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House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee

Embedding sustainable development across Government, after the Secretary of State’s announcement on the future of the Sustainable Development Commission First Report of Session 2010–11 Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/eacom Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 16 December 2010

HC 504 Published on 10 January 2011 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00

Environmental Audit Committee The Environmental Audit Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to consider to what extent the policies and programmes of government departments and non-departmental public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development; to audit their performance against such targets as may be set for them by Her Majesty’s Ministers; and to report thereon to the House. Current membership Joan Walley MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North) (Chair) Peter Aldous MP (Conservative, Waveney) Richard Benyon MP (Conservative, Newbury) [ex-officio] Neil Carmichael MP (Conservative, Stroud) Martin Caton MP (Labour, Gower) Katy Clark MP (Labour, North Ayrshire and Arran) Zac Goldsmith MP (Conservative, Richmond Park) Simon Kirby MP (Conservative, Brighton Kemptown) Mark Lazarowicz MP (Labour/Co-operative, Edinburgh North and Leith) Caroline Lucas MP (Green, Brighton Pavilion) Ian Murray MP (Labour, Edinburgh South) Sheryll Murray MP (Conservative, South East Cornwall) Caroline Nokes MP (Conservative, Romsey and Southampton North) Mr Mark Spencer MP (Conservative, Sherwood) Dr Alan Whitehead MP (Labour, Southampton Test) Simon Wright MP (Liberal Democrat, Norwich South) Powers The constitution and powers are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152A. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at www.parliament.uk/eacom. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Simon Fiander (Clerk), Edward White (Second Clerk), Lee Nicholson (Committee Specialist), Andrew Wallace (Senior Committee Assistant), Susan Ramsay (Committee Assistant), Emily Harrisson (Sandwich Student) and Nicholas Davies (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Environmental Audit Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6150; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]

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Contents Report

Page

Summary





Introduction





Changing the sustainability architecture



SDC cuts and risks Impact on the devolved administrations

10  12 



Making Government Sustainable Work of the SDC Leadership Bringing sustainable development into the centre of Government High level leadership and cross-government working The ‘Green Book’ and tools for sustainable decision making Performance management Sustainability targets for operations and procurement Sustainable Development Indicators Parliamentary scrutiny Wider stakeholder scrutiny

14  14  16  16  19  20  22  22  23  24  26 



A New Sustainable Development Strategy

28 



Conclusions

30 

Conclusions and recommendations

31 

Formal Minutes

34 

Witnesses

35 

List of printed written evidence

35 

List of additional written evidence

36 

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Summary In July 2010, the Government announced that it would cease funding the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) at the end of the current financial year, and at the same time enhance Defra’s capability and presence to improve the sustainability of Government. Since 2000, the SDC has provided advice to Government on policy-making and has helped departments develop the skills and resources they need to make more sustainable decisions. Since 2005 the SDC has also had a watchdog role, reporting on the sustainability of government operations and policies. The disappearance of the SDC will leave a gap in the structures for embedding sustainable development across Government. The Committee is concerned about the Government’s decision to stop funding the SDC. However, it acknowledges that, despite the SDC’s hard work, sustainable development has not been fully embedded into Government because the political will to do this has not been maintained. An opportunity now exists to reassess and revitalise the architecture for delivering sustainable development. This report accordingly looks forward, assessing how sustainable development can now be further embedded in Government policy decisionmaking and operations. It recognises the contribution that the SDC has made and calls on Government to maintain some of the work-streams of the SDC. To further embed sustainable development, Government must take a more effective lead. The SDC’s most recent review of departments’ operational sustainability performance, for 2008–09, notes that Government is ‘on track’ to meet most targets. As for embedding sustainable development in policy-making, the SDC has said that Government has had mixed success. There is still more to do. The SDC has worked within Government departments to improve their sustainability skills and performance, and departments have greatly appreciated this capacity-building support. The SDC has a wealth of experience in this area which is at risk of being lost, so the Government must ensure that this knowledge and expertise is absorbed by departments. But there is only so much that the SDC, or Defra (which has policy responsibility for sustainable development), can do to ensure departments fully embrace sustainable development. Sustainable development needs to be driven from the centre of Government by a Minister and department with Whitehall-wide influence. They must be capable of holding all departments to account for their sustainable development performance, as well as being able to encourage real commitment. In the SDC’s view, a lack of effective and consistent leadership from the highest level has held back progress. Defra has the expertise to help departments become more sustainable, but it is not the best place from which to drive improved sustainable development performance across Government. After many years with the policy lead in this area, a different approach now needs to be considered, to provide greater political leadership for the sustainable development agenda and to ensure that the necessary actions are implemented. The Cabinet Office would provide a more central base for driving action in departments Whitehall-wide. It should take over the policy lead for delivering more sustainable

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Government and a Minister for sustainable development should be created, ideally in the Cabinet Office, to oversee that imperative. The Cabinet Office’s capacity to undertake this leadership role should make use of existing Defra expertise on sustainable development, transferring the relevant teams if necessary. The Treasury is in a position to support such central-Whitehall leadership by exerting real influence over other departments, including the possible use of sanctions against poor performers. It is imperative that they are signed up to this agenda. The Treasury could use its position to continue to develop ‘sustainability reporting’ by departments, strengthen the system of impact assessments and the ‘Green Book’ investment appraisal methodology for policy-making, and embed the results of the Government Economic Service review of the economics of sustainability and environmental valuation into those impact assessments and appraisals. Greater political leadership from the top should be brought to bear, and the Government should consider how it could add new impetus to the sustainable development agenda. A new Cabinet Committee with terms of reference addressing sustainable development should be established to oversee departmental performance and encourage more sustainable decision making. This would include ministers from all departments, the new minister for sustainable development and the Prime Minister, encapsulating this high level commitment. The Government is reviewing the system of indicators and targets for monitoring progress by departments on the sustainability of their operations and procurement practices. This provides an opportunity, which the Government should grasp, to deliver the improvements in the coverage of the indicators framework called for by the SDC, and to make the streamlining improvements sought by individual departments. The Government must introduce a full set of indicators to measure sustainable development that can be used to develop policy. The Prime Minister’s initiative to explore how a measure for well-being might be generated is helpful, but this must be done in a way which takes account of sustainable development principles while providing a practically useful tool for policy evaluation and decision making. While the Government currently plans for Defra to take the lead in helping departments to apply sustainable development principles, it has no plans to take on the SDC’s watchdog role. The Government appears to wish to leave this to this Committee. It is not for the Government, however, to determine how Parliament might exercise its role of holding Government to account. We are not currently resourced to carry out the routine scrutiny work of the SDC and continue our separate role in scrutinising the Government’s sustainability performance. We will continue to play a role in the scrutiny of the Government’s sustainability performance, however, and we have identified areas of scrutiny work that we will undertake, including monitoring the operation of the Government’s new post-SDC sustainable development architecture. We will work with outside organisations to make sure emerging concerns about sustainability have a suitable forum. The Government has a wider oversight agenda, assisting scrutiny through greater transparency of its activities. As with other areas of Government activity, it aims to make data on its sustainable development performance more accessible to the public. In the gap

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left by the SDC, the Government expects that the public, academics, NGOs and community groups will use this data to hold it to account. That will be no substitute for the SDC, but the Government must make every effort to engage with this audience to assist such groups in scrutinising its work. Cutting the SDC’s funding, and bringing into Government the responsibility for monitoring and encouraging sustainable development, now necessitates that the Government provide a new strategic underpinning for its commitment to sustainable development as an overarching goal of Government policy-making. The 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy requires an urgent update to revitalise Government engagement on sustainable development, making it relevant for example for the Coalition Government’s localism agenda.

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1 Introduction 1. The last Government’s strategy on sustainable development, Securing the Future, was published in 2005. It recognised that the current model of development is unsustainable and that our way of life is placing an increasing burden on the planet. It described the consequences of this, including unavoidable climate change, increasing stress on natural resources, increasing loss of biodiversity and a world ‘disfigured by poverty and inequality’.1 Securing the Future set out a strategic framework for sustainable development, agreed by the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations covering the whole of the UK. It set out four priorities: achieving sustainable levels of consumption and production, delivering sustainable energy and tackling climate change, protecting natural resources and enhancing the environment, and creating sustainable communities. 2. As a model for governing, sustainable development aims to provide a long-term approach to improving quality of life by tackling economic, environmental and social issues, whilst avoiding over-consumption of natural resources and preventing decisions that will disadvantage future generations. Embedding sustainable development across Government means providing decision-makers with the skills and resources to consider fully the consequences of programmes and policies on the environment, the economy and wider society, now and in the future. 3. Over many years, compared with many other countries, the UK has been innovative in designing mechanisms for integrating sustainable development. An Environment Cabinet Committee was set up in 1990, following the 1990 Environment White Paper,2 and the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) was established in 2000. Since 2000, the SDC has provided advice to Government on policy-making and has helped departments develop the skills and resources they need to make more sustainable decisions. Since 2005 the SDC has been the watchdog reporting on the sustainability of government operations and policies.3 4. The Environmental Audit Committee has played its part in this sustainable development architecture. The Committee was established in 1997 to consider the extent to which the policies and programmes of government departments and non-departmental public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance against sustainable development and environmental protection targets. Since then, successive Committees have examined sustainable development, including regular examinations of the performance of government departments against ‘Greening Government’ targets. The Committee’s work, reflecting its remit, has covered the activities and programmes of several departments, reflecting the cross-cutting nature of sustainable development. Its work has been supported by the SDC, which also has a Government-wide role, and by the National Audit Office.

1

Defra, Securing the future, Cm 6467, 2005

2

Department of Environment, This Common Inheritance, Cm 1200, 1990

3

Defra, Securing the future, Cm 6467, 2005

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5. In July 2010, the Government announced that it will cease funding the SDC at the end of this financial year (and although the devolved administrations also part-fund the SDC, it is unlikely to exist beyond 2010–11). As an important advocate and capacity-builder for sustainable development in Government, and as a key part in the system for monitoring Government performance, the disappearance of the SDC will leave a gap in the structures for embedding sustainable development across Government. 6. The decision to cease SDC funding has disappointed many with a close interest in seeing continued progress on sustainable development. Friends of the Earth, the Town and Country Planning Association, the Public and Commercial Services union, and many others have all expressed concern and note the valuable contribution of the SDC.4 We too have concerns about that decision. It provides an opportunity, however, to reassess the architecture for delivering sustainable development. This is a chance to revitalise the sustainable development concept and to provide the leadership and tools needed to embed sustainable development deeper in all areas of government, and in particular deliver more sustainable policy making. Our inquiry has sought, therefore, to focus not on the wisdom or otherwise of the decision about the SDC’s future, but to look forward to assess how sustainable development can now be further embedded in Government policy decisionmaking and operations. 7. We had a private briefing from the SDC, after which we decided to launch our inquiry. We also had a private briefing from the National Audit Office on sustainable development, and they produced a briefing paper on the subject for us.5 We took oral evidence from the SDC, Department of Health, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement, the New Economics Foundation, GLOBE, WWF-UK, the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, Dr Duncan Russel from Exeter University and Dr John Turnpenny from the University of East Anglia. We also explored the issues with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in an introductory session with her.6 We are grateful to them, and to all those who submitted written evidence. 8. This report sets out our findings in three parts: •

Changing the sustainability architecture: Part 2 describes the implications of the Government’s decision to cut SDC funding.



