Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
MR PETER
JONES, MR
MARK PARKER,
PROFESSOR CAROLYN
ROBERTS, MR
DAVID GIBSON,
COUNCILLOR ANDY
SMITH AND
MR JEREMY
SCHOFIELD
15 JUNE 2009
Q240 Mr Cox: To go back to the question,
if I may, how would you see the Bill in order to enable you to
continue to form those kinds of relationships?
Mr Smith: If I had to draft it
tomorrow afternoon, sir, I think the best I would do would be
to take out the current clauses 68 and 69 and the associated ones
that set up RFCCs with particular membership, and charge the EA
with setting up committees to advise their process in consultation
with local authorities—Natural England crucially—and
to consult area by area and possibly with one mechanism or possibly
two for inland and coastal so that area by area, because the local
circumstances are so different, come up with a mechanism that
has the statutory objectives; it has to come up with a mechanism
which will meet the EA's sustainability objectives, and also fit
in with local plans, the regional spatial strategies—and
one of my responsibilities on the Suffolk coast is the local plan—to
bring all those things together and come up with an integrated
management of the whole coast, part of which feeds the EA's authorisation
processes, but part of which also integrates the whole process
with the whole socio-economic activity that an area—and
it does not really matter whether it is the coast—represents
that as one set of socio-economic patterns. Tewksbury in Gloucester—I
was at Upton-on-Severn when it flooded in 2007 as a visitor and
you saw it happen. Local circumstances are different. Let the
Bill set the objectives and the constraints and the outcomes which
are required, but let us charge the EA to go to local areas of
appropriate size—and that would be the coastal units on
the coast, and some catchment related perception presumably for
the major rivers, and come up with a structure that may in detail
look very different from place to place, but which has the common
attribute of flexibility and satisfying the objectives of fresh
funding.
Q241 Paddy Tipping: We have already
talked about data-sharing in the Bill. Are the provisions right?
Are they workable?
Mr Jones: There are some practicality
issues. Some parts of the water industry are a bit sensitive to
data protection and so we can get virtually anything we like informally
without any difficulty at all. In terms of formality I think it
is a data protection issue rather than a real issue in that sense.
I apologise if I sound like a cracked record, but if there was
a legally set up body, that would overcome that because it would
be passing to that body, whatever that body may be, whether it
is the RFDC as it is designed or RFDCC as it is designed in the
Bill, or another vehicle—that would overcome it. There are
issues about data consistency and long-term data strategy. There
are two points of view. What are we going to do with it all once
we have amassed it? The one that troubles me more is the consistency
and the currency of it all; is it all transferable? This is where
we welcome the EA's lead role. For the EA in concert with the
water industry, to set down some key criteria quite soon on what
a good set of data would look like, what generic software would
be acceptable, may sound fairly tame issues now but will overcome
significant problems in future in terms of data transfer and data
communication.
Q242 Paddy Tipping: So these are
practical issues rather than issues of principle!
Mr Jones: We do not argue against
issues of principles; it should be open and transparent, and if
we have the information we should share it and others use it.
Mr Gibson: Can I build on that,
because the surface water management planning in Hull is absolutely
dependent on understanding sewerage flows models, and all that
data is held by the water companies. We would like to see a duty
upon them to share that data with us and perhaps we could make
them statutory consultees in any area that you know there has
been previous flooding or where surface water modelling suggests
that there might be future flooding. Then, if they were tied in
to have a duty to consult with us, that would help draw them out
on what they have and what they know. We do know that this is
a difficulty. For instance, in regard to the 2007 floods insurance
companies have much more detailed information that they paid for
commercially and they are perhaps unwilling to share that because
it might give a commercial advantage to somebody else. One of
the major insurance companies was unwilling to share that information
with CLG, I understand, during 2007/2008.
Q243 Paddy Tipping: Can you tell
us who they were?
Mr Gibson: I can tell you outside
the Committee if you wish, certainly.
Q244 Mr Cox: Those from Gloucestershire
have talked about the new employees and the new skills that you
are having to recruit, and in Hull as well. Clearly, it will place
a much greater burden on you with sustainable water management
and plans and so on. Do you think you have adequate capacity and
resources, both human and otherwise, to deliver these things?
Perhaps I can start with Gloucestershire first and move down?
