As described here:
http://www.bikebiz.com/news/33018/LibDem-Minister-kills-Cycling-England

LibDem Minister kills Cycling England

Carlton Reid Today, 6:00am

No more “dedicated cycling pot of money” says Norman Baker, scrapping pro-bicycle org that costs just £200,000 to run per year.

Cabinet secretary Francis Maude has revealed which of the non-departmental public bodies will be scrapped. As feared, Cycling England is one of them.

Of the 901 non-departmental public bodies reviewed by the Coaltion Government, 192 are to be abolished 118 are to be merged and 380 will be retained.

In a PDF of the Cabinet Office’s ‘quangos list’ Cycling England’s fate is sealed thus: “Abolish body. We have announced a Local Sustainable Travel Fund and will explore ways of marshalling expert input on cycling issues, including to support the Fund.”

Cycling England was established in 2005 as an independent body to get “more people cycling, more safely, more often.” It steered through the Bikeability training scheme for children (300,000 are trained each year), and created the Cycling Demonstration Towns to show that English conurbations would take to cycling if the right pro-bicycle measures were put in place.

But, for what most observers say are ideological reasons dressed up as financial savings, the Coalition Government has scrapped an organisation with just three full-time staff. The cost saving? £200,000 per year, or about the cost of 5 metres of motorway.

Cycling England had a volunteer board comprising representatives of British Cycling, CTC and Sustrans, and specialists in health, education and sustainable transport.

In 2009/10 the Department for Transport, aided by other departments, such as Health, gave Cycling England a budget of £60m, a tiny fraction of the billions spent on motorised transport.

The majority of this £60m was allocated in grants to local authorities, train operators, National Parks and other bodies for practical cycling projects. Further funds were allocated to a technical advice service, available to all local authorities. Cycling England had no offices and an overhead of less than 0.1 percent of its budget.

Scrapping such a cost-efficient body, Norman Baker, Under Secretary of State for Transport [pictured], and the minister in charge of cycling, said the decision to scrap Cycling England was motivated by localism:

“This new Coaltion Government is firmly committed to cycling. That is why it is expressly referred to in the Coalition Agreement,” said Baker.

“We want to give more power and more flexibility to local authorities as we strongly believe that they know best what is right for their communities.”

Talking about the new Local Sustainable Transport fund – which has yet to be allocated a budget and which will be dominated by modes of transport other than cycling – Baker said:

“As there will no longer be a dedicated cycling pot of money, but instead a much broader fund, we feel that Cycling England is not the right way to continue to incentivise and encourage local authorities and others to stimulate cycling.”

The abolition of Cycling England will take effect from the end of March 2011.

Cycling England chairman Phillip Darnton said:

“Critically the decision to abolish Cycling England threatens the future of national cycling proficiency training, Bikeability. This scheme currently receives £12 million p.a. through Cycling England from the Department for Transport.

“Over 90 percent of all local authorities are involved in and benefitting from the programme, as are over 50 percent of all School Sports Partnerships – of which every school in England must be a part.

“While the Under Secretary of State has indicated that the Department for Transport will maintain support for the scheme, there are as yet no details as to how this will be effected.

“Neither the Minister nor DfT officials will discuss either the level of funding or the scale of their future intentions for cycle training. We will be pressing for clarification as soon as the Comprehensive Spending Review is published on October 20th.

“Discontinued funding would mean a new generation lost to cycling, and a risk of increased accidents through lack of proper instruction. This prospect is alarming in its implications for childhood obesity and the environmental impact of a further increase in car trips to school.”

Projects funded by Cycling England are all delivered by local groups, as part of locally determined plans. Achievements of Cycling England – an organisation that mostly works behind the scenes – include a 27 percent increase in cycling trips in three years in Cycling Demonstration Towns against a national trend that has been declining consistently for 50 years.

There had also been a 174 percent increase in trips to school by bike where school cycling programmes were put in place by Cycling England.

Commenting on the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, Cycling England board member Lynn Sloman said: “If the Government is to build on the last five years’ progress in getting more people cycling, it will need to do more than simply allocate grants.

“Cycling England’s experience is that in order to get results, you need to cut through the red tape, and really support, engage, enthuse and challenge. You need to combine the energy and passion of the cycling NGOs with the expertise of professional local authority teams; you need to share ideas and experience; and you need visionary leadership.”

While Norman Baker is the name on Cycling England’s death warrant, the real decision maker was Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. He’s a motoring enthusiast who, upon moving into the post, said he enjoyed taking his Jaguar car on empty stretches of road.

In a ‘future of transport’ speech at the recent Conservative party conference Hammond didn’t mention cycling once but told delegates congested British cities would be relieved when more electric cars came on the market; cars that are the same physical size as petrol cars. [Video of the speech is on YouTube].