Making government sustainable: Part 3 examines how the work of the SDC can be built on and how the gaps left by the SDC can best be filled. It considers potential new governance arrangements and examines processes, tools and mechanisms that might be adapted to give a higher profile to sustainable development issues.



A new sustainable development strategy: Part 4 considers the need for a new overarching strategy for establishing sustainable decision-making and what this might look like.

4

Ev w12, Ev w14, Ev w25 [Note: references to ‘Ev wXX’ are references to written evidence published in the volume of additional written evidence published on the Committee’s website]

5

NAO, Sustainable Development, July 2010: www.nao.org.uk/publications/1011/sustainable_development.aspx

6

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576

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2 Changing the sustainability architecture 9. There are a number of public bodies involved in developing sustainable development in policy-making and in monitoring the sustainability of Government operations: •

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is responsible for developing Government policy on sustainable development across the UK (the devolved administrations also have their own strategies).



The Chief Sustainability Officer and the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP), both in the Office of Government Commerce in the Cabinet Office, collate data from departments on performance against targets for sustainable operations and sustainable procurement.



The Sustainable Development Commission acts as an independent watchdog and advisor, scrutinising the UK Government’s progress on implementing the Sustainable Development Strategy. Using the data on sustainable management of the Government estate, collected by CESP, the SDC also advises Government and reports each year on the sustainability of the Government’s operations. The SDC describe their work under four headings: i.

Advocacy—raising awareness of the concept of sustainable development and responding to Government policy initiatives.

ii. Capacity building—establishing good working relationships with and between key parts of Government, and developing skills in departments. iii. Policy and advice—drawing on expert opinion to provide evidence-based advice to Government. iv. Watchdog—monitoring performance against targets and reporting on these. 10. These bodies oversee the following key processes: •

The 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy required each Government department and its executive agencies to prepare Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs). These Plans were to set out how each department would implement the commitments in the Strategy and how they would contribute to sustainable development more broadly. The SDC assist departments in preparing SDAPs. Departments and executive agencies are required to produce annual reports to demonstrate the progress they have made against their Plans.



Operational and procurement targets are provided for departments under the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) assessment framework, now retitled the Sustainable Development in Government framework.7 These include indicators on emissions, energy efficiency, recycling and water usage. The targets

7

The previous Government committed to revise the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate framework in March 2010 and renamed it the Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) framework.

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currently cover the operations of the central Government estate, but their scope is expected to be extended (paragraph 51). The Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) collects information on performance against the targets, and the SDC prepares annual reports on departments’ progress. •

Departments evaluate policy proposals through impact assessments and follow the Treasury’s guidance on investment appraisal, both of which should address sustainable development issues (paragraph 44).

SDC cuts and risks 11. On 22 July 2010, Rt Hon. Caroline Spelman MP, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced that the Government would cease funding the SDC at the end of this financial year. She also gave a commitment to greater Defra and Department of Energy and Climate Change leadership on sustainable development: I am not willing simply to delegate this responsibility to an external body. I have accordingly decided that I will withdraw Defra funding from the Sustainable Development Commission at the end of the current financial year, and instead take a personal lead, with an enhanced departmental capability and presence.8 12. The Prime Minister has committed to make this government ‘the greenest ever’,9 to ‘govern for the long-term’ by creating a ‘fairer future’10 and to promote a ‘power shift’ by redistributing power away from central government to communities and people.11 These are admirable pro-sustainability ambitions, but in the absence of the SDC it is unclear how these goals will be implemented and monitored, or how responsibility for the necessary actions will be distributed between departments. The SDC provides a means of joining up policy thinking and promoting best practice across Government through its capacitybuilding programmes and sustainable development network events. In reviewing departments’ SDAPs and annual Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate reports, the SDC also plays a primary role in monitoring and reporting on the greening of Government operations. 13. The rationale for effectively dispensing with the SDC appears to be to reduce and reallocate expenditure, and to change the leadership of sustainable development. The Secretary of State told us that the funding cut for the SDC was based on a decision to remove arms length scrutiny and take more control of the sustainability agenda. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee that the decision was made to reserve funding for other projects: In terms of the Sustainable Development Commission, what we have tried to do, in a difficult spending round, is to put money into things that will make a difference— like the green deal, like carbon capture and storage, and like a green investment 8

HC Deb, 22 July 2010, col 32WS

9

www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2010/05/pms-speech-at-decc-50113

10

www.number10.gov.uk/news/latest-news/2010/09/government-committed-to-the-long-term-deputy-pm-54956

11

www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2010/11/pms-speech-on-business-plans-56725

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bank, which will have real money to spend—rather than have quite so much monitoring and evaluation.12 Defra note in their responses to the UN’s questionnaires for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2012 (‘Rio +20’) that: Current financial restraints have impacted on the support central government is able to contribute to the UK SDC. The UK is currently working to see how we can continue to ensure SD remains at the heart of Government.13 14. Whatever the overriding impetus to end the SDC’s funding, there are risks attached to the decision: •

The financial consequences: the balance between cost reductions (from no longer funding the SDC) and savings forgone (from departments’ improved performance as a result of the SDC’s support). The SDC budget for 2010–11 is £4.5million, funded by contributions from Defra, the Devolved Administrations and a range of other departments. The Sustainable Development Commission has calculated that it has helped Government save money by teaching departments how to operate more sustainably and how to deliver more sustainable policy. Andrew Lee, the SDC chief executive, told us that the value of the benefits from better management of carbon, energy, travel, waste and water in 2008–09 can be estimated at between £62.3 million and £66.1 million, although these savings do not take account of the expenditure required to deliver them and it is impossible to assign the savings solely to SDC activities.14



During a period of real-term contraction in Government expenditure, with budgets in most departments being reduced in the current year onwards, departments might understandably focus on the short term rather than policy solutions optimised for the longer term horizon of sustainable development. The linkages between sustainability and procurement savings were not identified in Sir Philip Green’s review of cost savings for Government, despite both areas falling within the Cabinet Office’s remit (the Efficiency and Reform Group within the Cabinet Office oversaw the Green Review, and CESP, also within the Cabinet Office, advises on sustainable procurement).15



A greater focus by the Government on empowering local communities, and putting greater responsibility on local authorities for tasks which impinge particularly on sustainable development. This is evident in the Government’s responses to our predecessor Committee’s reports on air quality16 and adapting to

12

Oral evidence taken before the Liaison Committee on 18 November 2010, HC 608-i, Q 77

13

Not published

14

Ev 82

15

Efficiency Review by Sir Philip Green, Key Findings and Recommendations: download.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/efficiency/sirphilipgreenreview.pdf

16

Government response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Third Report of Session 2009–10, Cm 7966, November 2010

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climate change.17 The Decentralisation and Localism Bill will reform the planning system to give local people new powers to shape development in their communities.18 And the Public Health white paper envisages local authorities’ directors of public health taking the lead on driving health improvement locally, using ring-fenced health improvement budgets to improve health and well-being in their communities.19 At the same time, the abolition of the Audit Commission before 2012–13, whatever its implications for the efficiency and burden of audits for local authorities, may make it harder for central government—and Parliament —to assess the extent of sustainable development across the wider public sector. In the SDC’s absence the Government will need to provide the strategy, leadership and resources required to improve progress on sustainable development in all areas of government. The Government produced a sustainable development ‘Action Plan’ in November 2010, which set out how it would make its operations and procurement more sustainable.20 The Government must now set out a clear architecture for sustainable development, which describes how these goals will be implemented and monitored, and how responsibility for the necessary actions will be distributed between departments. We consider the need for a new Sustainable Development Strategy in Part 4. Over the life of this Parliament we will monitor the consequences of the Government’s decision to cut funding for the SDC and monitor Government performance in maintaining progress towards sustainable operations and procurement and embedding sustainability into wider decision making.

Impact on the devolved administrations 15. The SDC performs a similar scrutiny and advisory role for the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. The devolved administrations are part-owners of the company which is the SDC. As a result, the Defra cuts in funding for the SDC will impact on the devolved administrations.21 Without Defra’s support, the remaining funding for the SDC provided by the administrations will not be enough to maintain a viable SDC on a smaller scale.22 16. No assessment of the impacts on these part-owner administrations was made before Defra’s initial decision to remove its funding. The Secretary of State and her officials explained that there were discussions with the administrations before a ‘final’ decision was taken, and that at that time the devolved administrations did not “raise a major objection” with the decision.23 We raised this with the devolved administrations. The Scottish Government told us that they would have preferred that Defra had not withdrawn funding

17

Government response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2009–10, Cm 7933, August 2010

18

CLG, Decentralisation and the Localism Bill: an essential guide, December 2010

19

Department of Health, Equality and excellence: Liberating the NHS, Cm 7881, July 2010; Department of Health, Healthy lives, healthy people, November 2010

20

Defra, An Action Plan for driving sustainable operations and procurement across government , November 2010

21

Ev w79

22

Ev w79

23

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Q 7

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from the SDC.24 The Welsh Assembly Government announced ‘disappointment’ with the Secretary of State’s decision.25 The Northern Ireland Executive wrote, stating: We are disappointed with Defra’s decision to withdraw funding from the SDC. Progression and achievement of sustainable development does by its very nature, both in principle and in practice, require unilateral understanding and co-operation across and between Governments.26 We are unhappy with the way that the Government has consulted with the devolved administrations on the impacts to this shared body. We recognise that sustainable development is a devolved matter and that as a consequence the UK Government is entitled to develop and deliver policy independently. However, decisions which impinge on a shared strategy should not be undertaken lightly or unilaterally.

24

Ev w79

25

Welsh Assembly Government, Written Statement on sustainable development scheme, 22 July 2010

26

Ev w79

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Embedding sustainable development across Government

3 Making Government Sustainable 17. The Government has not yet announced whether or how it might undertake specific tasks in place of the SDC . They have confirmed, however, that they will not undertake any of the SDC’s watchdog function.27 We have taken evidence from a range of organisations on how the architecture for embedding sustainable development in government should be improved and how the gap left by the SDC in its roles as advocate, capacity-builder and watchdog should best be filled. 18. Our analysis below is grouped under themes identified by the SDC and other witnesses as areas for action: leadership, tools and processes for policy makers, and scrutiny. Action in each of these areas will be required to embed sustainability across Government.

Work of the SDC 19. The SDC’s most recent review of the departments’ Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate performance, for 2008–09, notes that Government accelerated its rate of improvement from 2007–08 to 2008–09, to the point where it was ‘on track for, or had already met, most operational targets’.28 Departments are still not showing sufficient progress against a range of mandated mechanisms, including BREEAM targets,29 certified environmental management systems and Carbon Trust targets.30 As for sustainable development in policy-making, the SDC noted that: Government has had mixed success in embedding sustainable development into policy and decision-making processes. This is partly due to weak governance arrangements.31 The SDC has achieved much in making Government operations and procurement more sustainable. Their disappearance will leave gaps in a number of processes, including reporting on Government sustainable operations and monitoring departmental action plans. However, the tools and mechanisms they have developed have not been enough in themselves to embed sustainable development fully into Government policy making. For that to happen requires political will and so far, the SDC told us, there has not been the pressure from the top of Government or sufficient incentives for policy-makers to engage with sustainable development to the required level.32 20. In giving evidence to the Committee, the SDC were keen to stress the importance of working with Government departments from the inside to improve their performance as part of the SDC’s watchdog function. They argued that without this close involvement and

27

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Qq 3–4

28

SDC, Becoming the greenest government ever, July 2010

29

BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) targets are used to describe a building’s environmental performance.

