Breadcrumbs
Minutes of the 35th Meeting of the Countryside Agency
Present: Ewen Cameron, Chairman
Pam Warhurst
Kate Ashbrook
Norman Glass
Tony Hams
Alison McLean
Philip Lowe
Tayo Adebowale
Peter Fane
Martin Doughty
Frances Rowe
Janet Bradbury
Victoria Edwards
In attendance: Richard Wakeford, Chief Executive
Margaret Clark, Director
Tim Lunel, Director
Marian Spain, Director
Jeremy Worth, Director
Juliet Grace, Head of Management Support Group
Chairman’s introduction
1. The Chairman welcomed Countryside Agency staff and external observers.
Apologies for absence
2. Apologies had been received from John Varley and Graham James.
Minutes of the meeting of 10 April 2003
3. The minutes of the 10 April Countryside Agency meeting were approved.
Minutes of the meeting of 10 April 2003 – Closed sessions
4. The minutes of the closed session papers were approved subject to minor amendment.
Chief Executive’s report and matters arising
5. Richard Wakeford introduced the Chief Executive’s Report and matters arising. He explained that the new format and approach of reporting was to ensure that Board members received current information about concerns, issues and successes at the earliest opportunity. The report was not a duplication of the quarterly reports on performance against the corporate plan the Board received, but an opportunity to provide the Board with a broad flavour of current Agency activity and work within the different programme areas. Where there were more substantive issues to be dealt with these would continue to be brought to the Board as a Board paper.
6. Board members noted that Defra’s Landscape Review team had understood the Agency’s comments . A further update would be brought to the Board when there was additional information available.
7. The meeting noted that the recommended amendments to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill (point 11), would include the need for an enhanced role and delegated powers for parish councils. Amendments had also been suggested on issues of affordable housing: the National Housing Federation would be pushing for an amendment in line with Agency views. In both cases the main goal would be to achieve Government commitments to action rather than the amendments themselves.
8. The meeting noted that the step-o-meters (point 19) had created good press interest, despite operational difficulties that some had suffered. It had proved an important and value for money concept that had raised awareness of the walking the way to health campaign, especially amongst Members of Parliament.
9. Board members noted that the short list of Beacon Towns (point 8) had been drawn up and the list of issues that each town would concentrate on was being refined.
10. The meeting noted that Richard Wakeford attended national policy meetings with senior Rural Development Agency staff three times a year (point 7). He had offered a presentation at the next meeting.
11. Board members noted the work with VisitBriatin on tourism (point 14). It was important that there was clarification about what the Agency was doing in tourism. In response, the Chief Executive referred the Board to the Business Plan.
12. The Chairman updated Board members about the South West Coast Path. In November 2001 the Board had approved the principle of realignment of the path. Since then the Chairman and Deputy Chair had visited the site, Strete Gate. It was recognised as a difficult area, but it was felt that a fair balance had been achieved between the private concerns in the area and the public benefit. The Board was content with the proposals for realignment.
13. The Deputy Chair provided an oral report from the National Countryside Access Forum (NCAF). Key items discussed by NCAF included the access mapping project. There was particular concern about Ordnance Survey (OS) and their work to map the boundaries of open access land. OS would be invited to the next NCAF meeting to provide a more comprehensive explanation of their approach. NCAF had also discussed the future of NCAF itself and its membership. NCAF continued to enthusiastically support the Agency in its work.
14. A robust framework was needed within which to cascade information and advice from local access fora to central government. NCAF’s advice was that new rights of access would only work if responsibilities were clearly defined and appropriate investment made. Sufficient resources would need to be identified to ensure adequate management of new access land. Joint letters from members of NCAF had been prepared and sent to the Rural Affairs Minister, though it was recognised that both Defra and the Agency’s budgets were restricted. It was important that the Minister understood the potential to achieve a smooth implementation of “right to roam” if landowners were rewarded for positive land management.
15. In the last Spending Review a bid for access work and management had been submitted, but had been rejected. The Agency’s corporate plan had no allocation of money for the work this year, but did include a bid for future years. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had indicated that they would consider funding access work. A Board paper on NCAF would be prepared for July Board meeting.
