Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND ENGLISH
HERITAGE
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q20 Chairman: What do you mean? Did
it happen or did it not happen?
Mr Stephens: No, when the Secretary
of State wrote to English Heritage some five or six months before
funding started he set out the key priority deliverables for English
Heritage and drew attention to the importance of their role in
contributing to this specific objective. The first draft of the
final funding agreement was drawn up and discussed with English
Heritage in the summer of 2008. A draft was agreed and approved
by the Commission in autumn 2008. The final paperwork to sign
off on that has taken too long, it should have been done quicker.
Q21 Chairman: Did it happen this
Friday? Finally signed off this Friday just in time for this hearing?
Mr Stephens: Throughout this period
the indicators have been agreed and have actually been monitored,
so performance management has been going on.
Q22 Chairman: That is all Mandarin
speak for saying that Simon Thurley was running rings around you
and you finally signed something off this Friday.[1]
Mr Stephens: Far from it. It is
saying that every six months we sit down with English Heritage
against an agreed set of key performance indicators which include
visits to English Heritage properties, the take-up of family visits,
other educational activities, a range of key deliverables, performances
discussed on a regular basis and all this against what are acknowledged
to be very challenging targets[2].
The target for black and minority ethnic participation in the
historic environment was achieved in 2007-08, there was a significant
increase in the participation of lower socio-economic groups and
English Heritage played a full part in that.
Q23 Mr Curry: English Heritage, Dr Thurley,
should build in longitudinal evaluation at the start of the initiative.
I have not the faintest idea what a longitudinal evaluation is
unless it is to measure somebody who is dead to see how tall they
were. Have you the faintest idea what a longitudinal evaluation
is?
Dr Thurley: I have.
Q24 Mr Curry: You think it would
help the heritage if it was put in English, would you not?
Dr Thurley: Of course this is
not our report, it is the NAO's Report.
Q25 Mr Curry: Yes, I know. You agreed
it. You must have understood what it meant.
Dr Thurley: The choice of words
probably was the NAO's. The principles behind it we did agree.
Q26 Mr Curry: What does it mean?
Dr Thurley: What it means is that
you need to have some idea what the long-term effects of what
you are doing actually are. Obviously any project we do we do
an evaluation of but in this particular area of outreach one of
the things you want to know is what long-term benefits are being
achieved by spending taxpayer's money.
Q27 Mr Curry: How much more sociological
jargon are we going to get in this? We have got Outreach. I am
used to outreach services for homeless people and that sort of
thing. An outreach service to march Muslims from Bradford up to
Fountains Abbey is not something I have come across.
Dr Thurley: Of course it is government
policy.
Q28 Mr Curry: Yes, I know, that is
the problem, that is the entire problem, Dr Thurley. This whole
idiotic process is government policy.
Dr Thurley: We are an arms length
body, a quango, and our job is to carry out government policy.
It is difficult for you to criticise me for doing that.
Q29 Mr Curry: I am not criticising
you, I am going to go to Mr Stephens in a minute.
Dr Thurley: I am pleased to hear
that. What I would say though is whether you agree with the policy
or not I think it is extremely important that we have some idea
of what the impact is of what we are doing.
Q30 Mr Curry: That is putting it
in English, is it?
Dr Thurley: Yes, it is.
Q31 Mr Curry: The National Audit
Office could in future try and put it in English so that people
like me can understand what the hell they are talking about.
Mr Prideaux: Thank you for your
guidance, Mr Curry.
Q32 Mr Curry: I just wanted to point
that out. There is much more in this report. This is a particularly
bad report in terms of being incomprehensible, quite frankly,
like outreach projects. Mr Stephens, we are in the year 2009,
is it really the job of Government to tell people how to use their
leisure time? That is what this is. You will be telling me I have
to watch X Factor next in order to make sure that the socio-economic
profile of X Factor is representative of the country.
Mr Stephens: I do not think we
are in danger of doing that.
Q33 Mr Curry: You certainly would
not succeed.
Mr Stephens: As a matter of government
policy, Government does attach importance to the historic environment.
It is of huge value to the people of this country, it is also
an incredibly valuable asset in terms of encouraging tourist visits.
The Committee suspended from 4.50pm to 4.55pm
for a division in the House
Q34 Mr Curry: I was questioning why the
Government felt it should intervene in the way people lead their
lives. Why can people not visit what they want to visit without
being told there somehow ought to be more visits?
Mr Stephens: You are absolutely
right, this is fundamentally a voluntary activity—
Q35 Mr Curry: Why is Dr Thurley penalised
or told off if he does not get his quotas?
Mr Stephens: —nonetheless
the Government invests significant money preserving heritage and
wants that enjoyed as widely as possible. I should also say that
as we have developed the funding agreement regime between one
Spending Review and another, we have significantly reduced the
number of targets as a specific ministerial decision and in line
with wider government policy.
Q36 Mr Curry: I am deeply relieved
to see you have not got a target to improve the number of gays
who visit these establishments. That would be a new one. If you
are at least moving in the right direction, I should think you
are winning. Would it not be logical to see how many women are
visiting? Perhaps women are being disadvantaged in the availability
of their time to visit these monuments?
Mr Stephens: I think you are asking
questions fundamentally about government policy.
Q37 Mr Curry: I am. You bet I am.
I am very sorry you are the messenger here.
Mr Stephens: It is a matter of
ministerial responsibility, my job is to implement.
Q38 Mr Curry: I have a lot of heritage
in my constituency, starting with Fountains Abbey and Studley
Royal, which knocks any of these into a cocked hat with the possible
exception of Stonehenge. Dr Thurley, how do you know how many
people of ethnic minority visited Stonehenge? It is in the open
air, is it not?
Dr Thurley: We do a survey. Stonehenge
is the site of ours which has the largest number of visitors.
Every year we do a visitors survey of the 10 biggest sites that
we have. It is quite an extensive survey, we ask quite a lot of
questions.
Q39 Mr Curry: Who do you ask the
questions of?
Dr Thurley: Of the people who
visit.
1 Note by witness:
The final funding agreement was given to the NAO, following a
request, on the previous Friday, but it had been agreed earlier.
The then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, James
Purnell, first wrote to English Heritage on 18 December 2007 to
confirm their funding allocation from the 2007 Comprehensive Spending
Review. This set out 13 priority areas, including Heritage Protection
Reform and PSA delivery, for the 2008-11 period to which this
funding would apply. A draft funding agreement was discussed at
the first biannual monitoring meeting of the new cycle in June
2008 and agreed by officials over that summer. This was subsequently
agreed by English Heritage Commissioners in September 2008 and
progress on Key Performance Indicators was reported at the next
biannual meeting. The agreement was amended to include further
emerging priorities across Government and agreed again by Commissioners
in March 2009, Throughout this period the group of Key Performance
Indicators remained constant with that agreed by the Commissioners
in September 2008. Ministerial sign-off was then sought and progress
was reported again at the biannual meeting of June 2009. It was
agreed at that monitoring meeting that, based on current performance
and Ministerial priorities, more challenging targets could be
set in two of the agreed fields; overall visitor numbers and educational
visits; and that a new target for family visits should be set,
in line with these priorities and emerging evidence showing their
importance to sustained engagement. Back
2
Note by witness: Family Visits
will be reported on formally for the first time in 2010 as a result
of the process outlined in the endnote. Back
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