30

Ibid.

31

Ev 75

32

Q3

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shadowing, Government progress would still be difficult to achieve. Minas Jacob from the SDC explained how this worked: Our work has been informed by daily liaison and close collaboration with Government departments. It’s the only way to actually advise along the way, provide a challenge, support innovation and then, when we do get to the point of producing formal written reports, those reports are well informed.33 The SDC told us that their watchdog function is undertaken by a team of seven people, but around 20 policy and research analysts work with departments to help develop policy. 21. The SDC’s approach to building capacity in a handful of departments, by embedding their staff within those departments, has achieved results. Departments have told us that they found this SDC work very helpful and that it has contributed to improved sustainability performance. The Department of Health noted that the SDC had embedded staff to work closely with its policy makers to promote greenhouse gas emissions reductions. SDC staff had undertaken a review of how well the Department’s policy machinery prioritises the incorporation of sustainable development, which had led it to establish a sustainable development team in-house. Flora Goldhill from the Department of Health noted in particular that: [...][the SDC] helped us interpret what we do in the language of sustainability. As the SDC have just said, you often don’t realise that you are talking about sustainability when you’re talking about particular things, but we have found them an extremely valuable partner and we’ve learned a huge amount from them. We believe we are on the way to embedding what we’ve learned. We’ve particularly valued the fact that they’ve embedded in the department one of their team, who has really worked with departmental colleagues, to help them understand the sustainability agenda and present it in a way that’s helpful to broader understanding.34 The Department told us that it now had a greater understanding of the interaction between health inequalities and sustainable development, and was addressing climate change and other environmental problems as critical issues for future public health and not solely issues of NHS estates management.35 22. The Department for Education told us that advisers from the SDC had worked alongside its staff to build capacity and understanding of sustainable development, and identify how the Department’s policies could help to underpin sustainable development and also in turn be enhanced by taking a sustainable approach.36 The arrangement had allowed the Department to develop a ‘sustainable schools’ programme, though the SDC thought the future of this initiative was now uncertain.37

33

Q6

34

Q 25

35

Ev 66

36

Ev w44

37

Ev 101

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23. The SDC has piloted a ‘sustainability assessment’ in the Department for Work and Pensions, to see how far sustainability performance could be improved across the whole of its operations and policy making. DWP told us that the assessment had made clear that there remains room for improvement in embedding sustainability within the Department’s policy-making, and that it believed that there would have been value in the SDC continuing this strand of work in other key departments.38 24. The Government has not committed to continuing the SDC’s capacity building work, by for example embedding Defra staff in departments or undertaking further department-wide ‘sustainability assessments’. The SDC has promoted sustainable development effectively through this work and has developed experience in this area which is at risk of being lost. There is still much to be done in developing capability across all departments. The Government must ensure that the SDC’s experience is transferred into Government and that it continues to work with departments to develop the capability needed by all departments to improve their sustainability performance.

Leadership 25. Sustainable development, as with any discipline, benefits from having effective leadership. The Government, in ending its funding for the SDC, has indicated that it will bring leadership in-house. The extent of the challenge for the Government’s leadership role depends on the extent to which sustainable development is already embedded in departments’ actions. Bringing sustainable development into the centre of Government 26. Research by Professor Andrew Jordan and Dr Duncan Russel has found that efforts to integrate environmental factors into all stages of government policy making has suffered from a lack of sustained high-level support, particularly from ministers in ‘nonenvironmental’ ministries, central departments (the Treasury and Cabinet Office) and senior civil servants.39 They noted that it has been left to Defra to push forward the sustainable development agenda within Whitehall, but that Defra is without the power to compel other departments to appraise policy for potential environmental impacts. They concluded that a lack of political support is reflected by a lack of resources dedicated to this across departments. 27. Sustainable development needs to be driven from the centre of Government by a minister and department capable of three things: •

being able to provide the necessary vision for sustainable development and to encourage real commitment throughout Government;



ensuring action, by holding all departments to account for their sustainable development performance; and

38

Ev w39

39

Ev 62

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17

providing leadership, gluing together the vision and the action.

28. Defra and the SDC have between them provided the vision for sustainable development in Government. The evidence we took in this inquiry has not raised significant concerns about the vision, but rather the leadership of the concept and ensuring its practical implementation across Government. 29. Barry Gardiner MP, in his capacity as Vice Chair of GLOBE UK, told the Committee that creating a ministerial position within a country’s Finance Ministry, with responsibility for managing its ‘natural wealth’, was the best way to ensure that all government departments take responsibility for the impact of their policies and programmes on a country’s ‘natural capital’.40 He argued that the control of funds is the surest way to shape decision making:41 We all know in our own experience as legislators that the control of the purse, the control of revenue, is absolutely critical. That’s why we believe that it is absolutely essential that this is something that is mainlined into the heart of Government at the Treasury. When we put GLOBE’s analysis to Defra’s Mike Anderson, he thought that “the Treasury would be the perfect place to drive a sustainable development agenda from”. 42 30. The Treasury exerts a degree of control over other departments that no other department does. In the last two Comprehensive Spending Reviews, in 2007 and 2010, the Treasury required efficiency savings from departments and ensured compliance simply by subtracting the required negotiated savings from department’s budgets at the outset. Defra officials told us that they have not considered the possibility of applying sanctions on departments for poor performance on sustainable development. The Treasury, however, unlike Defra, is in a position to apply real sanctions, if it so chose, including financial sanctions. It could, for example, withhold a proportion of a department’s budget if its sustainable operations performance lagged, or withhold approval for infrastructure programmes if the impact assessment inadequately addressed sustainable development issues. 31. The Treasury, as the department responsible for deciding on the use of accounting standards in government accounts, is already leading work (started in 2008) on introducing sustainability reporting for 2011–12 accounts onward. This will bring together details of expenditure and performance on carbon reduction, waste management and the use of finite resources, in departments’ annual reports and accounts. 32. There is much then to commend making the Treasury the lead department for sustainable development. But there are also dangers in doing so. Charles Seaford from the New Economics Foundation told us:

40

Qq 128–131

41

Q 130

42

Q 57

18

Embedding sustainable development across Government

[...] although you can reduce everything to an economic calculation, when you’re looking at the long term, it becomes increasingly difficult because there’s more and more uncertainty as you look out beyond the short term and medium term perspective. In the process of deciding what to do, you can no longer rely purely upon that kind of economic analysis. That is the reason why we were proposing a unit outside the Treasury [...] I believe there is a need for people to take a different strategic perspective that doesn’t reduce to the ‘certain’ analysis that economists tend to favour. [...]43 Putting the lead role in the Treasury: [...] would have to be handled with great care, to make sure that the whole process isn’t captured by the existing Treasury view [...] of the world. [...] Why doesn’t the economics take into account the environment, which it should? There are a number of reasons. Firstly, because the discipline of environmental economics is relatively new compared with the discipline of economics as a whole; it just takes time for these to filter through. That’s one reason. I think there’s a second point though, which is that the environment is more difficult; there’s less certainty and there’s a theological certainty about the core of micro-economics that is very emotionally satisfying.44 33. Charles Seaford suggested that a Cabinet Office minister should have overall responsibility for ensuring sustainability because of the Cabinet Office’s central position. He added there should be a dedicated unit serving the minister, to develop a long term strategy, to monitor performance against that strategy and to co-ordinate and engage with all those whose support will be needed for implementation.45 Sustainability East told us that placing the function in a single issue department (as now in Defra) reinforces the misconception that sustainable development is solely an environmental issue, rather than, crucially, also an economic and social one. The Cabinet Office, they concluded, would be more suited to lead on this.46 UK Environmental Law Foundation argued that the Cabinet Office proximity to the Prime Minister would further suit it to the task.47 34. While Defra has the expertise to help departments become more sustainable, it is not the best place from which to drive improved sustainable development performance across Government. After many years with the policy lead in this area, a different approach now needs to be taken, to provide greater political leadership for the sustainable development agenda. A new minister for sustainable development, ideally in the Cabinet Office, would provide a more effective base for driving action in departments. 35. An enhanced Cabinet Office role on sustainable development would need access to specialists and expertise to advise it and other departments on how sustainability could be better embedded in their decision making. Existing sustainable development

43

Q 137

44

Q 139

45

Ev 44

46

Ev w63

47

Ev w9–11

Embedding sustainable development across Government

19

experience in Defra should be transferred into the Cabinet Office, allowing it to assess the sustainability of departments’ policy proposals, Business Plans and operational and procurement practices. 36. A Cabinet Office lead would also need a Treasury ready to play a more committed supporting role, to use the sustainable development levers at its disposal. Treasury buyin to the sustainable development agenda is essential. It is in a position to exert real influence over other departments, including the possible use of sanctions against poor sustainability performers. High level leadership and cross-government working 37. Defra commissioned a survey of sustainable development practitioners from across Government, which reported in 2010.48 Though the survey found that the majority of stakeholders felt Defra was championing sustainable development ‘fairly’ to ‘very well’, it also highlighted a number of areas for improvement. In particular it found that Defra’s efforts in this area were felt to be hampered by a perceived lack of influence within Whitehall and that Defra’s ability to successfully champion sustainable development is felt by most to rest on having stronger support from the highest levels in government. 38. The benefit of high level leadership is clear in the response to the Prime Minister’s commitment for central Government to cut emissions by 10% in one year, by May 2011.49 The long-standing SOGE framework has included a target to reduce carbon emissions from Government offices by 12.5% by 2010–11, relative to 1999–00 levels, and against that target a 10% reduction was only achieved by 2008–09.50 The Prime Minister’s latest target is on top of that earlier cut. His involvement has seen this latest target treated as a priority for departments and all expect to achieve at least the 10% reductions within the year.51 39. On the wider sustainable development front, the SDC have regarded the lack of central leadership as a major barrier. They told us that ineffective leadership or inconsistent leadership from the highest level has held back progress. The SDC argued that this leadership needs to come from the Prime Minister and the Cabinet who in turn need to hold departments to account. They also argued for greater engagement from Cabinet level ministers to promote sustainability across Government. Andrew Lee noted: I have yet to see a Permanent Secretary, despite the fact that performance objectives include a statement of operations, called to account by the Treasury and No 10 for failing to run a sustainable department.52 40. There is currently no forum for meaningful ministerial discussion of sustainable development. This is a cross-cutting issue that is affected by policies from across government that requires cross-departmental involvement at the highest level. There has

48

Not published

49

PM’s speech at DECC, May 2010, www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2010/05/pms-speech-at-decc50113

50

SDC, Becoming the greenest government ever, July 2010

51

Government energy data on: data.gov.uk/content/real-time-energy-data-government-headquarters

52

Q3

20

Embedding sustainable development across Government

been no Government assessment to date of the effectiveness of the governance arrangements for sustainable development. The ‘Sustainable Development Ministers’ were established in 2005, as a re-branding of the Green Ministers group. Sustainable development ministers were nominated for every department to act as the ministerial lead on sustainable development within their particular department. The ministers convened as a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by a Defra minister. The SDC told us that, despite Defra’s efforts, the lack of a clear mandate for the group and mechanisms to enact change meant that it failed to meet regularly and never got off the ground. In a cabinet reshuffle in 2008, sustainable development became a part of the remit of the Environment and Energy subcommittee of the Cabinet Committee for Economic Development. This created the risk of wider sustainability issues becoming secondary to economic interests.53 Since then, policy on sustainable development has not been overseen by a designated ministerial committee. 41. The Secretary of State for environment food and rural affairs has recently discussed with the Deputy Prime Minister the role that the Home Affairs Cabinet Committee can play in achieving sustainability right across Government.54 The inclusion of sustainable development on its agenda would be welcome, but the Home Affairs Cabinet Committee is not the best place to address this issue. A cabinet committee dedicated to sustainable development, with appropriate terms of reference and composed of senior ministers from across Government, could be set up to provide a forum to spread the views of the leading sustainable development minister and the sustainable development team across Government and to track policies in each department. 42. Top level political leadership must be brought to bear, and the Government should consider how it could add such new impetus to the sustainable development agenda. A new Cabinet Office minister for sustainable development and the Prime Minister could be in the driving seat, and to encapsulate that high level commitment a Cabinet Committee with terms of reference addressing sustainable development should be established to oversee departmental performance and encourage more sustainable decision making across Whitehall. This would include Ministers from all departments, the new minister for sustainable development and perhaps the Prime Minister.

