Back
to SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage
Who should run the countryside?
Rural Scotland 2006
SCA conference, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston,
Edinburgh,
25th April 2006
Ian Jardine
Chief Executive, Scottish Natural Heritage
Filed 16 May 06
©www.land-care.org.uk
Thank you for inviting me to speak to today.
I have a horrible feeling, having had a look at the agenda, that
I may be here to represent Big Government. Perhaps it is fairer
to see me as a representative from the fringes of Big Government
– a non-Departmental Public body, accountable to a devolved
administration within a member state of the European Union.
That taxonomic description itself says something
about one issue of modern government – how do you know where
responsibility lies, and that’s an aspect that we may want
to touch on later.
I should say at the outset that the organisation
I represent – Scottish Natural Heritage - does not have a
purely rural remit. We cover urban and rural issues and marine issues,
and I’m never sure if the sea counts as part of the countryside
or not, but you might enlighten me on that.
Nevertheless we are a part of a Government that has a strong interest
in the future direction of rural or countryside policy. Perhaps
I should put on record now a strong interest in ensuring future
rural prosperity – as a necessary condition for maintaining
and investing in our natural heritage, our landscapes and wildlife,
through having the skills and resources to do that. Now you could
say that that’s a very narrow sectoral interest in the issue,
what’s best for the natural heritage, but then the quality
of Scotland’s landscapes also underpins many rural economic
activities and therefore justifies public investment as well as
private investment.
Ian Jardine
Chief Executive of Scottish Natural Heritage
(To enlarge photo Click
Here)
Photo ©Kimpton Graphics
I should also clarify before I get pulled
up in the question session, that I didn’t say that SNH would
support all potential economic uses of the countryside, or at least
we might have views on where some activities might be best placed.
But I can say that an organisation in our position could not believe
we would get the results we are asked to deliver, unless many people
who live in Scotland’s rural areas have the means and motivation
to help to deliver them.
And perhaps I should pick up here some of
Tony’s [Andrews] points about building consensus and understanding,
and try not to take too heart-to-heart, what was his description?
– “academic-minded business-averse quangoes.”
I’m sure he didn’t have SNH in mind when he mentioned
that. But one point I would make to you is I do believe that our
organisation, and you may agree or disagree, is one that is willing
to engage in these issues, and has to and wants to engage in these
issues. Now from time to time it might be a great relief and easy
to dismiss us as over-academic or a government quango or unaccountable
or whatever. But one thing I would say to you today is that we are
keen to engage, that we are willing to engage, we wont always agree,
and there will be issues on which I’m sure we will famously
disagree. But I would again repeat to you today that we are an organisation
that likes to engage, that wishes to engage, and we are going to
carry on doing that, and hope that you will engage with us.
At that point I’d say that I was a
bit disappointed, for example, that the Moorland Forum (1) came
in for a bit of criticism. I think that we could all say that we
were disappointed that the Moorland Forum hasn’t been able
to deliver more in the time, but on the other hand I would say it
was a very genuine attempt, by a large number of people to try to
make progress. Now, whether it succeeds in the long run we still
have to wait to see, but I would commend those who are genuinely
trying to build the consensus and recognise Tony’s point that
a lot of this is about trust. But if we stand back and devise new
names to call each other, that’s not going to develop trust.
I agree that we are about developing trust, and I hope that SNH
will play its part in doing that, and no doubt you will tell us
if you think we aren’t succeeding.
Within the presentation today, I wanted
to try and do two things, to say something about my own organisation,
to say something about the legitimacy of what we do, in terms of
justifying public sector engagement – or if you prefer interference
– in countryside issues. And to say something about the future
and how it looks from the suburbs of Big Government.
SNH is a non Departmental Public Body officially,
sponsored by the Scottish Executive. If you prefer the more populist
term we are a quango. We are governed by a Board appointed by Ministers,
and around 95% of our funding comes from the Scottish Executive.
