Hampshire County Council

Countryside Service Review

Report and Recommendations

Professor Robin Thompson

April 2003

The role of this report

The Hampshire County Council Countryside service is undertaking a review. This Report offers a contribution to that process. It is based upon a relatively short (ten day) analysis of the service and is therefore inevitably strategic in its approach.

The Members and staff of the County Council and of its Countryside Service were extremely helpful and open in the interviews, discussions and site visits I was able to undertake. I would especially like to thank John Tickle and Kim Etherton for their exceptional support and Yinnon Ezra for his very positive approach to the production of the Report.

Robin Thompson

Summary of recommendations

1. The County Council should strengthen its strategic leadership on countryside issues by:

· producing a countryside strategy,

· acting as the focal point for information and advice on countryside and access matters,

· providing showcase examples of good practice on its landholdings and

· maximizing the use of countryside services by other County Council services.

2. The County Council should establish a formal internal co-ordination mechanism to oversee the countryside strategy and ensure consistent implementation of its countryside policies. The Countryside Service should act as the main co-ordination point for countryside management and access services. The current review of the Service should equip it to undertake this role.

3. Increasing access to the countryside, especially for those who experience the greatest difficulties in gaining access, should be one of the main objectives of the Service.

4. A new mission statement is needed that emphasizes the access and conservation aims in a concise and clear way.

5. The Service should strengthen its promotional capacity and should explore the offer of its services to outside countryside agencies. The management team should be strengthened in areas that will enable it to do these tasks.

6. The holdings of the Service should be rationalized by cutting back to a grouping of sites of strategic importance for protection, conservation or access.

7. The Service needs stability and should remain based within the Recreation and Heritage Department: it should exploit the opportunities for integrated working that this affords it.

8. The Service should be re-organised into a structure that allows officers work in the most flexible way and to pool their skills and knowledge both within and across the teams.

9. There is a need for systematic training to help field staff complement their outstanding professional skills with an understanding of and commitment to all corporate and service priorities.

10. The restructured management team must have effective capacity for the promotion, marketing and development role and will benefit from strategic team development training to assist in achieving this..

11. The Service should seek advice on increasing its external funding.

Introduction

1. The Hampshire County Council Countryside Service has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. Its users value it highly¹, its members see it as a "good news" service² and it is regarded as an exemplar and innovator by government and by its peers. This report makes a number of criticisms and proposals for change: these should always be read in the context of the Service's general excellence.

2. Despite its title, the service does not in fact cover most of the County's countryside. Its main activities are concentrated upon a substantial and varied set of sites and upon a network of footpaths.³

3. The County Council has no formal countryside strategy. Responsibility for countryside matters is divided - largely between the Countryside Service, Environment and Property, Business and Regulatory Departments - and there is no clear corporate mechanism for co-ordination. Although the County Council is undoubtedly seen as a leader on countryside matters, it needs to take a more positive strategic lead in helping the County to respond to the many problems its countryside faces and the opportunities it offers. This report argues that the County Council should strengthen its role as the strategic leader of countryside matters in Hampshire and have a clear focal point for them. The review of the Countryside Service should have this as one of its main objectives.

The Hampshire Countryside Service

Objectives of the Service

4. The objectives of the Service have undergone some fundamental shifts. Historically, the main emphasis was placed upon protection and conservation. The County Council acquired exceptionally large landholdings in order to protect important or sensitive areas from the threat of development. These landholdings are now primarily managed by the Estates Service in the form of County Farms and by the Countryside Service. In the latter sites, much emphasis has been placed upon the conservation of wildlife.

5. These activities still find an echo in the Mission statement in the Countryside Service Five Year Strategy:

· "The mission of the service is to conserve Hampshire's Countryside for people and wildlife"

6. The historic emphasis upon the protective role now needs some re-appraisal. Although land ownership offers the most secure form of protection, there are other effective ways of protecting the countryside.The urban regeneration approach tackles some problems at source by encouraging the retention and growth of development in the County's towns. There are also much more powerful planning and conservation designations in force that offer strong deterrence to inappropriate development.