16. The meeting noted and agreed that Norman Glass would join the Audit and Risk Management Committee. The minutes from the March meeting of the Audit and Risk Management Committee were tabled and accepted by the Board.
Quarter Four Report January – March 2003
In attendance, Tim Lunel.
17. Introducing the paper, Tim Lunel outlined that the financial outturn was close to budget in resource terms. There had been an issue on forecasting at the end of the third quarter, and Defra had been informed that there would be an underspend which was now not the case. This had in part been due to individual project officers taking a pessimistic view on how much work had progressed, and smaller projects had caused inaccuracies. Table 1 provided an overview of unaudited provisional outturn and showed that the Agency was £0.5m over budget. There was the potential for the underspend to be taken back by Defra from this year’s funding.
18. In discussion Board members made the following points:
a. Individual programmes had been managed close to the original budget, apart from three main programme areas which accounted for 50% of total spend.
b. An underspend was as much a concern as overspend as this might indicate that benefits for rural people had not been achieved.
c. Some Board members thought that the management of programmes was not as good as the text in the Board paper suggested. Programme management processes should be in place to allow for more accurate forecasting. It was important that such differences from one quarter to another were avoided. On the other hand the differences were quite small and the variations in forecasts were much less than in some other public sector bodies.
d. The transfer from cash accounting to resource budgeting had required some retrospective adjustments. The financial system the Agency was working with was designed for cash accounting. Staff had received training and as they became familiar with the new system the process would improve. The forecasting had not been helped by a lack of end of year flexibility that other non-departmental public bodies had. This had resulted in a focus by staff on spend, rather than outputs.
e. The quarterly report provided a snapshot of the Agency’s financial position. An exact picture was therefore difficult to achieve. The full accounts had still to be audited by the National Audit Office which would take a management view of the work that had been done.
19. A new format for quarterly reports was introduced to the Board.
a. Board members commended the new reporting format as an improvement on previous reporting. The new format was able to capture future risk areas as well as progress to date.
b. The new format would report on main issues and was not intended to be an exhaustive list of all work areas. Board members with responsibility for programme areas should work closely with Programme Directors to satisfy themselves about more detailed progress.
c. Where there had been external causes for outcomes not having been achieved this would be noted in the report.
d. The ‘traffic light system’ would allow an assessment of future risk areas and provide a commentary of action points on how these risks may be mitigated. This system would be helpful by providing detail on programmes with specific problems or where targets were not being met.
e. The report should be cross referenced with the corporate plan with a table of key objectives for each programme area.
f. The Executive would be responsible for developing an action plan to tackle areas of risk. The Board would be advised on action taken.
20. Summing up the discussion the Chairman concluded that:
w the Board had noted the provisional end year report for 2002/03;
w the Board had commended the Agency for achieving outturn;
w the Board had approved the proposed new format for future Quarterly reports subject to minor amendments and improvements.
A Vision and Programme for the Rural Urban Fringe AP03/15
In attendance, Keith Buchanan.
21. Introducing the paper, Keith Buchanan explained that the paper provided a way forward for creation of a vision for the rural urban fringe, and a demonstration programme to show how the vision might be delivered. The vision and programme would be instrumental in delivering aspirations within the Rural White Paper. Funding for the demonstration programme would come from the re-distribution of the budget originally intended for community forests, and through a possible bid to the Spending Review 2004. A small team of Agency staff would manage the programme. A model, similar to the Market Town Initiative healthcheck process, would be used to identify local needs and interests and to enable the creation of a delivery plan for each rural urban fringe area. Area action plans, community strategies and other existing localised plans and systems would be used to deliver the results of the healthcheck process.
22. In discussion Board members made the following points:
a. The rural urban fringe was integral to much of the Agency’s work. It was an area of work which was cross cutting and in tune with the Government’s agenda. It was an area of work the Agency should be involved in
b. The rural urban fringe described in the Board paper was a resource that was currently underused and had huge potential, and one which encompassed a broad range of needs. It was recognised that many different organisations in Britain and in Europe had been working in the rural urban fringe. A vision shared between these bodies and the Agency would be important to achieving success.
c. The draft vision lacked people. The programme should allow for identification of local differences and needs in rural urban fringe areas. It was important that a definition and vision for the rural urban fringe allowed for local distinctiveness. The problems faced by those people living in rural urban fringe areas needed to be teased out to avoid the project working with an unrealistic rose-tinted view.