The ‘Green Book’ and tools for sustainable decision making 43. Understanding and accounting for the cost to the environment and to society in the long term is the best way to embed sustainable development principles in policy making. For this to happen, the right tools and incentives need to be in place for decision makers. 44. Departments have to produce impact assessments which explore these costs and to follow the Treasury’s guidance on investment appraisal (the Treasury’s ‘Green Book’). Core to an impact assessment is an economic assessment of a proposal’s costs and benefits in accordance with the Green Book methodology. In addition to the Green Book itself, there is a wide range of supplementary guidance on specific issues such as risk and optimism-bias and specific detailed guidance for use when applying Green Book principles to environmental considerations.

53

Ev 75

54

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Q 2

Embedding sustainable development across Government

21

45. The SDC told the Committee that policy makers regard the current Treasury guidance on sustainability assessments as confusing and difficult to use and that the ‘sustainability impact test’ is seen only as an add-on to the economic assessment. They consider that the ‘Green Book’ needs to be overhauled so that sustainable development is at its core.55 The SDC also called for impact assessments and the Green Book to take greater regard of two particular concepts: valuing ecosystems and the services they provide, and valuing social impacts (for example, health benefits, social mobility and disadvantage to particular sections of society).56 46. In late 2008, the Government Economic Service launched a review of the economics of sustainability, led by Defra’s chief economist. The final report of the review was published in July 2010. It notes that significant progress has been made on providing new guidance for impact assessments and increasing the scope of environmental valuation. The report also discusses the scope for incorporating social capital and social impacts into policy appraisal, and for linking consideration of sustainability, wellbeing and economic growth. Taking forward the conclusions of the review, a new cross-Government analytical group, the Social Impacts Task Force, has also been set up to investigate the incorporation of social impacts and social capital into impact analysis. The Task Force's remit includes developing guidance for departments in these areas.57 47. In light of the findings from the Government Economic Service review, Defra has committed itself in its Business Plan to ‘revise guidance on impact assessments, the Green Book and other policy appraisal guidance to take account of sustainability and the value of nature’ by April 2011.58 (This is expected to coincide with publication of a new Natural Environment White Paper which will provide further policy proposals on valuing natural capital.) The Treasury, which is responsible for the Green Book, does not have such a commitment in its own Business Plan, which might perhaps raise a concern if the Treasury were the lead department on sustainable development (paragraph 32). 48. The Government must complete its work without delay to integrate the findings of the Government Economics Service review of the economics of sustainable development into impact assessments and the Treasury’s Green Book. The Government should provide a commitment that the Treasury’s ongoing review of the Green Book will fully reflect these ideas, and that once revised the Treasury will monitor compliance by departments. 49. The social aspects of sustainable development need to be taken into account. The Social Task Force needs to deliver tools for embedding this in policy appraisal, and the Treasury must support this work and give a commitment to apply it.

55

Q 22

56

Q 22

57

HC Deb, 8 November 2010, cols 11–12W

58

Defra, Structural Reform Plan, July 2010

22

Embedding sustainable development across Government

Performance management 50. Targets and indicators are necessary to monitor progress by departments and to drive performance improvements. The most important of these are the SOGE targets for departments’ operations and procurement, and a set of broader Sustainable Development Indicators. Sustainability targets for operations and procurement 51. The Government's sustainability targets deal mostly with Government operations and procurement. These include targets for energy and water efficiency, recycling and waste reduction. The SOGE targets reporting process provides the mechanism to collect, monitor and report on this information. Data is collated by CESP and then analysed and reported on by the SDC.59 The Environmental Audit Committee has routinely examined these processes and targets, and has repeatedly called for the coverage of the targets to be extended to cover more of the Government's work and more of its estate.60 52. The targets only capture a small proportion of the Government’s estate and in some cases they are not tailored to the work of departments. The current SOGE framework applies to the UK-based operations of all central government departments and their executive agencies. The targets largely exclude the overseas estate, the devolved administrations and the wider public sector (local government, NHS trusts, police forces and educational establishments). 53. In our last report on this issue, we recommended that ‘the SOGE Framework must aim to cover the environmental impacts of all government business. Targets for sustainable operations must be applied as widely as possible, and the reporting of performance against them must be made mandatory’.61 The SDC saw an urgent necessity for operations and procurement targets to be extended to non-departmental public bodies, outsourced operations and suppliers. It concluded that the Government’s ongoing review of these targets needs to look at tailoring targets to the work of departments, and Government needs to apply these targets beyond the central government estate.62 54. The SDC anticipate that the new SOGE framework being developed by Defra will extend coverage to non-departmental public bodies, as well as capture a wider scope of carbon emissions and more detail on water usage and waste. They believe there is still scope, however, for an even wider range of reporting, noting that supply chain impacts may remain largely uncovered by the new framework.63 55. Departments have been calling for the reporting process to be speeded up and better integrated with existing environmental targets. The Department for Education told us that sustainable development targets should be more relevant to individual departmental aims and objectives, and should go beyond measurements for the central estate to include 59

SDC, Becoming the greenest government ever, July 2010

60

Greening Government, Environmental Audit Committee’s Sixth Report of Session 2008–09, HC 503, August 2009

61

Ibid.

62

Ibid.

63

SDC, Becoming the Greenest government ever, July 2010

Embedding sustainable development across Government

23

departments’ influence on the wider public sector. This could mirror and be integrated into the existing departmental carbon budgets, which make departments accountable for carbon emissions reductions in the industry sectors over which they have policy responsibilities. The Department also argued that SDC assessments have been something of a tick-box exercise. The processes have not allowed for differences in the maturity of understanding of sustainability between departments or the degree to which that understanding is embedded in departmental policy-making. The Department for Education wanted reporting to be embedded within departments’ annual reports.64 The Department of Health called for a more streamlined reporting process, with a single reporting system that included data on all aspects of a department’s property performance, including carbon budgets and the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme as well as SOGE.65 56. Departments have complained about the time that is taken for SOGE data to be published. The Department for Work and Pensions criticised the protracted intervals between the reporting period, the subsequent reporting and then the SDC assessment which could be up to two years out of date when published.66 Mike Anderson, from Defra, also highlighted the protracted nature of the reporting process, which he regarded as overly bureaucratic and complicated. He said it had “become a bit of an industry, rather than focussing on the things that matter”.67 57. The Government is reorganising the administration of the SOGE framework, and from 2011–12 a new system will replace the SOGE targets. This provides an opportunity, which the Government should grasp, to deliver the improvements in the coverage of the SOGE framework called for by the SDC, and to make the streamlining improvements sought by individual departments. 58. There are currently no sanctions for a department’s failure to achieve a required level of performance against sustainability targets, and as a result there is a lack of pressure from anyone but the SDC to push departments to achieve the targets. Giving the lead role on sustainable development to the Cabinet Office, with committed support from the Treasury, as we have recommended above, could make it easier to bring such pressure to bear. Sustainable Development Indicators 59. A set of 68 high level Government indicators are used to measure broader sustainability concerns affecting society including health, housing, jobs, crime, education and the environment. These aim to provide an overview of progress across a number of themes: sustainable consumption and production, climate change and energy, protecting natural resources and enhancing the environment, and creating sustainable communities. These ‘Sustainable Development Indicators’ were established in the 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy to measures progress across the UK, going beyond the impact of only departments’ operations and procurement. The Strategy also provides 20 higher level

64

Ev w44

65

Ev 66

66

Ev w39

67

Q 72

24

Embedding sustainable development across Government

‘framework indicators’ intended to give an overview of progress. The latest measurement of these indicators, in 2009, found four had improved, one had worsened, twelve had showed a mixed performance or no progress, but for three there were insufficient data to report. 60. The value of these indicators has been questioned by a range of organisations.68 In some cases the targets are un-measurable and in many cases there is no link between the targets and the policies which might influence performance, nor any means of acting against failure to meet targets. Dr Duncan Russel told us that indicators have not been successful at steering policy because it has been difficult to attribute outcomes to policy initiatives. To do this, an indicator set needs to be concurrently linked to an analysis of what has caused the change.69 These targets must be revised in an ongoing and iterative way so that performance against them can be linked to specific policies and actions, and so that they can be used to inform decision making. 61. The long-standing ambition to measure well-being, one of the high level indicators, has not been fully realised, leaving a gap in any overall measurement of sustainable development. The need to measure well-being is gaining recognition internationally, and within the UK. The Stiglitz Commission for President Sarkozy recommended that assessing sustainability requires a well-defined set of indicators to supplement a current focus on Gross Domestic Product.70 Any measurement of well-being needs to be able to be used to advise policy and to provide an understanding of the policy which produces the observed changes in well-being. Halina Ward, from the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, cautioned that any indicator to measure sustainable development must go just beyond a measure of ‘happiness’. The process of gathering the indicators of quality of life or well-being needs to encourage people to think carefully about their responses, to distinguish between broader well-being and the satisfaction of immediate material needs.71 62. Government must introduce a full set of indicators to measure sustainable development, including well-being, that can be used to develop policy. The Committee welcomes the Prime Minister’s initiative to explore how a measure for this might be generated. But this must be done in a way that fully takes account of sustainable development principles (‘happiness’ may not always reflect sustainable development), while providing a practically useful tool for policy evaluation and decision making.