7. The promotion of greater access to the countryside for all residents, and especially for those who have tended to be non-users, has emerged as a major priority for the Service. This reflects the growing desire to enjoy the countryside. It is the second most popular leisure activity after gardening. It has been stimulated by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which strongly encourages improved access.

8. In Hampshire, the objective of better access is a dominant political priority: for example, leading Members speak about the evidence that some young people in urban areas feel that the countryside is "forbidden" to them. These Members are passionate about addressing this issue and about the beneficial and civilizing effects that access to the countryside and its qualities can have.

9. The Aims in the Five Year Strategy reflect this emphasis upon access and awareness much better than the Mission statement. "The three aims of the Service are:

· To manage the conservation of Hampshire's countryside

· To provide access to the countryside foe enjoyment and recreation

· To raise awareness of the countryside and its wildlife"

10. There is also some residual debate within the staff about the extent to which greater access may threaten the conservation of wildlife. In practice, conflicts between access and wildlife interests are managed by the very skills the Countryside service possess. Indeed greater access will increase awareness of wildlife objectives. The provision of wider opportunities for access may also help to spread the pressures upon the countryside. An unambiguous statement is needed that conservation and access are the twin objectives. The staff should use their unique skills to manage the resolution of these objectives. The Countryside Service has a disparate range of activities and a single, simple mission statement is important to give users, members and staff clarity about its main purpose.

11. Increasing access to the countryside, especially for those who experience the greatest difficulties in gaining access, should be one of the main objectives of the Service. A new Mission statement is needed for the Service that emphasizes the access and conservation objectives in a concise, simple way.

Organisation of the Service

12. The Service has been moved around frequently in recent years. This instability has had a destructive effect upon staff morale. Within a non-statutory service (except for rights of way), this has generated a sense of insecurity that has eroded the self-confidence of the Service. It now needs a stable future within the Recreation and Heritage Department. The new Department's objectives for wider access and integrated provision of leisure and cultural services are very compatible with the service's needs and it should maximize the opportunities for collaborative working that this creates.

13. The Service's activities include the management of over 80 countryside sites, 7 country parks, 24 nature reserves and 4,500 kilometers of footpaths. Its sites range from major country parks offering a regional level of service through to quite incidental and small pieces of land. The larger sites are skillfully managed to offer a variety of activities and are well used. The smaller sites are generally assigned to individual rangers, who will have a portfolio of sites. The rangers take responsibility for the main site work, including conservation, access, maintenance and relations with the local community.

14. The rangers possess a formidable range of skills and extensive experience. Some are national experts on specific subjects. The County Council is fortunate to have such a superb resource. However, the skills available are not always exploited to the full. This is partly because there is insufficient "pooling" of skill resources across the whole Service as a result of work pressures on individuals and the fragmented structure, which discourages cross-working.

15. One answer may be to organize some routine tasks in ways that relieve rangers of some burdens: for example it would be possible to set up a small fast-response unit to deal with fly-tipping on sites (or to contract such a service). This may conflict with the rangers' approach of playing the pivotal role for their sites, but would make better use of their core skills. There is also scope to make fuller use of non-professional/non-graduate staff within the teams.

16. In order to organize work on this dispersed and varied collection of holdings, sites are organized on an area basis. 9 of these collections of sites and projects are located in east Hampshire and report to a second tier Countryside Officer; 7 in west Hampshire report to another second tier Countryside Officer. There is also a vestigial grouping of these sites and projects into 4 areas with an administrative officer for each. The staff find this structure confusing.

17. The Rights of Way service has officers arranged into 6 areas. These do not co-incide with the areas used for the rangers' services. There is also a central Rights of Way team dealing with mapping, legal and development issues. The Service is taking a very pro-active approach to the opportunities for wider access encouraged by the CROW Act and has pioneered the establishment of a Local Access Forum. It has begun work on an Access Improvement Plan. Hampshire has been selected as a pilot for the Countryside Commission's Integrated Access demonstration project.

18. The Rights of Way group is rightly seen as a national exemplar. There is again a case for making fuller use of their core skills. Much of their time is taken up with handling telephone calls and legal issues. Given adequate resources, more of this work could be handled by the central team. The pressures to open up access, especially around the County's urban areas, will place increasing demands upon access officers. For example there will be a need for new and different forms of access around the urban fringe. Tackling this challenge should be a greater priority for access officers than dealing with routine inquires, complaints and requests for information.

