Civil Service Agencies: Boats
Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Written answers and statements, 9 June 2009
Anthony D Wright (Great Yarmouth, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many ships and boats have been (a) owned, (b) leased and (c) hired by or on behalf of (i) the Marine and Fisheries Agency, (ii) the Environment Agency, (iii) Natural England, (iv) the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, (v) the Sea Fisheries Committees and (vi) the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in each of the last three financial years; how many operational days each of those vessels has spent at sea at each agency's expense in that period; and what expenditure each agency incurred on purchasing, leasing and hiring such vessels in each such year.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)
The Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA) does not own any vessels, but it does have an agreement with the Royal Navy for the provision of ships and personnel for fishery protection duties.
| Royal Navy Fishery Protection Vessels | ||||
| Class of ship | Total number of operational days at sea | Number of vessels available for use | Cost (£000) | |
| 2006-07 | River | 620 | 3 | |
| Hunt | 225 | 4 | ||
| Total days | 845 | — | 6,199 | |
| 2007-08 | River | 609 | 3 | |
| Hunt | 187 | 3 | ||
| Total days | 796 | — | 6,056 | |
| 2008-09 | River | 700 | 3 | |
| Hunt | 0 | — | ||
| Total days | 700 | — | 5,916 | |
Additionally the MFA hire inshore vessels for specific fisheries enforcement work, but information on number of operational days at sea is not readily available.
| Hire of inshore vessels | |
| £ | |
| 2006-07 | 942.50 |
| 2007-08 | 2,985.00 |
| 2008-09 | 2,971.00 |
The Environment Agency (EA) currently owns 41 marine vessels to fulfil its statutory duties primarily for marine environmental monitoring and fisheries enforcement. Four of these vessels are 16 m coastal survey vessels focussing on environmental monitoring. The other vessels are smaller, ranging in size from 5-12 m, with duties differing across fisheries enforcement, flood defence inspections and harbour duties as well as environmental monitoring. The EA also hired eight vessels for data collection activities for flood and coastal risk management and marine monitoring in 2008-09 some of which is expected to continue in 2009-10. The marine vessel fleet has been subject to a detailed review over the last two years. The outcome of the review will lead to a rationalisation of this fleet from 41 to 25 vessels over the next three years to improve efficiency and increase utilisation of the remaining assets.
The number of vessels, operational days and expenditure from 2006-09 is set out in the table:
| Number of operational days | Expenditure (£000) | Number of vessels owned | Number of vessels hired | |
| 2006-07 | 2,423 | 1,205 | 44 | 3 |
| 2007-08 | 2,571 | 1,371 | 45 | 5 |
| 2008-09 | 2,426 | 1,622 | 44 | 8 |
| Source: EA's Marine Monitoring and Vessel Review Project 2009 | ||||
Natural England uses vessels for a range of activities including: site monitoring; Environmental Impact Assessment (e.g. as a result of the Napoli incident); intertidal and sub-tidal surveys (e.g. sediment and invertebrate surveys in The Wash); compliance with Health and Safety legislation and policy (e.g. diving operations); cetacean surveys (Lyme Bay); the Lundy no-take zone monitoring program (including patrols and enforcement); servicing our National Nature Reserves (NNRs); and a range of formal visits (politicians, journalists and Natural England officials) to specific sites.
Natural England owns a number of small vessels (no ships) including:
Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) that services Lundy Island Marine Nature Reserve;
One mud pump, one riverboat, workboats, one traditional reed lighter, trailboats, one floating pontoon and inflatable boats which are all used to service a number of NNRs and related work on the Broads.
In addition, the organisation owns a small number of dinghies which are used on some of their NNRs.
The following table shows the number of vessel days from vessels either owned, leased and hired by, or on behalf of, Natural England for the years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09, together with estimations of cost.
| Owned (days) | Leased | Hired by or on behalf of (days) | Total (days) | Cost (£) | |
| 2006-07 | 26 | n/a | 33 | 59 | 24,200 |
| 2007-08 | 24 | n/a | 119 | 143 | 212,900 |
| 2008-09 | 24 | n/a | 67 | 91 | 31,730 |
| Total | 74 | 0 | 219 | 293 | 268,830 |
Not all the data and information requested are available. In some cases, the number of days at sea and the cost of vessel trips is often included in the set cost of the contract, so there is no specific record other than an overall cost. In addition, Natural England does not hold data on the number of individual boats that are hired over time.