Sometimes we are styled, I note as ‘independent’
– which occasionally has the overtones of ‘a law unto
itself’. That, I fear, is not accurate. We are obviously a
statutory body so our powers are written down and described and
approved by Parliament. Our Board is appointed by the Minister and
our resources come from the Executive. So it’s pretty clear
we are not independent: ‘independent-minded’ we might
hope to be, but not independent.
So you would have to be fairly thick-skinned
not to notice that NDPBs, certainly when described as quangos don’t
generally get a very good press. Yet they persist – and I
would argue that they persist because they fulfil a purpose. Which
is that they provide a means of delivery at one remove from the
more complex world of the Government departments, and any Minister
once appointed begins to see the advantages of that arrangement
in terms of delivering their policies in practice. What the future
holds in terms of the structure of the public sector in Scotland
I don’t know, but I know it will change. But I have a feeling
that if NDPBs or quangoes disappear in their current form you may
find that they re-emerge in a different form.
Two of the words that are often thrown at
us that I think don’t stand up to scrutiny are ‘unaccountable’
and ‘secretive’. I am answerable to a Board, to a Department,
to a Minister and to a Parliament. I work within a statute. So whatever
it looks like to you, it certainly doesn’t feel like being
unaccountable. Perhaps the mistake that we, like many public bodies,
make is that we sometimes fail to explain what it is we are trying
to do, leaving people to wonder if we just made it up. That I think
is something that I think we can improve on. The recent confusion
in the press and elsewhere about SNH’s role in relation to
a possible marine and coastal national park indicates that the role
and locus of NDPBs in government is not generally well understood
and perhaps we should do more to explain that.
In terms of being secretive, I would simply
encourage any of you with an interest to attend one of our Board
meetings and speak to our Board members. I perhaps should mention
that one of our area board members is here today but I’ll
leave him to decide whether to own up or not. Contrary to public,
or at least media, belief it is very rarely in a public body’s
interests to keep secrets – and the Freedom of Information
Act should make that virtually impossible anyway. In the mid 1990s
we were asked to keep secret lists of possible areas for protective
designation under European Directives and I personally feel that
that not only damaged our reputation, but made the implementation
of those Directives much more difficult. So I don’t think
we are secretive by choice, because I can’t usually see the
point in being secretive. What we can be is discrete, by which I
mean we have to be able to talk to land managers about their businesses
and their plans without blabbing about it all over the place, but
that I hope you’d agree is a completely different issue.
One thing I don’t mind so much is
when SNH is accused of being ‘over enthusiastic’. Many
of our staff are very committed to the jobs they do and yes, sometimes
old bureaucrats like me like to step in and introduce what we like
to call moderation and realism. But I would much rather manage an
organisation with a tendency to over enthusiasm than one with a
tendency to under achieve.
The origins of our role and powers lie in
the last century and especially in the post war era. The pattern
is repeated across Europe and indeed most of the world. The accelerating
decline in many natural habitats and in species was paralleled by
increasing demands for access from urban areas to the countryside
and an interest in the natural world. Between the late 1940s and
1980s, 10,000 square kilometres of natural and semi natural habitat
in Scotland was converted to forestry, agriculture or urban uses
– that’s about 230 km2 every year. In the same period
half the hedgerows disappeared. Once common species such as tree
sparrows and corn buntings declined dramatically. Governments, and
governments of all colours, acted to protect what was perceived
as a public interest that appeared, if left to purely economic pressures,
to be in possibly terminal decline. There is of course an irony
that many of the pressures causing declines were as a result of
other government incentives, for example to intensify agriculture
or promote commercial forestry.
One thing that is often said to me is that
protected areas aren’t needed because the areas of wildlife
value that are left have been looked after by their traditional
managers and should be left to them. I’m afraid it is the
experience of extensive habitat loss particularly between 1945 and
1980 that cast doubt on that belief and resulted in Governments
taking power for their agencies to interfere in land management
decisions. In the early days these powers were given to organisations
with unashamedly scientific – perhaps even academic –
origins. They had excellent science, they knew their stuff, but
there was a vast cultural divide between them and the land managers.