Motorists who buy electric cars will be gifted with £5000 sweeteners.
Cyclists, however, from March 2011, will be sidelined. No longer will cycling have an umbrella body which can talk directly, and with authority, to Government departments.

n a ‘future of transport’ speech at the recent Conservative party conference Hammond didn’t mention cycling once but told delegates congested British cities would be relieved when more electric cars came on the market; cars that are the same physical size as petrol cars.

i think that says a lot about this government, i bet clarckson will be wetting himself when he heard this

Don’t blame the LibDems – it’s almost certainly more driven by the other side of the coalition.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/cycling-england

So libdems killed cycling england.
I’m not really that concerned, there are more important things to spend money on IMO. £200k per annum buys quite a few nurses.

about 6 backhnader

I’m not really that concerned, there are more important things to spend money on IMO. £200k per annum buys quite a few nurses.

Or fills up the MP’s wine cellar, not quite…

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090428/text/90428w0014.htm

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the estimated value of alcoholic beverages in the Government wine cellar is; and how many bottles of (a) wine, (b) beer, (c) spirits and (d) other alcoholic beverages are held in the Government Wine Cellar. [270343]

Gillian Merron: The most recent available valuation of the Government hospitality wine cellar places the current value of the stock at approximately £792,000.

The cellar contains approximately 39,500 bottles, of which fewer than 500 are spirits or liqueurs. Small quantities of beer are bought on an ad hoc basis; it does not form part of the cellar stock.

But since all Cycling England does is act as a bypass for the £60m, does it do a good job? Or can another cheaper way be found – which I doubt based upon my own experience of departmental spending.

There is no Cycling Scotland or Cycling Wales. Do you think that provision for cyclists is worse in either of those countries?

Do nurses earn £33k? or is that including training? I’m sure there are hospitals who would love 6 additional nurses.
No one has suggested that cycling england be cut to improve the wine cellars of HMG. Pretty shocking statistic though, do we pay for this? ie can a minister wander in and grab a magnum because he’s parched and not pay for it?

“Cycling England’s experience is that in order to get results, you need to cut through the red tape….”

sealed their own fate?
its cost £200k a year to hand out £60m.

I would like to hear that cycle training will continue.

What do you think would be the impact on the NHS of more people cycling?

So, the money would be better handed out by an anonymous quango than scrap the quango and ensure its distributed by transport officials who are answerable to the electorate (either at national or local government level)?

I thought this government was about making the state small and outsourcing to private enterprise. Isn’t absorbing these quangos back into government just making the state bigger?

Discontinued funding would mean a new generation lost to cycling

🙄 I wasn’t encouraged into cycling by a quango

yeah but you know the mps will just have to pay the old quango members consultancy fees to do the work for them as the neither know nor care about cycling*

* cycling is just a random example the loss of HEFA is an absolute travesty though

Isn’t absorbing these quangos back into government just making the state bigger?

zero sum – both are paid for by government, however one is accountable to government, the other isn’t – plus the responsibility can be given to existing staff and/or departments getting rid of need for dedicated support staff and overheads (HR, IT etc.)

Cyclists, however, from March 2011, will be sidelined. No longer will cycling have an umbrella body which can talk directly, and with authority, to Government departments.

I thought thats what the CTC claimed to do?

HEFA is an absolute travesty though

Hmmm, remember a few weeks ago when the HFEA prosecuted someone for running a website that put grown up willing females looking for sperm donors in touch with grown up willing males, that were happy to donate sperm.

do we really, really think that the free will and choice of grown adults to give sperm should be run by a quango, under threat of prosecution?

Well, they could save money by not bothering with painting and signing cycle lanes. The ones on my ride to work are used by school run mums, advance stop areas are full of buses, minicabs and motorbikes. It’s a f*cking free for all.

I wasn’t encouraged into cycling by a quango

How do you know?

I’m no expert on nurses’ salaries, or the annual costs of training and employing the, but I’d be worried if nurses were so poorly thought of in broader economic terms that £200k would buy six.

I shan’t shed too much of a tear for Cycling England. Much as we, the converted, like to think that all things cycling are a force for good, I’m not sure I see the point of it in the grander scheme of things.

As much as I like biking, and as much as I applaud sustainible travel, this work is already beign done by sustrans, CTC etc. Uselsss quango, axing them is fiune by me.

I would like to hear that cycle training will continue.

It does, by other pre-existant charities, e.g. LifeCycle, amongst others.

(I believe that the Bikability training has been safeguarded.)

I’m a bit torn on this. I live in one of the original Cycle Demonstration Towns that were funded ‘by’ Cycle England. The money has made a big difference here and we have some pretty good infrastructure. If you’re lucky enough to live in the right place, you can get about by bike really easily and pleasantly.

However, there were several scheme that locals were crying out for and which the local authority wanted to build, but Cycle England said they couldn’t use their money to build them.

One example was a link through to a neighbouring town which follows a road on which there have been several serious accidents and which is the only road in town where I ride on the pavement rather than on the road. With very little spending, the pavement route could have been made safer and legal.