19. This approach of focus upon core skills exposes the question: "do the rangers and the access officers in practice have similar sets of skills?" Although there is a view within the service that there are quite different professional skills, this is unpersuasive. Indeed the growing emphasis upon an integrated conservation, access and awareness throughout the service tends to strengthen the need for a generic approach.

20. The current fragmented organizational structure inhibits the pooling of staff, information, equipment and premises. The division of a relatively small service into almost 30 separate reporting lines is incompatible with the need for a coherent approach (and also places an impossible burden on the two Countryside Officers).

21. This review was not intended to make recommendations on a specific new structure. However an illustrative model for a more appropriate structure is set out in the Appendix.

22. The Service should remain based within the Recreation and Heritage Department and should exploit the opportunities for integrated working that this affords it.

23. The Service should be re-organised into a structure that encourages officers to work in a flexible way and to pool their skills and knowledge both within and across the teams.

The culture of the Service

24. Everyone who speaks about the staff of the Countryside Service uses words such as "committed", "dedicated", "caring". There is a universal sense of vocational attachment to the conservation and improvement of the countryside. Field officers often work well beyond their contractual obligations.

25. This is of course an overwhelmingly positive attribute. There are, however, some problems created by the emphasis, in some parts of the Service, upon the immediate tasks "in the field" to the neglect of other duties. Field staff may well find corporate procedures and management directives burdensome, but their obligation is to work within the systems of those who pay their wages.

26. For example, it is entirely reasonable for management to require the completion of performance information. No doubt some difficulties could be alleviated if communication from the centre improved, as many staff would like to see happen. However, there is also a need for good communication to the centre. There appears to be a need for some vigorous management training to re-inforce the message that all parts of the County Council have an obligation to work to all its policies and procedures.

27. Many within the Service feel it is under-appreciated within the Council. Some believe that other services - such as those associated with the former Planning Department - are sometimes insufficiently co-operative. It is quite clear that the two Directors wish to encourage a co-operative relationship between the respective parts of their services engaged in countryside matters and they should continue their efforts to disseminate this throughout their respective services.

28. There is a general agreement that the Service needs to improve its self-promotion and marketing.⁴ It is very important for the Service to strengthen its capacity for promotion and marketing and to be fully self-confident in its dealings with others both inside and outside the authority. There is a degree of introspection that may reflect the "caring" nature of the Service and its very dispersed operations. If it is to take on a broader and more role as a strategic focal point for all matters relating to the Hampshire countryside, as this report advocates, then it will need the promotional skills, collaborative culture and assertiveness required of such a role.

29. Because of general management pressures the management team has little capacity for the big promotional, marketing and developmental agenda the Service faces if it is to exploit its opportunities. A prime objective of a restructuring must be to create that capacity. The team has a laudable attachment to a devolved and consultative approach. This should be sustained, but should not deflect from the need for firm strategic direction.

30. There is a need for systematic training to help field staff complement their outstanding professional skills with an understanding of and commitment to corporate and service priorities.

31. The restructured management team must have effective capacity for the promotion, marketing and development role; the restructuring of the Service should support this capacity and there is a need for strategic team development training to assist the management team, which is very willing to acknowledge the need for greater capacity in these areas..

The resources of the Service

32. There is a belief within the Service that resources have been diminished as a result of frequent restructuring. Comparisons with other countryside services are problematic because of their very variable make-up. However the evidence suggests that the Hampshire service is relatively well resourced⁵. This partly reflects the substantial size of the Service's operations and the relatively high priority it has historically received, compared to many other County Councils.

33. Certainly the political priority for stronger emphasis upon better access to and awareness of the countryside will make demands on the authority's own resources. The Service already generates over £2 million in earned and partnership income (out of a total budget of about £ 6 million). It should look at means of expanding this through sponsorship and exploitation of its valuable resources (such as some rare and highly marketable staff skills). Advice on external funding should be sought using the Department's enhanced capacity in this area.