Parliamentary scrutiny 63. The sustainability of Government policy will no longer be scrutinised to the extent that is was. The loss of the SDC will leave a gap in the scrutiny of Government’s sustainable development performance and the sustainability of its policy-making. The Government has said that it will not take on any of the SDC’s watchdog work.72 CESP will continue to 68

Ev 46 [WWF-UK and FDSD], Ev 60 [Dr John Turnpenny et al], Ev w15 [Woodland Trust]

69

Q 154

70

Report on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, 2009: www.stiglitz-senfitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf

71

Q 156

72

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Qq 3–4

Embedding sustainable development across Government

25

collect SOGE performance data but it told us that it has not taken on further capacity to comment on the results of the data.73 The Secretary of State told us that she hoped our Committee will undertake the watchdog function.74 64. The Environmental Audit Committee was set up to scrutinise Government environmental and sustainability performance and to report on this to Parliament. There is a distinction to be drawn between scrutiny that assists Government—either to encourage better performance or to bring further transparency to its operations—and scrutiny that aids accountability to Parliament. The SDC’s scrutiny work supports mainly the first type, although it also provides useful material for the second type. There is also a distinction between scrutinising Government at arm’s length from the ‘outside’, as we are able to do, and scrutinising Government from within, as the SDC has been able to do by embedding staff within departments. Minas Jacob from the SDC explained: [...] When you say “scrutiny from the outside”, I would say it is actually pretty much impossible to do scrutiny from the outside. Unless you are just going to be looking at people’s electricity bills or statements that Government departments produce, you have to work with departments to understand their circumstances; otherwise you are producing watchdog reports, or attempting to, on information that doesn’t even exist, for example.75 65. We will continue to play a role in the scrutiny of the Government’s sustainability performance, reporting to Parliament. However, it is not for the Government to determine how Parliament might exercise its role of holding Government to account. We do not in any case have the capacity also to carry out the full extent of the routine watchdog function of the SDC. Furthermore, some of the inquiries undertaken by the Committee in pursuing its remit include areas of examination that have not been covered by the SDC. Even if we had the resources, dedicating them to replicating a role currently performed by the SDC would be to inappropriately bind this and future Committees. 66. Over the next year or so, nevertheless, we will concentrate our sustainable development scrutiny in three areas of work, pursuing themes which require particular inquiry to help develop a new architecture for scrutiny set out in this report: •

Monitoring the Government’s SOGE data and reporting process, and changes anticipated for the indicators system, as well as assessing Government’s performance against its ambition of becoming the ‘Greenest Government Ever’.



Reviewing the appraisal of government policies, across Government, and the impact of these policies on sustainable development (by for example examining impact assessments of key policy programmes), as well as examining changes to the Green Book and impact assessment methodology due later in 2011.



Examining the post-SDC architecture that Government establishes to embed sustainable development in all its work.

73

Q 85

74

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Qq 3–4

75

Q8

26

Embedding sustainable development across Government

67. The Committee expects to carry out this work with the continued assistance of the NAO. The Comptroller and Auditor General wrote to us saying: We hope to continue to assist the Committee with its inquiries. Should the Committee take on a broader remit, we would seek to support it across the range of its activities where we can provide relevant skills and knowledge. I am not, however, in a position to enter into binding long term commitments, or to take on functions which the Government has decided it should no longer fund.76 Should the NAO need more resources to support us in our work, we stand ready to support any NAO bid for additional resources submitted to the House. 68. We note that some other parliaments have developed interesting approaches to the scrutiny of sustainable development. The German parliament has a long-standing system of ‘enquête commissions’, parliamentary committees made up from academic specialist and elected members, to examine key scientific-political issues such as the response to climate change. A Hungarian ‘Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations’ is charged with protecting a legislative right of its citizens to a future healthy environment, and investigates petitions from those concerned that such rights are not being protected.77 For our part, we intend to track the progress of relevant European legislation, as indeed the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee does, but specifically to determine its effects on sustainable development for the UK and to report as necessary to the House. 69. The Government too needs to do more to assist Parliamentary scrutiny of sustainable development, by engaging with our scrutiny work in a constructive and considered way. As Dr John Turnpenny’s research has found, in the past when Government responses have dismissed recommendations they have done so without actually providing a robust account for those judgements.78 That needs to change.

Wider stakeholder scrutiny 70. As part of a wider agenda of assisting scrutiny through greater transparency of its activities, the Government aims to make data on its sustainable development performance more accessible to the public. Defra’s Business Plan sets out plans for a ‘more transparent’ means of doing this. In the gap left by the SDC, the Government expects that the public, academics, NGOs and community groups will use this data to hold it to account.79 The SDC has 60 staff and a wealth of expertise in evaluating data. It is unclear how their experience will be replaced. Defra has made no commitment about whether any of these staff will be transferred into Government, and there remains a risk that the experience within the SDC could be lost. Whatever the outcome of the Government’s deliberations about how many current SDC staff will be absorbed, the Government must ensure that the essential experience and knowledge of the Commission is brought into Government departments before the SDC’s remaining staff are dispersed or made redundant. 76

Ev w79

77

Ev 9

78

John Turnpenny , Duncan Russel , Tim Rayner, Sustainable Development and the impact of the Environmental Audit Committee, October 2010

79

Defra, Business Plan 2011–2015, November 2010

Embedding sustainable development across Government

27

71. We are pleased to hear that the Secretary of State is undertaking meetings with NGOs every couple of months.80 We welcome this engagement with outside bodies but expect to see more formal established links being developed to ensure that they endure. This is increasingly important because the abolition of the SDC coincides with the abolition of other Government advisory bodies with sustainability interests, including the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and reduced roles for other arms length bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency which Defra has told to cease their lobbying functions.81 72. NGOs and academics can play a valuable role in bringing new ideas into the policymaking process. This needs to be encouraged at this time, when the capacity of the public sector and the Government to develop sustainable policies might be restricted. WWF have told us that in the past the consultation with civil society has come at too late a stage.82 The Government must do more to involve these bodies earlier in the policy process. Dr John Turnpenny noted the Environment and Energy Cabinet Committee had effectively become redundant because many potentially environmentally damaging policies had not been picked up early enough to be influenced. Improving the evidence-base is crucial to ensure that information is collected and shared amongst departments at a sufficiently early stage in the policy process.83 73. Government must make greater effort to engage with NGO and academic expertise in sustainable development, and assist such groups in scrutinising its work in this field. It must also be prepared to involve these bodies at earlier stages of policy development work, to assist it in developing more innovative ways of addressing sustainability issues.

80

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Q 29

81

Defra, Public bodies announcement, October 2010: ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/10/14/public-bodies/

82

Qq 168–170

83

Q 158

28

Embedding sustainable development across Government

4 A New Sustainable Development Strategy 74. Evidence from Dr John Turnpenny and others at the University of East Anglia, and Dr Duncan Russel from the University of Exeter, explained that efforts at improving sustainable development in government have broken down because of a lack of coordination between policies. Targets, monitoring and guidance have been established in an ad hoc manner, and not enough attention has been given to ensuring that they interact positively with one another.84 There is overlap and contradiction between sustainable development monitoring and other cross-cutting themes such as climate change, particularly in SOGE reporting. More needs to be done to take a strategic view, for example in linking impact assessments with long-term departmental strategies such as departmental carbon reduction targets. 75. Government’s last Sustainable Development Strategy Securing the Future was published in 2005. It confirmed the then Government’s ongoing commitment to address sustainability, updating its previous strategy and responding to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. It strengthened the SDC’s role as Government’s watchdog on sustainable development. It focused the efforts of departments in improving their performance on sustainability through the SOGE framework, requiring departmental Sustainable Development Action Plans and establishing networks to share best practice and innovative approaches. 76. Cutting the SDC’s funding, and bringing into Government the responsibility for monitoring and encouraging sustainable development, now necessitates that the Government provide a new strategic underpinning for the Coalition Government’s commitment to the importance of sustainable development as an overarching goal of Government policy-making. The 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy was a sound basis for action, but this strategy requires an urgent update. 77. A new strategy would give the UK more weight at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2012 (‘Rio + 20’) and in developing an EU sustainable development strategy. The Secretary of State told us that the UK hopes to play a leading role in joining up negotiations on climate change, biodiversity and poverty.85 Defra’s submission to the Summit’s questionnaires states that ‘Defra is playing a key role in [the UK Government becoming the greenest government ever] by ensuring sustainable development and natural value are factored in to everything we do; this will ensure eyes are fixed firmly on the long term in relation to the economy, the environment and society’. However, WWF saw the disappearance of the SDC as a particular worry, at a time when the world community is beginning preparations for ‘Rio + 20’.86 Dr Russel added:

84

Ev 60

85

Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 November 2010, HC 576, Qq 31–2

86

Q 162

Embedding sustainable development across Government

29

[...]it’s not just the UK [...] on this earth, [sustainable development] requires action by other states. Now, if the UK is seen to be running backwards rather than going forwards, then that doesn’t send a very positive message out to other nations and other states about embedding sustainable development into policymaking processes.87 78. Sustainable development policy and programmes have suffered from being ad hoc in nature. A more strategic view needs to be taken. The components of a new architecture for embedding sustainable development in Government need to be brought together in a new sustainable development strategy. A new Sustainable Development Strategy should be developed to revitalise Government engagement on this essential foundation for all policy-making. It could link sustainable development into other overarching policy themes, like localism and climate change. A new Strategy should set milestones for the development of important sustainable development programmes including putting sustainable development more firmly in the Green Book and developing well-being measures. It should make clear the remits and responsibilities of all departments as well as the leadership architecture for sustainable development, including the role of ‘central departments’ and any new cabinet committee. It should also set out how the possible use of sanctions by those central departments could be used to encourage better performance by departments.

87

Ibid.

30

Embedding sustainable development across Government

5 Conclusions 79. This report considers how the architecture for delivering sustainable development needs to change to deliver more sustainable government, and how the sustainable development agenda should be revitalised to deliver the ‘green’ and ‘long term’ ambitions of the Coalition Government. A new architecture would be able to deliver improvements in the sustainability of Government operations and procurement and it would also provide the leadership, tools and scrutiny needed to deliver more sustainable policy making. 80. The Government must recognise that Defra is not in a position to be able to make departments act more sustainably. Its non-central position limits its ability to influence other departments or to hold them to account. The Cabinet Office is better located to do this. Policy leadership on sustainable development should be transferred to the Cabinet Office which would drive the embedding of sustainable development Whitehall-wide, and a new minister for sustainable government should be created to oversee that imperative. That minister would be responsible for monitoring the sustainability of all Government programmes and policies. The capacity to undertake this leadership role should make use of existing Defra expertise on sustainable development, transferring the relevant teams if necessary. 81. The Treasury needs to commit to the sustainable development agenda, to play an essential supporting role to the Cabinet Office. The Treasury has levers at its disposal to help ensure the compliance of other departments, which it could use to underpin sustainable decision-making in departments. It must commit to overhauling the ‘Green Book’ so that it fully reflects the principles of sustainable development; an area we intend to return to in a future inquiry. 82. A new cabinet committee should be set up to drive this agenda across Whitehall which would include representatives from all departments, and provide a forum in which a new sustainable development minister and the Cabinet Office and Treasury could drive forward the sustainable development agenda. 83. The components of a new architecture for embedding sustainable development in Government need to be brought together in a new Sustainable Development Strategy. 84. We will continue to scrutinise the sustainable development performance of Government. We will undertake regular assessments of the Government’s sustainable development performance and hold Ministers to account by: monitoring the Government’s sustainable operations and procurement data and reporting processes, and changes anticipated for the indicators system; and reviewing the appraisal of government policies, across Government, and the impact of these policies on sustainable development. Most importantly, we will examine the operation of the post-SDC architecture that Government establishes to embed sustainable development in all its work.