Video and background: http://bikedarlington.blogspot.com/search/label/Newton%20Aycliffe

John Grimshaw (Sustrans founder) visited on behalf of Cycle England and said that the route should follow a disused pedlars road/bridleway which runs parallel to the main road. Apparently, he thinks women would feel vulnerable riding alone on a route which is overlooked by lots of houses, is well lit and which has lots of passing traffic and that they’d much prefer an unlit lane through farmland.

If the money was allocated direct to local authorities, they (and local cyclists) would maybe get more of a say in where the money was spent, with local councillors being able to be held accountable.

As it stands (stood), a consultant paid by a QUANGO was able to override the wishes and needs of local people.

Of course, we will now get the problem that spending money by the DfT now could save the NHS money in the long term and there doesn’t seem to be a real mechanism for looking at that in the spending cuts.

Financially, it makes no sense at all to spend money on new roads, but it makes lots of sense to spend money on cycle infrastructure, training and promotion; there’s a much better return on investment.

I’m no expert on nurses’ salaries, or the annual costs of training and employing the, but I’d be worried if nurses were so poorly thought of in broader economic terms that £200k would buy six.

Don’t worry TJ was being generous, it would by 6 on maximum pay scale with about 7+ years service. With careful spending we’d get a better bargain of 8 or even more.

Financially, it makes no sense at all to spend money on new roads

If only that were true. Our economy is very dependent on roads, and new roads are often key when it comes to economic regeneration. If you measure things in purely financial terms then roads (and vans and lorries) deserve spending, cycling doesn’t. If however you value all the vague things that aren’t measurable, such as quality of life and environment, then the case for spending money getting people on to bikes can be made. People want to see ROI in a measurable form in the current financial climate though, and I fear this means the bean counters will have the upper hand for quite some time to come.

I’ve never heard of cycling england, what have they ever done to increase cycling?

Drac – fair enough, though you know what I mean: a salary of, say, £20k actually costs the employer more in terms of employer’s NICs, pension contributions, administering PAYE, etc. Then there’s training, subsidies on staff canteens, recruitment, other benefits, etc. I would guess that £200k would “buy” rather less than 6 or 8.

Nonetheless, it’s 200k I’d happily allocate in that direction

If only that were true.

New cycling infrastructure makes old roads emptier. So all the people who need to drive can do so.

Can’t remember where I saw the figures, but ROI for cycling is way better than ROI for roads. (IIRC, 22:1 for cycling vs 2:1 for roads. That order of magnitude, anyway.)

I’ve never heard of cycling england, what have they ever done to increase cycling?

The ran the Cycle Demonstration Towns scheme, among other things. http://www.savecyclingengland.org/

I’ve never heard of cycling england, what have they ever done to increase cycling?

I’ve never heard of half the quangos on that list but that doesn’t mean they should be axed…

CE was set up in 2005 by the DfT, the “Board Members” are a mix of people from British Cycling, CTC, Sustrans, RoSPA, the old cycle training/cycle proficiency group and DfT, it was ONE body that in theory represented all types of cyclist and which could lobby the Government effectively for ways of getting more people cycling, more often.

They were behind the Cycling Demonstration Towns and the BikeAbility training (effectively a new, rebranded cycling proficiency training scheme for adults and children) and they also had a lot to do with the Safe Routes to Schools initiative.

Yes, all pretty common sense stuff but having a cross section of experts (unpaid) with access to Government meant that huge increases in funding were delivered to champion cycling. OK, so a lot of the money was probably wasted once it got near local government coffers but the idea was sound.

There is no Cycling Scotland

Cycling Scotland

I wasn’t encouraged into cycling by a quango

My first bike was a Raleigh Quango 😆

Seriously though my town city Derby is a cycling demonstation town, Ive seen nothing change from before, this is the town where police went out of their way to stop cyclists who where pushing their bikes through the pedestrian area (because there is no sensible alternative route at the moment with roadworks everywhere) and warn them not to mount their bikes and its people, based on several recent newspaper articles would rather see all ‘lycra clad louts’ ‘strung up by their toeclips’ or ‘decapitated with cheesewire strung between two lampposts’
If that is the main thing that Cycling England brought then it maybe is no huge loss as from my expereince once they dished out the funds, clueless local councils just lost or wasted it anyway. The funds would have been better given to Sustrans or similar to control who have done far more in the last 10 years or so to encourage cycling

but I’d be worried if nurses were so poorly thought of in broader economic terms that £200k would buy six.

It was only a turn of phrase. I know it’s bad to buy or even sell people.

British Waterways to be axed too. As I cycle and walk on towpaths I’m somwhat concerned about this too. Sustrans routes run some of their mileage on towpaths. How will this cut affect these routes long term? But I suppose towpaths aren’t gnarr enough for the STW massive so most of you probably don’t care.

My concern with all these costs is that I honestly don’t know how in a few months any government can decide where savings can be made with minimal impact on services. To my mind it seems more a case of “well don’t care about cycling/canals/people on benefits/can’t afford private health sp that will save us a few million.

Just my opinion of course.

My concern with all these costs is that I honestly don’t know how in a few months any government can decide where savings can be made with minimal impact on services.

well said that man