34. The Service should also seek efficiencies in two areas. Firstly more generic area working arrangements should achieve significant savings by avoiding duplication and making better use of staff, equipment and premises.

35. Secondly, the Service should undertake a rigorous audit of its landholdings with a view to reducing the size of the site commitment. In practice there will be limited savings to be made because any other agency taking over sites is likely to want the management funding to be passed on. However, there will be potential benefits. The criterion should be that sites are retained only if they fulfill a protective, conservation or access function at the strategic nature at which a County Council should operate. Small sites with little or no conservation value will fail this test. Some rather larger sites that are valued by their local community, but which do not fulfill a significant conservation or access purpose should also be subject to disposal or reassignment, although this may be a painful and unpopular measure.

36. New site acquisition should reflect strategic policy⁶ and should bear in mind the maintenance consequences for revenue expenditure.

37. If the County Council is to respond to the big task of improving access to the countryside by current non-users, then staff cannot be deflected from this by the heavy demands of sites that do not fulfill a strategic purpose. There are other agencies able to handle smaller sites and hopefully at least some can be handed over. The authority needs to systematically ask itself what sites a County Council is best equipped to manage and what sites are not appropriate for management by a County - wide body.

38. There is another source of income that the service should explore. Now that the County Council has been given "Excellent" status, it has greater freedom to offer its services in the external market. The Countryside Service is of exceptional size and quality and therefore well placed to offer its services to other agencies with countryside responsibilities. This is discussed more fully below.

39. The Service should seek advice on increasing its external funding.

40. Efficiencies can be achieved by more generic working arrangements.

41. The landholdings of the service should be rationalised and reassigned by cutting back to a grouping of sites of strategic importance for protection, conservation or access.

The Countryside in Hampshire

Changing opportunities and problems in the countryside

42. There is a growing agenda of countryside issues. The main elements of this agenda include:

· Economic change and especially changes in farming methods and funding, including changes to the Common Agricultural Policy.

· Climate change and its impacts.

· Growing concern for sustainable development and enhancement of bio-diversity.

· Demographic and social change, leading to increasing demands for access to the countryside⁷.

43. Public debate on countryside matters has intensified and the Government's Rural White Paper and the CROW Act represent a partial response and a desire to take a co-ordinated approach to countryside matters.

44. However, responsibilities for management and projects in the countryside are divided between a large and confusing array of agencies with differing objectives and methods.

45. Responsibility for the countryside is generally acknowledged to be one of the key strategic roles of County Councils. It follows that Counties should be seen to take a leading role in addressing these issues. Hampshire has always been one of the most active Counties in terms of countryside action. However, it could substantially increase the effectiveness with which it takes on the leadership role.

Countryside agencies in Hampshire

46. In addition to the County Council, there is a plethora of bodies tasked with managing sites and routes. These include:

· District Councils, some - but not all - of which run their own countryside services.

· The Wildlife Trust, which runs a significant number of sites: in some cases, the Trust and the Countryside Service manage sites on each other's behalf.

· Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

· English Nature.

· The South Downs Way partnership.

· Two embryonic National Parks for the New Forest and the South Downs.

47. In addition, of course, landowners exercise a key role in terms of their management practices and willingness to support wider access.

48. The County Councils itself manages sites and projects through three main agencies:

· The Countryside Service.

· The Environment Department, which manages sites (such land along the River Hamble) and projects.

· The Estates Service, which manages the County Farms.

49. There are an abundance of partnerships, which address countryside and access issues: the Countryside Service is involved in over 150 of these. These partnerships represent a collaborative approach, often making good use of pooled resources and the invaluable contribution of volunteers. However, their sheer number can contribute to a sense of confusion about the allocation of responsibility. In addition, the national system of designation of conservation sites is utterly bewildering to the lay person.

50. This complex picture does have some benefits:

· There is scope for diversity of practice and for specialisation.

· Burdens, including financial burdens, can be spread.

51. However, there are some serious disadvantages:

· There is understandable confusion amongst users: MORI polling suggests there is relatively low awareness of the County Council's responsibilities for countryside services.

· There are some minor, but unhelpful, differences in practices: for example those relating to access to sites.

· There are opportunity costs in terms of achieving economies of scale.