Embedding sustainable development across Government

31

Conclusions and recommendations 1.

The Government produced a sustainable development ‘Action Plan’ in November 2010, which set out how it would make its operations and procurement more sustainable. The Government must now set out a clear architecture for sustainable development, which describes how these goals will be implemented and monitored, and how responsibility for the necessary actions will be distributed between departments. (Paragraph 14)

2.

We are unhappy with the way that the Government has consulted with the devolved administrations on the impacts to this shared body [the SDC]. We recognise that sustainable development is a devolved matter and that as a consequence the UK Government is entitled to develop and deliver policy independently. However, decisions which impinge on a shared strategy should not be undertaken lightly or unilaterally. (Paragraph 16)

3.

The Government has not committed to continuing the SDC’s capacity building work, by for example embedding Defra staff in departments or undertaking further department-wide ‘sustainability assessments’. The SDC has promoted sustainable development effectively through this work and has developed experience in this area which is at risk of being lost. There is still much to be done in developing capability across all departments. The Government must ensure that the SDC’s experience is transferred into Government and that it continues to work with departments to develop the capability needed by all departments to improve their sustainability performance. (Paragraph 24)

4.

While Defra has the expertise to help departments become more sustainable, it is not the best place from which to drive improved sustainable development performance across Government. After many years with the policy lead in this area, a different approach now needs to be taken, to provide greater political leadership for the sustainable development agenda. A new minister for sustainable development, ideally in the Cabinet Office, would provide a more effective base for driving action in departments. (Paragraph 34)

5.

An enhanced Cabinet Office role on sustainable development would need access to specialists and expertise to advise it and other departments on how sustainability could be better embedded in their decision making. Existing sustainable development experience in Defra should be transferred into the Cabinet Office, allowing it to assess the sustainability of departments’ policy proposals, Business Plans and operational and procurement practices. (Paragraph 35)

6.

A Cabinet Office lead would also need a Treasury ready to play a more committed supporting role, to use the sustainable development levers at its disposal. Treasury buy-in to the sustainable development agenda is essential. It is in a position to exert real influence over other departments, including the possible use of sanctions against poor sustainability performers. (Paragraph 36)

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7.

Top level political leadership must be brought to bear, and the Government should consider how it could add such new impetus to the sustainable development agenda. A new Cabinet Office minister for sustainable development and the Prime Minister could be in the driving seat, and to encapsulate that high level commitment a Cabinet Committee with terms of reference addressing sustainable development should be established to oversee departmental performance and encourage more sustainable decision making across Whitehall. This would include Ministers from all departments, the new minister for sustainable development and perhaps the Prime Minister. (Paragraph 42)

8.

The Government must complete its work without delay to integrate the findings of the Government Economics Service review of the economics of sustainable development into impact assessments and the Treasury’s Green Book. The Government should provide a commitment that the Treasury’s ongoing review of the Green Book will fully reflect these ideas, and that once revised the Treasury will monitor compliance by departments. (Paragraph 48)

9.

The social aspects of sustainable development need to be taken into account. The Social Task Force needs to deliver tools for embedding this in policy appraisal, and the Treasury must support this work and give a commitment to apply it. (Paragraph 49)

10.

The Government is reorganising the administration of the SOGE framework, and from 2011–12 a new system will replace the SOGE targets. This provides an opportunity, which the Government should grasp, to deliver the improvements in the coverage of the SOGE framework called for by the SDC, and to make the streamlining improvements sought by individual departments. (Paragraph 57)

11.

Government must introduce a full set of indicators to measure sustainable development, including well-being, that can be used to develop policy. The Committee welcomes the Prime Minister’s initiative to explore how a measure for this might be generated. But this must be done in a way that fully takes account of sustainable development principles (‘happiness’ may not always reflect sustainable development), while providing a practically useful tool for policy evaluation and decision making. (Paragraph 62)

12.

Government must make greater effort to engage with NGO and academic expertise in sustainable development, and assist such groups in scrutinising its work in this field. It must also be prepared to involve these bodies at earlier stages of policy development work, to assist it in developing more innovative ways of addressing sustainability issues. (Paragraph 73)

13.

A new Sustainable Development Strategy should be developed to revitalise Government engagement on this essential foundation for all policy-making. It could link sustainable development into other overarching policy themes, like localism and climate change. A new Strategy should set milestones for the development of important sustainable development programmes including putting sustainable development more firmly in the Green Book and developing well-being measures. It should make clear the remits and responsibilities of all departments as well as the

Embedding sustainable development across Government

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leadership architecture for sustainable development, including the role of ‘central departments’ and any new cabinet committee. It should also set out how the possible use of sanctions by those central departments could be used to encourage better performance by departments. (Paragraph 78)

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Embedding sustainable development across Government

Formal Minutes Thursday 16 December 2010 Members present: Joan Walley, in the Chair Neil Carmichael Katy Clark Zac Goldsmith

Sheryll Murray Dr Alan Whitehead

Draft Report (Embedding sustainable development across Government, after the Secretary of State’s announcement on the future of the Sustainable Development Commission), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read. Ordered, That the Draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph. Paragraphs 1 to 84 read and agreed to. Summary agreed to. Resolved, That the Report be the First Report of the Committee to the House. Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House. Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. 134. Written evidence was ordered to be reported to the House for printing with the Report, in addition to that ordered to be reported for publishing on 20 and 27 October, 3, 10 and 24 November, and 8 and 15 December.

[Adjourned till Wednesday 12 January at 2.30 p.m.

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Witnesses Wednesday 20 October 2010

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Andrew Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Minas Jacob, Director of Sustainable Development in Government, Shirley Rodrigues, Director of Policy and Research, and Farooq Ullah, Policy Analyst, Sustainable Development Commission

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Flora Goldhill CBE, Acting Director General and Chief Operating Officer, and Richard Mundon, Director of Operations, Department of Health

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Wednesday 3 November 2010 Michael Anderson, Director General, Strategy, Finance, Performance and Evidence Group, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, William Jordan, Chief Sustainability Officer, Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office, and Sam Rowbury, Acting Director, Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement, Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office

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Wednesday 17 November 2010 Mr Barry Gardiner MP, Vice Chair, GLOBE UK, Dr Samuel Fankhauser, Chief Economist, GLOBE International, and Mr Charles Seaford, Head of the Centre for Well-being, new economics foundation

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Dr Duncan Russel, Exeter University, Dr John Turnpenny, University of East Anglia, Carol Day, Solicitor, WWF-UK, and Halina Ward, Director, Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development

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List of printed written evidence 1

new economics foundation

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WWF-UK and Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development

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Dr John Turnpenny, Professor Andrew Jordan, and Dr Tim Rayner, University of East Anglia; and Dr Duncan Russel, University of Exeter

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Department of Health

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Sustainable Development Commission

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Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP), Cabinet Office

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Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

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List of additional written evidence (published in Volume II on the Committee’s website www.parliament.uk/eacom) 1

DEA and Oxfam

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Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management

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Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

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Waterwise

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UK Environmental Law Foundation

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Public and Commercial Services Union

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Town and Country Planning Association

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Woodland Trust

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Localise West Midlands

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Dr Rupert Read, University of East Anglia

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Food Ethics Council

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“Cradle to Cradle Network”, Lead for the East of England (Partner 8), Suffolk County Council

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Frank Kennedy, member of Ormskirk and District Friends of the Earth

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Friends of the Earth Youth and Education Network

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British Standards Institution (BSI)

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Cisco

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Department for Work and Pensions

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Combined Heat and Power Association

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The Aldersgate Group

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Department for Education

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Campaign to Protect Rural England

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South West Learning for Sustainability Coalition

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Jane Davidson AM, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Welsh Assembly Government

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Andrea Ross, University of Dundee

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Sustainability East

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Department for Communities and Local Government

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Richard Lochhead MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Scottish Government

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First Minister and Deputy First Minister, Northern Ireland Executive

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Atkins Limited

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Amyas Morse, Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office

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Oral evidence Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on Wednesday 20 October 2010 Members present: Joan Walley (Chair) Zac Goldsmith Simon Kirby Caroline Lucas Caroline Nokes

Mr Mark Spencer Dr Alan Whitehead Simon Wright ________________ Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Andrew Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Minas Jacob, Director of Sustainable Development in Government, Shirley Rodrigues, Director of Policy and Research and Farooq Ullah, Policy Analyst, Sustainable Development Commission, gave evidence. Q1 Chair: Mr Lee, I welcome you to our first session of the Environmental Audit Select Committee. We’ve got quite a full programme which is going to be curtailed because of the comprehensive spending review, so hopefully you’ll bear with us and try to get through the questions that we wish to ask. Will you introduce your colleagues very briefly to us? Andrew Lee: Yes, of course. Many thanks. I am Andrew Lee, Chief Executive of SDC. To my left is Shirley Rodrigues, our Head of Policy and Research; to my right Farooq Ullah and Minas Jacob from the SD and Government and watchdog side of the organisation. Q2 Chair: Thank you very much. We are very concerned about how we track what the Government is doing in terms of being the greenest Government ever and the role of what has been the Sustainable Development Commission. We just wondered first if you could tell us where you think the Sustainable Development Commission has been most successful in getting Government to adopt more sustainable practices, what has helped with that and what are the cost benefits and savings of that? In a way, what has the value of the way you have operated been? Andrew Lee: Of course. Thank you very much, Chair, it is good to be here. May I just give a little bit of context to that question? I think, in coming here, we are very aware that the arrangements for sustainable development inside Government have been far from perfect, but they have also been widely admired the world over as a leader—a leading example of best practice. As we go into 2012 and the world gathers for Rio plus 20 and looks back to the original Rio Earth Summit, with a focus on governance inside Government and the economy, a key issue for us, I think, is what will David Cameron say in that event? I think in terms of the environment that we’ve worked within, Labour started well with this. The Prime Minister was personally committed originally to setting up the SDC and to sustainable development, but frankly lost interest and lost momentum and did not secure the legacy for sustainable development in the way that has been done with the Climate Change Act. That is something we wrestle with day-to-day. I

think there is a danger now that the approach to sustainable development that has been instigated could systematically unravel. It is incredibly important, we think, in a time of austerity that SD principles—sustainable development principles—are vitally important as you are looking at cutting public spending and reducing the size of the estate. They are more important and not less important than in a time of growth. This is of course about the SDC and what we’ve done, and rightly so, but our view is removing the SDC is fine, provided and only unless what’s being put in place is very, very significantly better—tangibly better. If not, effectively it is an act of vandalism in the eyes of the world to remove those structures. We believe that many businesses, NGOs, grass roots organisations are already way ahead of the Government on doing this stuff, and they will be deeply sceptical right now of this language of mainstreaming. So it means nothing unless there are real, concrete tangible steps. Based on the experiences we’ve had—our successes and failures—we think that means clarity about governance, leadership, strategy, structure; clarity about mechanisms, performance management, delivery plans, monitoring and scrutiny; clarity about how Government capability will be built on this area and how it will engage with business and civil society. Those things are “must-dos”, and if all those boxes can be ticked then the SDC is a period in history and the Government will move on to a new period of taking this up a step; but, if not, the world will be watching. I think it is very important for the EAC that you are doing this inquiry and that you need to be confident you are clear that the Government is going to put in place mechanisms, structures and processes which are significantly better than what has gone before, and what has gone before was far from perfect. Successes and failures: well, successes? We think that the SDC has helped the Government to transform its operations and make it more transparent through our watchdog work. We think that, for every pound invested in that work with us, the Government has saved at least—at least—£15 for every pound invested.

