be staggered because of course we have some say about
the leaving date.
Q287 Dr Harris: I am a little confused
because I thought the original plan was 200, then there was extra
money and it was revised and it went to 160 and now you are saying
over 220; is that right?
Professor Nuttall: Yes.
Q288 Dr Harris: Why is that, because
we heard 200 and then 160?
Professor Nuttall: Your figures
are absolutely right. The difficulty we have is where we close
a site; technically those people are redundant, so they can leave.
The only control we have—if we have control—is over
the leaving date.
Q289 Dr Harris: So what you are saying
is that 60 people have left or are likely to leave beyond your
plans.
Professor Nuttall: Yes. We are
currently anticipating having to recruit just over 70 staff.
Q290 Dr Harris: I see. Is that unplanned
losses of staff?
Professor Nuttall: No, we anticipated
that that would be the situation.
Q291 Dr Harris: Do you know where
they are going, these extra people, or the ones who have already
left? Are they staying within the field, within the UK?
Professor Nuttall: Some are staying,
and going to universities. At least one is going abroad; some
are just going to take the generous redundancy terms and have
some time off.
Q292 Dr Harris: You said "some",
that is quite vague and implies that some are not staying within
the field, not staying within the UK.
Professor Nuttall: There are quite
a few that we do not know what their plans are.
Q293 Dr Harris: Do you have a monitoring
system? The reason I am asking this, to make it more relevant
to the Committee, there is an issue about how we retain expertise
in these areas and how we know whether we are retaining it. We
do not have the knowledge; we are just flailing around in the
dark.
Professor Nuttall: We do not have
a monitoring system in place to look at what is happening to those
people who are leaving CEH.
Q294 Dr Harris: Could you have? Is
it because you are not allowed to or you never have? How do we
capture this information without tying people down and grilling
them?
Professor Nuttall: We routinely
have an exit questionnaire that we give to staff who leave, but
of course we cannot make them fill it in. With such a number of
people leaving, we just do not have the resources to do what you
are suggesting of chasing up people as to what their intentions
are after leaving us. We are absolutely overstretched in our personnel
department, we do not have those resources—and we are being
helped by NERC as well.
Q295 Dr Harris: That is an interesting
answer; thank you for your honesty in that respect. The key question
for us is the loss of science that might come about as a result
of this restructuring. It is always going to be difficult and
you have a plan to keep the science you want, but in the same
spirit of honesty can you be certain that you are going to be
able to retain key areas of science that you have planned to,
given the fact that people are leaving, as a result, understandably,
of the uncertainties both of the restructuring and budgetary issues
to a certain extent? Can you be certain that you are going to
retain the bits that you do wish to retain?
Professor Nuttall: At an early
stage after Council's announcement we identified 77 key staff.
These were people who had unique skills—played a unique
role in CEH—whom we critically needed going forward in order
to deliver our implementation plan. Currently, of those 77, eight
have said that they will not stay with CEH and five are as yet
undecided.
Q296 Dr Harris: Would they stay within
science within the UK have they indicated, those eight?
Professor Nuttall: Those eight
who are leaving?
Q297 Dr Harris: Yes, are they going
to be lost potentially to science within the UK?
Professor Nuttall: I believe the
majority will not be lost; I think the majority of that group
are going to UK universities.
Q298 Adam Afriyie: This is quite
disturbing actually; I am rather concerned here. There are 77
key staff, who are pretty much vital and have unique skills. If
eight have already decided to go and five may or may not, that
is about 15% of the key personnel. My background is in business
and that would be an alarming figure in a commercial business,
if you had that number of key staff who were not going to be staying.
Am I correct to be alarmed by that or have you got the situation
under control?
Professor Nuttall: At this point
in time none of the losses that we know of have impacted on our
implementation plan. Of the five who have not yet decided, there
are possibly one or two who could certainly have an impact on
our implementation plan, i.e. we would have to rethink some of
the core activities that we do. We are doing all we can, of course,
to work with those people to encourage them to stay, but if they
are at a closing site they can take the very generous redundancy
package and go off and get a new job in a university. It is a
challenge.
Q299 Adam Afriyie: Just very briefly,
if 15 or 20% of these key staff do disappear, looking back in
hindsight would that indicate that perhaps the overall idea of
the restructuring might not have been a great idea, or do you
still see the benefits of restructuring which is saving a few
million pounds a year for a £43 million investment? Is it
still worthwhile in terms of restructuring or do we have to wait
a little longer to make that judgment?
Professor Nuttall: We have to
build for the future. I believe there was a necessity to reduce
the infrastructure and the strategic review certainly showed that
we were spending a disproportionate amount of our core funding
on infrastructure. The process that we have gone through, which
has been very prolonged, and the uncertainty that it has created,
and some of the comments that have been made about CEH, have obviously
not helped us to retain some of the science and the scientists
that we would want to keep.
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