· There is no single clear point of information and advice, for example for landowners.

The need for clearer leadership on countryside matters

Policy

52. There is a powerful case for a stronger and more integrated leadership on countryside management matters. A message from the Rural White Paper is that countryside issues need to be tackled in a co-ordinated way because they inter-act with one another. There is, for example, a strong inter-dependence between matters of wildlife conservation, climate change, new farming practices and greater access.

53. Hampshire would benefit greatly from the production of a countryside strategy. This would focus on land management, environmental and access issues: it should not seek to be a rural strategy, which would have to cover much wider issues such as social, educational and housing services. This should be done in a participative way so that all the agencies involved own the strategy and buy into its implementation. Bodies such as the new Local Access Forum can play a valuable role in developing the strategy. The County Council is however the only body with the authority to lead on such a document. It should be produced by the Environment Department, using its policy skills, and the Countryside Service, using its expertise.

Information

54. There is also a need for clearer co-ordination of information about the countryside in Hampshire. The County Council already produces some excellent material, as do other agencies. However, a form of "one stop shop" service would be invaluable and could signpost users to appropriate part of the complex array of countryside activities. This is especially important if the aspiration to make the countryside more accessible to current non-users is to be realised. There is the opportunity to link this to information, advice and access services for other parts of the Recreation and Heritage Department.

Management

55. There are severe limits on the practicability and indeed desirability of rationalising the management of countryside sites and routes into a smaller number of agencies. However, the process of simplification has started and will continue. For example, some District Councils are devolving their responsibilities to other agencies, partly in response to Best Value. The designation of two new National Parks within the County reflects, to some extent, the belief that important areas of countryside will benefit from a single strategic management regime.

56. The advent of these National Parks covering significant parts of the Hampshire countryside will be a significant influence on the future of the service. Some of its services will probably continue to be provided within the new National Parks. However there may also be a potential opportunity to re- focus the priorities of the Countryside Service both in of the use of resources and of the areas covered (perhaps for example to place more attention on the urban fringe). The Government's encouragement of "trading" of management services by "excellent" authorities opens up the prospect of some countryside services contacting to provide management for other bodies, including other local authorities and also large landowners.

57. There is a good case for the County Council, as an "excellent" authority with an outstanding Countryside Service, to look at opportunities to take over management of some facilities currently managed by others. This will be especially true where those facilities are relatively strategic in nature. The County Council should reflect that, if it does not become pro-active in this way, then others may do so in its stead.⁸

Exemplifying best practice

58. The County Council has the opportunity to use its relatively large landholdings as "showcases" for good practice in all forms of countryside activity. These could include, for example:

· Activities for schools, teaching children about wildlife and other issues in situ.

· Activities for the disabled and other Social Services clients.

· Encouragement of good and innovative economic practices, such as the Hampshire Rural Initiative on local produce.

· Sustainable production techniques, such as cultivation of materials for clean forms of transport.

· Outreach services, for example in schools.

· Green tourism practices.

· Conversion of under-used rural roads into "green lanes".

· Demonstration projects for landowners on issues such as conservation and permissive footpaths.

59. There are some excellent showcase initiatives of this kind already: these can be built upon. There is also an enormous opportunity to use the County Farms as "best practice" models on conservation, bio-diversity, sustainable farming practices and access. The termination of the older generation of farm leases will offer the chance to build much stronger requirements into new leases. The Estates Service is responding to this opportunity and it is essential that it does so with great vigour and with the advice of the Countryside Service.

60. The County Council should assert its strategic leadership on countryside issues by producing a countryside strategy, acting as the focal point for information and advice on countryside and access matters, providing showcase examples of good practice on its landholdings and maximising the use of countryside services by other County Council services.

61. The Service should strengthen its promotional capacity and should explore the offer of its services to outside countryside agencies. The management team should be strengthened in areas that will enable it to do these tasks.

A focal point for countryside matters in Hampshire

62. The obvious location for a strategic co-ordination point for countryside management and access services is the County Council Countryside Service. Why call it that, if it is not to carry out this role?