Mr Jones: We decided in the beginning
that one of the risks that we would take as a Council, that if
we tried to replicate what existed already we would be in profound
difficulties. We also learnt from other parts of the organisation
that certain skilled individuals are very, very difficult to acquire
in the social care sector in particular. The difference for us
was—and it turned out in this particular case a profound
advantage—that our highways authority went into a public/private
partnership—not PFI -it went out to tender that was won
by a private company, a very large construction company. They
were able to help us considerably during the flood, and particularly
in the first two years after, in terms of acquiring skills and
expertise that we would probably not have been able to acquire
ourselves, for two reasons. I do not think we would have been
able to offer to skilled engineers the breadth and dynamics that
would be attractive to them. Again, if I am absolutely candid,
because of the structure of pay in local government they would
be in an anomalous position where they probably would not get
the level of pay they would expect. From that point of view we
have encountered some difficulty, but our private partner has
been able to absorb that, and we have had work done overseas,
in terms of modelling, when they have been able to contract that
out. For our colleagues in the district councils, we have certainly
seen that they have encountered some profound difficulties. Of
the six districts we have, a couple have been quite exemplary.
We have been highly impressed at the way they have been able to
deliver effectively the package that we negotiated between ourselves
and them. If I could just elaborate, our view was, as I explained
earlier, that other than our duties as highway authority, we were
not going to create another layer of people doing things. We had
the funds from the local council tax levy, which was peculiar
to Gloucestershire, and through negotiation with each of the districts
separately we agreed a series of improvements in their particular
patch—and we required them to consult with parish councils—where
they felt the greatest impact would be. The other criterion we
set was that we were more interested in the amount of homes that
we would protect rather than highway infrastructure. We have noticed
that they have encountered in two of the districts significant
difficulty in getting drainage engineers; in fact we have noticed
that one has started poaching from another.
Q245 Mr Cox: Perhaps I can move on
to Hull now because I have another general question on the same
subject to all of you. How are you finding it from the point of
view of skills? You said a word or two about it somewhat earlier.
Mr Gibson: We are currently engaged
in recruiting a drainage engineer and a drainage technician to
support that engineer. I alluded to the fact that we are bringing
in a PhD student to give us that technical expertise and to be
an informed client, if you like, in a hydrogeology study. The
answer is that we are having to import those skills and create
new posts to support us. In the meantime, there is a very effective
partnership working internally between the planning department
and the highways department.
Q246 Mr Cox: What about Suffolk?
Mr Schofield: Suffolk's position
in terms of land drainage is quite a mixed picture in terms of
the districts. Ipswich Borough Council and has had a long-standing
team for land drainage and in that sense has capacity. For authorities
such as ours land drainage is not actually a major issue. The
major issue we have got is coastal protection engineers who are
apparently a rare breed. Over time certainly a lot of expertise
has gone to the big commercial consultancies, and the only place
where there is a major career structure is the Environment Agency.
We in Suffolk are now working with the Norfolk districts to establish
a partnership to see if we can get a centralised coast protection
group of engineers who can service the needs of the various districts.
We think it is fundamentally important if you are still going
to get this local responsiveness and local input into the whole
marine and estuary planning. It is a similar problem: there is
undoubtedly a shortage of technical professional expertise in
the engineering field.
Q247 Mr Cox: You are saying you are
looking to whom to join together to create this—
Mr Schofield: These would be five
marine district councils, so ourselves and Waveney, which are
the two maritime districts in Suffolk and then the three maritime
districts in Norfolk, Gt Yarmouth, north Norfolk and King's Lynn
and west Norfolk. We are working up to a joint partnership package
so we can essentially deal with—
Q248 Mr Cox: To recruit your own!
Mr Schofield: Or to employ a third
party to essentially provide a service to the five authorities,
so in that sense trying to get some economies of scale, but also
reporting still to the individual authorities to get that responsiveness
you need for local services.
Q249 Mr Cox: Are you getting sufficient
guidance and support from Defra on this?
Mr Schofield: In terms of the
skills agenda?
Q250 Mr Cox: Yes.
Mr Schofield: I do not suppose
we see Defra necessarily as the body that we would look to to
give us that advice. Certainly within local government we clearly
have our own local government association, the IDA, and bodies
that can help us develop that agenda, so I am not sure we would
look to central Government to give us that advice. Clearly, they
need to recognise in drafting the legislation the time it is going
to take to build up the body of expertise necessary to do the
work, so it is more a timing issue rather than looking at the
Government to solve it for us.
Q251 Mr Cox: The kinds of partnerships
that you were referring to, the Suffolk coastal, to pool expertise—are
those made easier or harder for you under the draft Bill's provisions?
Mr Schofield: The only thing that
is ambiguous is that the Bill would give the Environment Agency
the concurrent power of coast protection. What is not clear is
exactly how the Environment Agency would seek to use that. Do
they see themselves, if you like, moving to be the mainstream
provider of that function or is that a reserve power to use when
maritime districts are not in a position to carry out the work
effectively? If it is the latter, I do not think it is a problem;
if it is the former, that will create huge ambiguity as to who
does what; and certainly there will be competition for the skills
base.