And perhaps there was a reluctance by some to accept that science
would never have all the answers – at least not in the time
we had available. It has taken us a long time to get more of a balance
between what science tells us and what experience and practice tells
us, and I see statements from both of the old ‘sides’
that make me despair to this day. But I do feel we have made advances,
and we are capable of making more advances. But we are not there
yet.
The same pattern of developing public sector
involvement is repeated across Europe, and of course the USA –
home of free enterprise - we see perhaps the largest state conservation
agencies in the form of the National Parks Service and the Wildlife
Service. The first of which even competes in some instances with
the private sector to provide visitor and tourist amenities. In
Scotland a survey done in 2003 showed that 94% of all jobs dependent
on the natural heritage were in the private sector. And I think
there is a job that SNH can do and has done in supporting those
jobs and that activity even although statutorily we are not a rural
development agency. And perhaps again, the example that Tony [Andrews]
quoted of the Tweed Forum is relevant there. If you look at the
development of the Tweed Forum, and the work also of the Tweed Foundation,
you will see that SNH did play a role in encouraging and supporting
that and in seeking funding through the intricacies of the Leader
programme to support some of that activity. I think there are examples
there where we can look at public and private sector bodies working
together and perhaps if we look hard at those examples and see what
works about them, we will learn something useful for the future
as well.
Undoubtedly, the area of our activity that
has probably caused most friction has been the designation and protection
of sites to protect particular habitats or species. The re-designation
of SSSIs in the 1980s was followed by the addition of European designations
in the 1990s and into this century. Partly the concerns were issues
of principle and partly they were about economic impact. In reality
out of the total number of sites designated the number that I think
actually caused real problems was very few – I doubt that
I could name more than a dozen or so – but the public perception
was that there was a steady stream of issues running through from
the early 1980s to the present day.
I think in the time that I have today, I
have to be careful and not say too much more about the protected
area designation although I’m happy to answer any questions
here or afterwards. But I can perhaps warn you that I have the potential
to talk at considerable length on this issue, and probably shouldn’t.
My own involvement has been mainly with
the European Directives – SNH has not any designated sites
for purely national reasons for many years. Overall my views on
the exercise are, I would admit, rather mixed. I do think that the
European Directives introduced higher and more consistent standards
of protection.They introduced objectives and tests of the standards
of protection. They were an attempt to build the proverbial level
playing field – only in this case there was a need to build
the playing field before it could be levelled. On the other hand
there were periods of delay and confusion about what was going to
happen and what the implications were. The approach leant back,
maybe too far, on an academic and science based approach. Also a
serious look at the implications for funding and support came late
in the day.
It seems reasonable now – as we get
to the end of the designation process under European Directives
– to look to the future and to see if we can’t realise
some benefits we’ve been through.
In the foreseeable future the Scottish countryside
will undoubtedly, as other speakers have already covered, be subject
to possibly intensifying pressure to change – from changing
public perceptions and needs, changing demography, new development
pressures, new economic pressures and opportunities.
I predict however that environmental quality
will remain a significant factor in terms of public and commercial
demands – perhaps it will even increase. Within a crowded
and developed Europe, opportunities to access open and relatively
undeveloped countryside is limited. Indications are that even if
people don’t travel into these areas, they like to know they
are there. Environmental quality as a proxy for product quality,
especially in terms of food, tourism, recreation and natural resources
is a factor – just look at the marketing techniques used to
promote Scottish products and you can see how we use the quality
of our landscapes and wildlife is seen as a commercial advantage.
Much is said now about the ‘quality of life’ as a key
determinant for choices about location and lifestyle, and if that
is so then it should work in Scotland’s favour.
The challenge is to ensure that the environmental
quality really is as good as the market seems to think it is, and
to ensure we invest sensibly in the resource. I do worry that we
rather take part of our reputation for granted, and that’s
a big risk if that’s the resource that underpins our largest
industry – tourism. One way of continuing to be perceived
as a country with an exceptional quality of landscapes, open air
recreation opportunities and wildlife is to ensure that, in reality,
that is what we are.