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has neither owned nor leased any ships or boats in the last three financial years. Details of ships and boats hired by, or on behalf of, the JNCC in the last three financial years are listed in the table which includes:
1. Vessels hired directly by JNCC;
2. Vessels hired on JNCC's behalf by DEFRA;
3. Vessels hired by JNCC but costs recovered from DEFRA through a memorandum of understanding between both parties.
| Financial year | Ships hired by or on behalf of the JNCC | Number of operational days spent at sea | Expenditure incurred by hiring such vessels (£) |
| 2006-07 | 3 | 41 | (1)333,600 |
| 2007-08 | 2 | 30 | (1)310,280 |
| 2008-09 | 1 | 10 | (1)111,862 |
| (1) As a consequence of the different hiring models noted above, there may be an overlap of up to £250,000 between JNCC's supplied costs and those supplied by CEFAS. | |||
Sea Fisheries Committees (SFCs) are local authority committees, and DEFRA's role in relation to the operation of SFCs is restricted generally to the appointment of some of the members of each Committee and to the confirmation of SFC byelaws. Information supplied by the Association of Sea Fisheries Committees on behalf of the SFCs is set out as follows. Further information about the SFCs is available in their annual reports or in papers prepared for the Committees' meetings and available under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985.
| Vessels owned | Vessels leased | Operational sea days | Expenditure on purchasing (£) | Expenditure on leasing (£) | |||||||||||
| Sea Fisheries Committee | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 |
| Cornwall | 2 | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | 171 | 158 | 214 | — | 21,000 | — | — | — | — |
| Cumbria | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 145 | 139 | 163 | — | — | — | (1)1,075 | (1)1,075 | (1)1,075 |
| Devon | 4 | 4 | 4 | — | — | — | (2)185 | (2)162 | (2)156 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Eastern | 3 | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | 123 | 112 | (3)80 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Kent and Essex | 2 | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | 159 | 144 | 156 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Northumberland | 3 | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | 120 | 101 | 118 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| North Eastern | 3 | 3 | 3 | — | — | — | (2)140 | (2,4)84 | (2,5)117 | — | (5)1.5m | — | — | — | — |
| North Western and North Wales | 6 | 6 | 6 | — | — | — | (2)134 | (2)68 | (2)124 | 7,000 | — | 17,400 | — | — | — |
| South Wales | 2 | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | 88 | 125 | 108 | — | 35,700 | 36,000 | — | — | — |
| Southern | 5 | 5 | 4 | — | — | — | 129 | 97 | 106 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Sussex | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 121 | 97 | 106 | — | — | — | 116,000 | 116,000 | 116,000 |
| Isles of Scilly(6) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| (1) This is a secondary lease on "Solway Protector". (2) Patrol numbers which may include periods of more than one day at sea. (3) One boat is laid up following theft of engine. (4) "North Eastern Guardian II" was sold out of service mid year. (5) "North Eastern Guardian III" was commissioned in July 2008. (6) Isles of Scilly has no dedicated vessels. This Committee utilises the Islands' harbour master launches or the patrol services of the Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee. Notes: 1. No ships or boats have been hired in the period for which information was requested. 2. Enforcement at sea takes place on an intelligence led basis and in any case is subject to weather conditions. There are days when it is neither necessary nor prudent as judged against the capabilities of the ships or boats available to the Sea Fisheries Committees, to take them to sea. Theoretical availability is also lost to planned and to short notice maintenance needs as well as restricted by crew availability. Crew members may, for example, be required in court to give prosecution evidence or to do other higher priority work. | |||||||||||||||
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) owns and operates one 73 m sea-going research vessel the "Cefas Endeavour". The "Cefas Endeavour" is also made available to other DEFRA partners such as JNCC and Natural England to enable them to deliver their work programmes. CEFAS also hires other vessels on a charter basis. The figures provided include charters of vessels under the Fisheries Science Partnership.
The number of vessels, operational days and expenditure is set out in the table:
| Owned vessels | Charter vessels | ||||
| Number | Op. days | Number | Op. days | Expenditure (£ million) | |
| 2006-07 | 1 | 258 | 42 | 411 | 7.0 |
| 2007-08 | 1 | 275 | 60 | 678 | 8.9 |
| 2008-09 | 1 | 273 | 55 | 684 | 9.2 |
Annotations
Mad Mitch
Posted on 11 Jun 2009 11:54 am (Report this annotation)
From Mr Wrights published expenses we note he calimed the maximum £400 every 4 weeks for food but surely he does need all those ships to deliver it?