Q252 Mr Cox: Thank you. A question
for Gloucestershire: you are obviously a lead local authority.
You talked a little bit about your experience of sharing expertise,
but is there anything that Defra should put into the Bill to address
the skills problem? Is there anything that could go into the Bill
that would help?
Mr Jones: Frankly, I do not think
there is. I think it would be a component within the Bill that
over a period of time would probably become redundant. As my colleague
said, it is an issue that local government needs to stimulate.
It is an issue where local government needs to encourage young
people to recognise it as a legitimate career. Perhaps in the
past it became a bit of a twilight career and has not had the
investment and we need to work with the universities to encourage
young people now to see it as a legitimate career. Assistance
outside the Bill that Defra could offer would clearly be very,
very helpful, but to enshrine it in the Bill I am not sure would
achieve a great deal.
Q253 Chairman: Let us move on to
the question of the resources that will be required for the new
responsibilities which the Bill puts upon local authorities. You
have all touched on it in some way, particularly the last discussion
about the cost of experts and the fact that two of you are involved
in the pilot studies. The Bill perhaps does not give as much clarity
as you might like on the question of the financial implications
and there is a hint from some of the evidence that we have had
that if the plans help local authorities to avoid flooding that
will mean that you do not have to spend money which you might
otherwise put to one side, therefore that funds the planning and
the responsibilities. It is an easy way of dealing with it and
I suppose we have to be mindful of the fact that public expenditure
over the next few years is likely to be coming under a great deal
of pressure. Put simply, particularly to those of you who are
involved in the pilot projects, do you think that you will have
sufficient resources to make these proposals work in reality or
is it a question of doing your best with the limited resources
that you have and accepting there is not going to be any more
money?
Mr Gibson: I think you are absolutely
right that local authorities are facing what a downturn in resources.
Clearly public funds are under considerable pressure at the moment
and if there are to be new duties and new responsibilities then
we will not be able to look at them just as isolated duties upon
local government when currently many, many authorities are planning
for the next year or two and the very tight squeeze that we are
expecting on our finances. We are moving away from the old CPA
regime into the new CAA regime and that means that we have got
to do much, much more work with partners—and that is good—so
there are many partnerships and perhaps more emphasis on partnerships
than before—
Q254 Chairman: Could you say for
the record what CAA means?
Mr Gibson: I do beg your pardon,
Chairman, the Comprehensive Area Assessment by which areas will
be inspected rather than just organisations on their own. And
so with the tightening of public resources we are looking to all
manner of different partnerships to do all manner of different
things more economically, if you like, and to produce cash from
all over the place. It is difficult with the Bill laid out at
the moment to be very clear about how much a lot of this will
cost, so I suppose I would be looking for greater transparency
about where Defra for example got its estimates from in the paper.
I am not sure that is particularly clear to us and we would welcome
some transparency about that because if funding is to come with
these new duties and it comes as part of the Revenue Support Grant
that is not always visible as to how that RSG is broken down,
so transparency would be very, very welcome. You make the point
that if you can plan for this then you are not spending the money
recovering from it. That is fine except none of us knows the return
event of a flood and it could come in different ways. It is not
an exact science and we would certainly welcome in Hull some transparency
in the Bill about that.
Q255 Chairman: Does Gloucestershire
concur with that view?
Mr Jones: Broadly, yes. We would
not be foolhardy enough to take that well-trodden path of local
government insisting upon much more resources. We do recognise
that the public sector will go into a significant financial downturn
and that downturn will last for many years to deal with the indebtedness
of the nation. We acknowledge that and we accept that. On a point
of detail, as David Gibson explained, we are curious how these
figures have been arrived at and it is very convenient that one
side nets itself out, so we would like to explore with Defra how
they got there. I think they have made some assumptions that we
would challenge in terms of insured and uninsured losses, in terms
of the highway network and so forth. I think there have been assumptions
there. The reality is—and this goes back to this fundamental
point of how this is delivered, not the what, the how—this
is where we need to get into dialogue with communities. People
are not stupid, they realise that there is not going to be the
level of public funding that there was in the past and there is
not going to be the level of public investment there was in the
past. How we set and establish priorities locally and where we
get the biggest bang for our buck is the most important issue
now. We are grateful that there is a recognition of the new burdens
and we do see that there are some start-up costs. The only point
I would make on the Defra figures—and I am very prepared
to take personal responsibility for this—is there has been
a significant under-investment in the local network of drainage
and infrastructure that must go back 20 or 30 years and I do not
think that has been recognised, so the issue of getting everybody
on to an even playing field needs to be factored in. So perhaps
in the medium term of a ten-year cycle, the first five to six
years there needs to be inward investment into local authorities
to get that balanced playing field and also to develop the maturity
as a more balanced planning and mapping process comes up of where
we can communicate with communities as to how we see this and
where we see the priorities.