So where is the public sector likely to
be going? One piece of possibly good news is that I don’t
see any further land designation under European Directives. National
approaches are likely to be focused more on collaboration and integration,
such as underpin the National Parks legislation. SNH itself will
be more focused on supporting land managers to care for areas of
high natural heritage value than on designating it. I do see, and
have always seen our role primarily as advisers rather than regulators.
The system of public sector support for land management activity
is set to change quite radically with the introduction of land management
contracts, and as an earlier speaker said, let’s hope it goes
more smoothly in Scotland than in England. Also they will require
public bodies to work more closely together and provide more joined
up advice and funding streams.
There is also an expectation that bodies
like SNH will work more closely with the Enterprise Network and
Visitscotland so that when there is the possibility of conflict
between economic and environmental objectives, there is a shared
ambition to find a solution rather than a taking up of diametrically
opposed positions.
For a small country, the public sector in
Scotland has been remarkably divided and compartmentalised. The
pressures from devolution, the pressures for greater efficiency
and the pressures for more tailored and ‘joined up’
approaches from those who receive public services (together with
those regulated by them) will all challenge the current institutional
boundaries.
Although it will no doubt be difficult to
get it right, I see ahead that bodies such as SNH will work much
more closely with other public bodies rather than providing separate
advice, funding or regulation. Already there is the On the Ground
Project within the Environment and Rural Affairs Department is pursuing
options for greater co-location of their various bodies both to
reduce cost and to improve service delivery.
In a nutshell then, the danger on the other
side of that is that the public sector appears even more monolithic
and anonymous, even if it is smaller and better joined-up. What
I see happening is that the public sector will operate on a more
regional basis particularly in the rural sector, so that there will
be more of a regional structure where all the public bodies will
operate together but on a regionally divided basis, with the intention
of tailoring services, tailoring their advice more to particular
circumstances. I think that ties in with what other speakers have
said.
I’m not naïve enough to think
that this will be a future without any difficulty, but if I can
repeat what I said at the beginning - I do like to think that SNH
is an organisation happy and willing to discuss and cooperate with
you and to secure a better future.
Thank you very much.
©www.land-care.org.uk
References
1. "Scotland's Moorland Forum
was established by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) in March 2002.
It consists of 22 member organisations and 5 observer organisations,
all of which signed up to a Statement of Intent setting out clear
objectives and targets for moorland conservation and management
in Scotland. The Forum seeks a sustainable future for moorland through
collaborative work".
http://www.moorlandforum.org.uk
Further reading recommended by Land-Care
 Andrews,
Tony (2006)." Who should run the countryside? Rural Scotland
2006."
4th Annual Conference, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh,
25th April 2006
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 04 May 06,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
Hoey,
Kate (2006). Chairman, Countryside Alliance. "Who should run
the countryside? Rural Scotland 2006."
4th Annual Conference, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh,
25th April 2006
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 08 May 06,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
Stevenson,
Struan (2006). "Big government in the countryside". 4th
Annual Conference, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh,
25th April 2006: "Who should run the countryside? Rural Scotland
2006".
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 09 May 06,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
Miers,
Tom (2006). Chief Executive, The Policy Institute. "Who should
run the countryside? Rural Scotland 2006."
4th Annual Conference, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh,
25th April 2006
See SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL Homepage, filed 15 May 06,
www.land-care.org.uk Click
Here to View
Acknowledgements and Disclaimer
Land-Care is grateful to Tony Andrews, CEO
Scottish Countryside Alliance, and to Dick Playfair of Playfair
Walker for the invitation to attend the conference in a media capacity,
the opportunity to participate in both formal and informal discussion,
and for their help in providing Land-Care with transcripts of the
papers presented.
No responsibility for errors or omissions
in the transcription process can be taken by SCA, Playfair Walker
or Land-Care.
Kimpton Graphics is a division of Land-Care.
Finis
|