d. It was important for the Agency to consolidate the mass of previous experience in this area, and not necessarily focus on new or innovative work. Lessons should be learnt from other related programmes, for example, Community Forests and Local Heritage Initiative. Evaluation needed to be sharp and clarity was needed on how the results of evaluation would be disseminated.
e. The Agency had a wealth of experience and skills in rural urban fringe work to enable the vision to be realised. The Agency already had hundreds of examples of good working practice to draw upon. It should be possible to move to the influencing stage quickly, drawing on that work.
f. The healthcheck process, as piloted with the Market Towns Initiative, meant there was a model in place to help mainstream rural urban fringe work. More attention and detail was needed on mainstreaming, especially within the emerging development plan process and area action plans. Clearer links with community plans were needed, especially in how the plans could focus on localised problems and issues.
g. A robust exit strategy with full evaluation should be developed at an early stage. This would be important for securing core funding beyond the life of the project.
h. Timing of the scheme, and the time opportunity within which to influence partners, would be key to the success of the project. This was especially true for local authorities who were most likely to already be working on localised rural urban fringe projects and would be the most likely partners in adopting the findings of the demonstration project. Investment time would be needed with partners to achieve buy-in to the vision.
i. The paper suggested that an agreed vision with Groundwork was in question. Wide buy-in to the work was essential. The Agency was already working closely with Groundwork and Defra and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – especially in view of the connection with the Sustainable Communities Plan. An influencing plan for the project would reflect in more detail the partners the Agency would focus effort upon, including the regional development agencies.
j. The Agency’s role should remain strategic. Further clarity was needed on the role to be played by the Agency, and key partners.
23. Summing up the discussion the Chairman concluded that:
w the Board had agreed that the rural urban fringe was an important policy area for the Agency to work in;
w the outline vision presented in the paper was a basis from which to develop, with partners, a final version to be presented to Defra and ODPM;
w all previous experience and knowledge should be used to help the process of developing a final vision;
w the proposals for a demonstration programme should be informed by the Board’s comments about use of previous experience and working with partners.
Sustainable Communities Plan
24. In discussion Board members made the following points:
a. The Agency, and other organisations, had been consulted very late by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) on the Sustainable Communities Plan. This could be mentioned in the Rural Proofing Report, due for publication in June.
b. There was little evidence that the regional Sustainable Communities plans had been rurally proofed, despite the fact that they had been written by the Government Offices.
c. There was an opportunity for the Agency to coordinate the national, regional and sub-regional working on plans. At a national level the Agency was already reasonably successful. In the regions there could be a staff resource issue for the Agency in carrying out this work.
d. Each of the regional government offices had been written to with an explanation about how the Agency could help them in the plan process. All bar one Government Office had responded positively.
e. There was an issue about the timing, but the Agency would continue to influence where it could.
25. Summing up the discussion the Chairman concluded that:
w the Board had noted the content of the paper with approval.
Rural Transport Partnership
In attendance, Margaret Clark.
26. Introducing the paper, Margaret Clark explained that the paper had been brought to the Board for information in response to a request at April Board meeting for further information about the Rural Transport Partnership (RTP) scheme. The paper provided more detail about the removal of the transport ringfence. The paper also addressed the issue of pressure on the RTP budget due to the success of the scheme. The removal of the transport ringfence was not related to pressure on the budget.
19. In discussion Board members made the following points:
a. There was concern that partnerships were frustrated as, without resources to undertake projects, there was little they could do.
27. Summing up the discussion the Chairman concluded that:
w the Board noted the content of the paper with approval.
Forest of Dean Integrated Rural Development Programme – business plan targets and timetable
28. Board members noted progress and the draft timetable for the extension to the Forest of Dean Integrated Rural Development Programme, as agreed at April Board meeting.
Access Mapping Project
In attendance, Roger Ward
Closed paper.
Balanced Budget for the Countryside Agency
In attendance, Tim Lunel.
Closed paper.
Communications Strategy
In attendance, Carolyn Cadman
Closed paper.
Date and location of the next meeting
24. The next meeting of the Countryside Agency Board would be on 10 July 2003, John Dower House, Cheltenham.