Q256 Chairman: It is a very interesting
point that you have made. The picture I am getting is that organisational
change will raise an expectation that yesterday's problems will
not occur tomorrow.
Mr Jones: That is right.
Q257 Chairman: But unless there is
the parallel investment in the appropriate infrastructure, whether
it be from the local authority standpoint or from the water company
standpoint, then you could have a brilliant problem identification
system and no solution?
Mr Jones: Exactly.
Q258 Chairman: Let us move on to
a question specifically focused at Suffolk. One of the things
which is interesting in the Bill that is, if I have understood
it correctly, the Environment Agency can actually order, if it
so wishes, works to be done that would effectively cause flooding
to take place in certain areas which up until the point that decision
was taken had been defended. The Bill does not actually use the
term "managed retreat" but I think we all know what
it means. You alluded to it a moment or two ago in Suffolk when
you talked about some novel solutions that you have found. In
other words, from your local standpoint you have defended on the
Suffolk coast that which you felt had to be defended but the Environment
Agency could if it so wished take a different view. How do you
see that potential conflict of interest working out and if the
Environment Agency did decide to undo that which you have done
because they could not afford to keep it up in the future, how
far ahead would you need some notice of that in order to organise
things on the ground?
Councillor Smith: That is an interesting
set of concepts. There are two sets of circumstances where the
Environment Agency might "force" you to do things you
did not want. We have come across this very much in thinking about
Shoreline Management Plans. Managed retreat is one phrase to describe
two very different circumstances. There are examples particularly
down in South Essex where large areas of marshland have been intentionally
flooded for ecological and other purposes. There are also circumstances
where you would want to allow water to flood for water management
purposes where there is a positive benefit in so doing. That is
one set of circumstances. The other is where managed retreat becomes
a policy simply because the EA's grant-aided funding stream under
current budgets from government for the next three years cannot
fund anything, and that is a different set of circumstances. I
think the cases where managed retreat is seen as a positive thing
in many circumstances are susceptible to local agreement. Once
we have moved the public perception away from we must defend everything
all the time always just because we want to defend it, once you
have moved forward from there, and I think that is becoming true,
those situations are unlikely to be with any frequency the crunch
situations. The crunch situation is what I described a little
while ago. A current example is the Blyth Estuary and others are
coming over the hill in areas right round the country with low-lying
tidal marshland estuaries. I think one of problems is that the
EA have or are charged by Defra to have a 100-year view which,
to rather unkindly paraphrase it, says if you cannot do everything
for 100 years and prove that it is sustainable in the worst case
scenario for 100 years you should do nothing now because that
is a waste of public money. The public cannot relate to that and
I would say that the public probably should not relate to that.
We have been over that ground on the Blyth and, yes, relatively
short term, as in 20 or 30 or 40-year-life works have been done,
in part with EA/central government money, in part with RFDC money
and in part with landowner money, but looking ahead a shorter
period and saying when the future comes then we will take some
account of the future. One of the mantras we have created for
ourselves is: do not take irreversible long-term decisions based
on short-term funding issues. In other words, the EA has a budget
for three years and because that cannot do it then you let the
estuary go and future generations will never know that estuary
existed. We do not see that that is a viable way forward. We need
to be somewhat more pragmatic and less perfectionist in the way
we tackle things, bearing in mind, of course, it is central government
money and all public money. The other extreme you must avoid is
obviously throwing good money after bad. We believe, again all
the circumstances being different, with the right local working
relationships, most of those are very susceptible to be argued
through to a logical conclusion which will not always satisfy
all the local aspirations but be at the end of the day acceptable
to the locals whilst not embarrassing the EA or Government with
the accusation of spending money unwisely.
Mr Schofield: Could I just add
that on the River Blyth to which Mr Smith referred the Environment
Agency produced a flood risk management strategy which in effect
was based on their funding availability for the future. What they
have now agreed is on the Alde/Ore Estuary slightly further to
the south they will do a joint study with the local authorities
and the local communities to see if we can end up with a strategy
for the management essentially a part of which would then be their
flood risk management strategy.
Q259 Chairman: Do you feel that that
facility that you have just described would still be possible
within the architecture that is described in the Bill?
Mr Schofield: I do not think the
Bill facilitates that. It probably does not preclude it but Defra
published a month or two ago its integrated coastal zone management
policy, and what we are talking about in Suffolk is developing
that, but that philosophy is not assisted by the Bill. What you
have still is a number of clauses that talk about doing things
for environmental reasons as opposed to doing things for both
the environment and social and economic reasons; in other words
genuine sustainable communities for those areas on looking at
the whole range of issues.
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