63. This does not imply that all countryside services within the Council should be centralised within the Service. There is a very understandable feeling that further structural change is undesirable at present. The Estates Service clearly has a distinctive and specialist role. Many of the countryside services within the Environment Department benefit from links to other parts of that Department and especially links to its policy-making role.

64. The pragmatic answer is to establish a more formal co-ordination mechanism than exists so far: this should be tasked with production, monitoring and review of the countryside strategy and with co-ordination of countryside services as a whole. The Countryside Service should take a lead role as the main focal point for countryside information, access and management both within the Council and for the County a whole. There is a need for an enhanced capacity for development, promotion and liaison within the Countryside Service (noted earlier): a new senior post should be tasked with management of this co-ordination role.

65. The County Council should establish a formal co-ordination mechanism to oversee the countryside strategy and ensure consistent implementation of its policies. The Countryside service should act as the co-ordination point for countryside management and access services. The review should accommodate this role.

Conclusion

66. The Countryside Service should build upon its current overall high standard of service in two main ways.

67. It should strengthen its delivery of its core site management and access services by improvements in structure, culture and working practices designed to make fullest use of valuable staff and other resources, maximise the achievement of all three of its objectives of access, awareness and conservation and enhance its promotional capabilities.

68. It should develop two roles:

· Leading the drive to introduce a far wider range of users to the countryside with a particular focus on those least able or willing to take advantage of its benefits at present, such as young people in urban areas, non car-owners and the disabled.

· Co-ordinating the County Council's leadership role on the countryside and exploring opportunities to offer its management expertise to other agencies.

69. There will be a need for resources to support the drive on access and to strengthen the promotional, development and co-ordination role. Some of this resource can be found by prioritizing the number of sites which receive management care, by better co-ordination in the use of resources and by income generation.

70. This is a demanding agenda. There is a need for some radical change to the Service, which may need to be introduced on an incremental basis, using pilot schemes where appropriate. However, the Service is entirely capable of responding to this agenda. It needs to do so confidently and assertively. In this way it can, in the words of the Leader of the County Council, "make the difference between living in the County and enjoying it."

Appendix 1 Restructuring the Service

The formal restructuring of the Service needs to be decided at the end of the review process. It is essential to establish a new direction first and only then to consider the structures that will best support that direction. This report has not been focused on restructuring in detail. However, an illustrative approach is set out here.

There are two main recommendations in this report that would have a significant influence on any new structure. Firstly the report signals the need for generic area teams for all field services. There is a pragmatic case for selecting four area teams based upon the current areas and using their existing administrative machinery.

Secondly, the management team needs to be re-organised so that there is greater capacity to undertake the stronger developmental, leadership, promotion and liaison role that the Report advocates. Under the Head of Service it would be appropriate to have three second- tier officers with responsibility respectively for the three core functions of:

· Conservation and site management

· Access and awareness

· Development, promotion, liaison, policy development

These managers would work on a matrix basis with each of the area teams. In a relatively small service, matrix management is an entirely satisfactory approach provided that the managers have the simple will to work collaboratively.

Regular meetings between the four "headquarter" managers and the four area managers would facilitate integrated management and effective communication between the center and the field services.

Appendix 2 Source material for the Report

This report was compiled using interviews, written materials and the survey of staff for the review.

Interviews were held with:

The Leader of the County Council

Portfolio Member for Recreation and Heritage

Director of Recreation and Heritage

Director and Deputy Director of Environment

Ian Parker, manager of the County Farm Estate

Head of Business Services in Recreation and Heritage

John Parry

A large number of interviews were held with staff in the Countryside Service, including regular discussions with John Tickle and with the management team and discussions on visits to a number of sites in the County. A seminar and discussion was held with the wider management team based partly on the results of the survey of staff.

Written materials included:

The Countryside Service Five Year Strategy 2001-6

Hampshire's Countryside Service: a special guide 2001

Best Value Report on the Countryside Service Oct 2000

Hampshire CC Corporate Strategy 2002

Recreation and Heritage Department- Objectives and Management Report May 2002

Staff survey prepared by Angela Gamble for the Service review Feb 2003

Integrated Access Demonstration Project Business Plan 2002/3

Hampshire County Structure Plan 1996-2011

Land and Property Review - Report on County Farm Estate Oct 2002