Incoming NRW chair embroiled in rail funding row

The incoming chair of Natural Resources Wales holds at least six other roles – including heading up a railway company embroiled in a row about Wales being underfunded.

Nilesh Sachdev, the Welsh Government’s preferred candidate to take the helm at Natural Resources Wales (NRW), appeared before the Senedd’s climate committee on June 11.

On his CV, Mr Sachdev boasts of securing £6bn of UK Government investment as chair of East West Rail (ERW) which is leading on a new railway between Oxford and Cambridge.

The railway was controversially reclassified as a Wales-and-England project by the UK Treasury, denying Wales any consequential funding through the Barnett Formula.

Llŷr Gruffydd, who chairs the committee, asked: “I was just wondering whether you have any qualms about… how does it look that potentially the chair of one of the biggest public bodies in Wales is actually spending Welsh money on England-only projects?”

‘Great opportunity’

During the pre-appointment hearing, Mr Sachdev replied: “A very fair and reasonable ask, I guess, I think I’ll turn it around the other way: what a great opportunity.

“I managed to persuade, through my board and chief executive, to get the government in England to give all that money to East West Rail, I wonder what we could do here.

“So, I think there’s an opportunity of saying: how can we, in Wales, put a case forward that makes sure the money that Welsh taxpayers are paying stays here?”

Mr Gruffydd pressed concerns about his involvement with ERW, saying: “I know you don’t decide where the money comes from – but you’re the guy signing the cheques.”

Mr Sachdev accepted: “Of course, the optics are difficult. I arrived there, I was given a job to do and my job was to make sure I was successful at it and I would do the same at NRW and make sure that we’re successful at retaining as much of our money as we can.”

‘Six roles’

Asked about his motivation for wanting to be chair of NRW, Mr Sachdev pointed to his passion on climate change and a recent move to Bristol. “In fact, it’s quicker to get here than it would be from Abergavenny in the traffic,” he said.

He told the committee: ‘I want to play a part in a community I dearly respect and have an affection for in an area I deeply care about.”

Pressed about his local links, the father-of-three confirmed he has never lived in Wales but said his wife’s grandparents were born in Gower and his son attended Cardiff University.

He added that he was involved in building supermarkets across the country from Pontypridd to Wrexham for 15 to 20 years while he held senior roles at Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Mr Sachdev, a non-Welsh speaker who holds six other non-executive roles according to his CV, will also become chair of University of Warwick in July.

‘Public trust’

He told the committee he was due to “rotate off” three of those roles and getting to work in Wales will save him up to four hours a day, “so I can devote more of my time”.

On NRW closing cafes and shops at its Nant yr Arian, Coed y Brenin and Ynyslas visitor centres, he said: “Those are challenges that were given to NRW to deal with and they dealt with them with a particular solution.

“Do I think that solution is right? Probably not, but I don’t know until I speak to them and say ‘what were the options?’.”

Warning that public trust in NRW has “clearly diminished”, Mr Sachdev said: “It’s a bit like turning a big old tanker, isn’t it? Trust is often given to people… when you lose it, it’s going to take a long time to build it. We’ve got to start building bridges now.”

He added: “At the moment, it’s a ‘stick’ answer rather than let’s create a carrot to go with it, so how can we co-create an answer that can help open up these visitor centres?”

‘Unfortunate’

Mr Sachdev said addressing water pollution and flooding would be his priorities in the £67,600-a-year role, before expenses, which requires a minimum of 104 days.

He described NRW’s financial picture, which includes a £19m loan from Welsh ministers to cover the costs of a tax blunder, as unfortunate. Promising to strengthen governance, he told Senedd Members: “We’ve just got to get smarter about running NRW.”

Asked about NRW slashing around 250 jobs to plug a £10m gap, Mr Sachdev, who boasted of leading a 20% cut in ERW’s workforce on his CV, said: “I’m not prepared to just give you an opinion without having any insight as to what caused that.”

The Senedd’s climate committee holds no veto on the appointment and Huw Irranca-Davies, the deputy First Minister and climate secretary, will make a final decision in the weeks ahead.

If successful, one of the first jobs to land on Mr Sachdev’s desk will be appointing an NRW chief executive after Clare Pillman announced her decision to stand down due to ill health.