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Q3 Chair: How can you substantiate that? Andrew Lee: Because the savings accrued to date per year are in the region of between £60 million and £66 million a year, and the SDC costs about £4 million a year. So we think that is good value for money. We think that has been a success. Using SD principles to frame and look at some really tough policy issues like tidal power, nuclear power, the links between the economy and resource consumption and climate change, the links between health, place and nature—the second thing I think we have tried to do very successfully is to open up some of those tough policies, sometimes at the request of departments. We have also worked in depth and very closely with some Government departments and agencies like the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the NHS—I know you are talking to DH later today—working hands-on to help them do this stuff. I think those are all successes, but there are also a lot of barriers. The barriers that we have struggled with in the work that we’ve tried to do for Government are: first, ineffective leadership or inconsistent leadership from the highest level, which needs to start with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet; an opt-in approach, which means that departments that want to do this do it, some very successfully, and others are allowed to get away with not doing it; the difficulty of silo busting—if you take a practical example, the links between diet, land use and climate change; Governments find it very difficult to struggle with those cross-departmental issues, and that has always been difficult. Also, no real sanction—I have yet to see a Permanent Secretary, despite the fact that performance objectives include a statement of operations, called to account by the Treasury and No 10 for failing to run a sustainable department—and less progress on policy than operations, I think. There has been quite a lot of progress on operations but the policy areas remain very difficult. Chair: Caroline, do you want to follow up on that? Q4 Caroline Nokes: You mentioned yourself that there had been failures and that the SDC was far from perfect. Why do you think that there has been insufficient impact in improving the level of sustainability across Government and, particularly, how do you think that it could be extended down to local government and the various tiers thereof, where there hasn’t been very much evidence of much progress? Andrew Lee: As I said just now, you can give advice if somebody wants your advice, so where Government departments, for instance, have asked for advice or where there are tools and mechanisms already in place—targets, for example—to drive more sustainable operations, things have started to happen. The problem is it’s not consistent, so there is not a sustainable development duty on every part of the public sector or on every layer of Government. There were sustainability mechanisms embedded at regional level. That landscape is obviously completely changing now, so now we’ve got an emphasis on local authorities, on local economic partnerships. The

question is: what imperative is there on those LEPs to act in a sustainable manner? Effectively, I think the SDC has worked with the tools it’s been given. The tools were a good start but not perfect, and they weren’t universally applied. For example—and you know I mentioned the legacy unravelling earlier—the work we did with the Audit Commission over three or four years was about how to use the comprehensive area assessment to look at the wider sustainability of an area, not just public service delivery in the narrow sense. Now that has all gone so, again, my question is now: what’s going to replace that? Nobody is saying it’s perfect. Surely you can devise a better system. You can always devise a better system, but what’s that system going to be? It’s not clear at the moment. Q5 Caroline Nokes: You specifically identified barriers. The New Economics Foundation said that the SDC hadn’t been successful in promoting sustainability. Is that one of your failures? Andrew Lee: I don’t think it is. I think our success in promoting sustainability is evidenced by the fact that leading businesses in most industrial sectors, NGOs, community groups, grass roots organisations and transition towns, are all doing this stuff and using this language, and political leaders can be comfortable with using it—I’ve heard the Mayor of Vancouver and the Mayor of Bordeaux, the ex-Prime Minister of France, talking about sustainable development—very powerfully. I think to say it hasn’t been promoted successfully is a bit of an excuse. You can’t promote sustainable development just as a phrase, like a brand. I think what we’ve tried to do is promote what it stands for. It stands for tackling health through prevention of illness; it stands for accessible local transport; it stands for enabling people to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels without disadvantaging less privileged groups. I think as a toolkit, if you like, as an approach, it has a very long pedigree obviously, as you very well know, going back before Brundtland. It’s used internationally. It’s used by Governments. Would you go and talk to people in the pub, “I’m going to talk to you about sustainable development”? No, you wouldn’t. You would talk to them about what interests them. “Should we eat less meat or dairy? Yes or no?” That interests people, and that’s sustainable development. We’ve tried to go in through the issues, I think. Q6 Caroline Nokes: Thank you. Me again, I fear. Your memo identified the four main areas of work of the SDC. I would specifically like you to pick up on the watchdog role and what it actually entails. Andrew Lee: Yes, thank you. I am going to pass over to Minas and Farooq to talk a little bit more about that, if I may. Minas Jacob: The main purpose of all our work, particularly the watchdog role, is to drive performance improvements. Our watchdog work is characterised by two key principles. One is that we don’t catch departments out by surprise, that we forewarn and that we challenge during policy development and during the development of operational activities. The other

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principle is that we provide, as much as we can with the information we have, a good overview of performance on priority areas. Our work to date has focused on Government’s operational performance—you are familiar with the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate targets—but also challenging those targets and challenging Government to be more innovative and to think beyond the boundaries of its estate, including its travel activities and also impacts through supply chains and across communities. The other main focus of our work has been advising Government departments on the adequacy of their sustainable action plans. That encompasses two key work streams. One is advising on draft plans, as I said, so that we don’t catch people doing the wrong thing, which would be a misuse of public money, and to support departments in improving those plans; then, when the plans are actually published, to produce a watchdog assessment of each plan. In addition to that, our watchdog work has led us to comment on a variety of themes, both operational and policy, including sustainable procurement, Government impact assessment process, how carbon neutrality is defined and so on. All the watchdog work necessitates very close liaison with Government departments. The idea that you can just pull a report out of the hat once or twice a year and that somehow you’ve assessed Government is, frankly, nonsensical. Our work has been informed by daily liaison and close collaboration with Government departments. It’s the only way to actually advise along the way, provide a challenge, support innovation and then, when we do get to the point of producing formal written reports, those reports are well informed. Q7 Caroline Lucas: Can I just come in on that specific point, if that is all right? I think the message that you’re giving very clearly is that the watchdog role is incredibly important, and I agree with you. Andrew has already said that if we were to get rid of things like the watchdog role, then what has to be put in place would need to be better. The Secretary of State has spoken in a rather relaxed fashion about the Environmental Audit Committee, for example, taking on some of the roles that the SDC formerly had. From your experience of doing the watchdog role in particular, what resources do you think a Government Select Committee—even one as ambitious as ourselves—would need in order to be able to fulfil that role that you’ve been doing better than you have? Minas Jacob: The current team comprises seven people, and our job is to assess every single policy that comes through our hands through the sustainable development action plans—all departments, all agencies, all operational activities—and to keep a very close eye on upcoming initiatives so that we can actually inform on that work. It’s the only way of doing it. So our minimum—and I wouldn’t say that it is a very comfortable resource by any stretch—at the moment is seven people, all of whom are very dedicated and work way above the minimum hours that you would expect. So that could be regarded as a minimum. Chair: Caroline, do you want to carry on?

Q8 Caroline Nokes: Yes. I think Caroline actually picked up on one of the interesting questions there. You mentioned your very close liaison with Government departments. What proportion of your work do you consider is occurring within departments and how much of it is scrutiny from the outside? Minas Jacob: The two go hand-in-hand. When you say “scrutiny from the outside”, I would say it is actually pretty much impossible to do scrutiny from the outside. Unless you are just going to be looking at people’s electricity bills or statements that Government departments produce, you have to work with departments to understand their circumstances; otherwise you are producing watchdog reports, or attempting to, on information that doesn’t even exist, for example. So you need to understand their circumstances, their challenges, their blocks and enablers. Then, when you actually produce a formal assessment, you need to test that with the department because you may have got it wrong. It is difficult to actually separate the two out to say, “This is outside and this is inside,” but you can separate them in terms of, at one level, assessment which is on actual performance out there, as it were, which is the indicators—DEFRA has an Indicators in your Pocket booklet, which we don’t produce—and the focus of our work, which is on the drivers of performance, or what actually makes it happen. Farooq Ullah: Can I just add there that it is important to note that scrutiny work is not static. It’s very evolutionary and evolves over time in response to the needs of the people we work with. This requires, as Minas and Andrew pointed out, close liaison and dayto-day interaction with officials to understand their needs and provide them with effective scrutiny. Scrutiny is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Ultimately our intent is to build capability through scrutiny and not just to produce reports and then walk away from them. The point is that you need to have a very close understanding of where sustainable development in Government is going by working dayto-day with the officials and people who are responsible for the delivery of the agenda. Andrew Lee: I would add—if that’s okay—the sort of approach we’ve used is very different, dare I say, from a PWC or, can I say, a Philip Green approach and hopefully a lot more cost effective. The analogy I would use is that if you were looking at the household energy efficiency in your own home, it is one thing for someone to produce reams of data saying how much energy leaks through the windows and how many millimetres of loft insulation you’ve got, but actually what you want is someone to tell you what to do. What do you do about it? Our interest has always been in getting the performance to be better. So, although we rather enjoyed our traffic lights and league tables, and seeing Secretaries of State held to account on departmental performance, our objective has not been to see red lights. Our objective is to see green lights and to try to help those departments achieve that. I know you can argue that you can separate the two things completely, and separation of function is important, but I think that approach has really given benefits.

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Q9 Mr Spencer: Can I ask you about devolved Administrations and how you anticipate working with them in the future? Andrew Lee: Of course, yes. One of the interesting things was that when Securing the Future, the then SD strategy, was launched, it was, as you all know, launched by four Governments, not just one. Each devolved Government has gone its own way, as it should, to tackle this. The Scottish Government took one approach through five overarching goals for Government. The Welsh Assembly Government, of course, has a statutory duty, a founding principle, of sustainable development, so it’s always had that hardwired. It is different again in Northern Ireland. What we’ve tried to do is work with the flow of those Governments and work with the way they want to tackle SD, so it is not about the polemic or rhetoric, it is about how they want to do it. What’s clear now is that they’re still deciding where to go. In Wales we know that there is a strong view of the Minister to go for a stand-alone organisation, a sort of sustainable futures organisation in Wales, probably by integrating different Government bodies so it’s more efficient and saves money but it’s also more effective. In Scotland, the jury is still out and they’re looking at committee arrangements inside Government, but also perhaps at the external, “Do we need some sort of support and advice embedded in a body outside?” We’ve always celebrated the diversity. We think it’s great. Devolution football is fun. You know, not every Government has a monopoly on common sense. The Welsh Assembly Government has got a founding principle. It doesn’t mean necessarily it’s the most sustainable, but it’s an interesting approach. I think there’s a lot to learn. Actually one of our issues that I hope you will be picking up is how are the four Governments going to work together on this, particularly in the lead-up to Rio plus 20? At WSSD in Johannesburg, the last Sustainable Development Summit, the First Ministers played a very strong and effective role alongside the UK Government, and I’m sure they will want to do that again. We don’t want to lose that kind of lesson learning between the different countries, I think. Q10 Mr Spencer: Can I ask you about targets? How useful are Sustainable Development in Government and the SOGE targets in delivering the transition towards sustainable development? Minas Jacob: Can you repeat that question, please? Mr Spencer: Yes. How important are both the SOGE targets— Chair: That is Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate. Minas Jacob: Yes, yes, okay. Mr Spencer:—and Sustainable Development in Government. How important are they, and do they assist? Minas Jacob: Well, the truth is they clearly have assisted to put sustainable operations and procurement high up on departments’ agendas. They have helped to deliver results—not on their own. They do require strong leadership to drive them through, and we believe the targets themselves need to be stronger in

particular areas. But the truth is there have been significant improvements recently. Those improvements now need to be driven forward with greater ingenuity and innovation to drive improvements beyond the Government Estate and narrow environmental limit of targets, but I think they are one of the measures that has helped improve performance. Q11 Mr Spencer: Are there any quick wins that spring to mind? Minas Jacob: There are many quick wins. We have listed them in our recent report, but, if you think about more robust demands management as probably being top of that list, there are so many examples. DWP, for example, extended the life cycle replacement of their computers from three to five years and have saved something like 139,000 computers and something like £35 million, in addition to uncalculated savings on carbon impacts through supply chains. That is just one example. At the moment we don’t have robust demand management processes across Government, so we were hardly surprised when Philip Green made similar statements in his recent report, because this is exactly what we’ve been saying for the past four years. Farooq Ullah: The development framework is an important measure of transparency about what the Government intends to achieve on sustainable operations, but there are other mechanisms which have to go along with any such framework that actually ensure delivery: delivery plans, what will actually be achieved and how it will be done; monitoring and reporting mechanisms to ensure feedback and openness to public as well as the effective scrutiny that we’ve been talking about all along. These are the important things. The targets themselves haven’t done anything. They’re just a framing of what Government intends to do. It’s a full system that needs to be put in place. Q12 Mr Spencer: CESP is located in the Office of Government Commerce within the Cabinet Office. Does it have the resourcing and impartiality to report on Sustainable Development in Government without the SDC’s support? Minas Jacob: I think it does, although from conversations I’ve had with CESP, as we call it, they are equally worried about their future, so that’s something that you might want to look into. The Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement was created as a result of our recommendations two or three years ago. We have worked very closely with CESP and we have supported them, including advising on developing a sustainable procurement vision and seconding one of our key members of staff to actually help them develop the Government’s operational delivery plan. I think they have been pivotal in driving recent performance improvements, and we’ve said so in our report, but our roles are different. From the outset, certainly on my taking up the head of the watchdog role, we saw our job as to help embed these processes back into Government. So whereas my job and Farooq’s job started by including data

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Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence Ev 5

20 October 2010 Andrew Lee, Minas Jacob, Shirley Rodrigues and Farooq Ullah

collection, we said, “That’s not our job to do that. That’s Government’s job to collect data and report on its own performance.” Our job is to report on the higher level of that performance, challenge that performance, make the links between that performance and broader policy aims and make recommendations for change. CESP, in short, was a good idea. We think they’ve done a good job. They were created as a result of our recommendations. We worked very closely, but we do have different roles. They are closer to the detail and the data than we are. Q13 Mr Spencer: If you guys aren’t there, do they have the expertise to be able to do it all? Andrew Lee: Not for doing the whole thing, no. CESP is very focused on operations and particularly on procurement. That is what it was set up to do, quite rightly, and it is doing that job very assiduously. The other issue is that there is such a focus now on carbon. I mean the 10:10 commitment is great in itself— nothing against that at all—but there is a danger that Government policy becomes driven by boiler replacement issues. We heard a senior director in DECC telling us the other day that they have energy reporting every five seconds updated on the website. This is fine, but it’s a very, very narrow focus just on one aspect of sustainable operations and sustainable policy. So that needs to be got right—of course it does—but it is about more than boiler replacement. It’s also about water use; it’s about food procurement; it’s about a whole host of other very, very important issues. Q14 Zac Goldsmith: Theoretically, how could the remit of that organisation be expanded to include the broader sustainability criteria? Is there any relevance, is there any role there, for the Green Book in your view, which also has a focus principally on carbon? Andrew Lee: Yes. I might ask my colleague, Shirley, to talk a little bit about that because there is potential, obviously. Shirley Rodrigues: I think, as Andrew and Minas have talked about, CESP is really about the sustainable operations for procurement, and really the Green Book is about all investment decision making at Government level. It’s one of the tools that Government uses to look at its impacts in terms of sustainability. However—we talked earlier about successes, failures and barriers—the tools to help officials make those decisions are very weak, and we’ve worked very hard with Government to try and improve them. We’ve made some headway in that, in that the Green Book definition or the Green Book guidance doesn’t really reflect environmental limits or social impacts very well. It’s very biased to trying to achieve economic outcomes and gives prevalence to monetised benefits of any investment decision, so it starts to skew away from giving a true sustainable development impact of a particular policy or initiative that you want to implement. As I’ve said, we’ve been working very hard on that and I think that’s one of the issues that DEFRA and the Secretary of State at DEFRA has said that they want to focus on. We would absolutely urge that the momentum has to carry on with that to make sure that

that rebalancing happens. But there is a whole host of other tools and guidance that also needs to be improved as well. I am not sure CESP is necessarily the right place to do that, but as part of its decision making it would need to use those sorts of tools too. Q15 Chair: Just before we move on, you’ve talked about CESP having an important role to play but it’s very narrow in detail. Where is the wider remit or where should the wider remit actually be, given that you come to an end at the end of the financial year? Where do you think that overall remit is to make sure that accountability happens, that you currently do? Andrew Lee: Yes, and clearly that’s what the Government has to decide and you will be asking. In our view, I said it has to be led from the top. There needs to be Cabinet level engagement, by Cabinet Ministers. There needs to be Cabinet Office involvement. There’s been a long debate about whether sustainable development should be in the Cabinet Office going back way before I got involved with it, but I think there is a good argument for that because it shows it’s cross-departmental. However good DEFRA and DECC are at providing support to other Government departments for what they’re doing, it needs to come from the centre. Then there is the operational machinery, whatever that is. You could put in better machinery—you could put in an incentive-based system rather than just a targetbased system, or you could put in absolute rather than relative measures. At the moment it’s okay for one department to use twice as much water per head as another provided they are all improving. Well, why? Are some civil servants washing twice as much? What’s going on? I think the operational bit needs to be clearly embedded somewhere in Government. CESP does some of that now. It could be expanded. The OGC could take on more of that role—of course it could. You need Cabinet Office leadership because there’s a policy dimension to this. You obviously need the scrutiny and holding to account, which is what you are looking at taking on. Chair: On that point, Simon? Q16 Simon Kirby: You mentioned leadership. Obviously leadership is vital for success. You also mentioned earlier that the former Prime Minister had lost interest. Do you think he’d lost interest in sustainable development or just the SDC, and why was that? Andrew Lee: Undoubtedly both, I suppose. No, I don’t know. I think genuinely when Tony Blair started this initiative he was interested in it, but what happened is the focus became more and more on the international leadership and on climate change. Now I can understand that. Climate change is a very pressing, very urgent, example of unsustainable development—the consequences. It is vitally important and it’s fantastic we’ve got the Climate Change Act and we’ve got the carbon budget. But I think the wider plot was lost because it’s not just about carbon. It’s about biodiversity; it’s about land use; it’s about soil; it’s about equality; it’s the ability people have, if you like, to live more sustainably, what access to services they have.

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Ev 6 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

20 October 2010 Andrew Lee, Minas Jacob, Shirley Rodrigues and Farooq Ullah

I think gradually that did unravel because the leadership started with the Prime Minister and it was then weaker. I don’t think Gordon Brown was interested in it. The leadership at official level started by being driven by Permanent Secretaries and was then devalued. As I say, some departments really went with it—you are going to hear from one in a minute, in DH—and others, the Treasury notably, just said, “Yah boo sucks. I’m not really interested in this. We’ve got a Sustainable Development Action Plan, but it’s more about how many cars we use and how we heat the building than it is about how our economic policy is pursued.” I thought of two examples of the consequences when we were coming into this session. One would be the way we have unwittingly in Britain walked into a situation where we are designing obesity into our local neighbourhoods, which is costing the NHS billions. We all know; we’re trying to tackle that problem now. That’s intimately linked to people’s access to public transport, to their ability to be mobile, active citizens, and also to well-being as well as obesity, which is linked to access to nature as well. Another example would be energy policy, where we’ve seen that overreliance on market mechanisms and over-reliance on doing everything you do through utilities delivering to households has now run up against the buffers, which is why both the previous Government and the new Government are in a bit of a panic now about what to do about it. The reason I use those examples is that this is what we’re talking about, when we speak about sustainable development thinking. It’s not something else you do when you’ve got time left over from those issues. It’s about how you think about the long term, the social, the environmental and the global consequences of the direction of policy. We can see this in our strategic defence review, in pensions reform, in welfare package. So that’s what we’re talking about. I think the opportunity was lost, actually. There was momentum built up and then it was lost. The tools are okay in themselves, but frankly, you’ve got a Sustainable Development Action Plan in your department? Who gives a stuff unless the Perm Sec and the Secretary of State are saying, “We need to be the best at this. It’s really important for our performance. We are going to get punished by the Treasury if we’re not performing on these sustainable development criteria”? So it didn’t flow through sufficiently. Q17 Simon Wright: I was going to ask some questions on the SD Action Plans, and you’ve already touched on some of the problems. What feedback have you had from the departments themselves about the value and how they could be improved and made more effective? Farooq Ullah: We’ve had very positive feedback from departments, and all organisations in central Government have come to us repeatedly for advice and support in developing them. A good example is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who, after suffering a red light in an assessment of the quality of their plan, took it to heart and developed an integrated approach to driving sustainable development through

all aspects of its business planning. It used engagement across the department, including throughout the world, to improve the way in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office operates and delivers its services. It’s made great steps forward from being one of the worst performing departments to probably one of the departments that has best integrated sustainable development through everything it does. Another good example is the DVLA—the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency—which has decided to take the bold step of not having an SDAP but instead integrating sustainable development into its central business reporting process. It’s important to understand that an SDAP is an important starting point as a stand-alone report, which helps an organisation build up its ability to understand the issues and impacts it has, but then over time it should be integrated into the central reporting process. Minas Jacob: Can I just add that there have been literally hundreds of changes to draft plans as a result of our feedback, all of which we have tracked and can provide you with more information on, department by department, agency by agency? The plans come to us in draft form. We do a very thorough analysis. We give very specific feedback. Then there is ongoing discussion, obviously, but literally hundreds of changes across Government. What concerns me, frankly, is that even if we move to a point of more integrated reporting—which, by the way, the SDC has been calling for from Government for over four years now—it doesn’t bypass the need for somebody to actually look at departments’ plans and check up how robust they are and whether they’re actually fit for purpose. Integrated reporting does not bypass that need. Somebody somewhere still needs to cast an eye over these. At the moment, it is the SDC. We don’t know what plans Government has in place for the future to check Government policy plans. At the moment there’s nothing. Q18 Simon Wright: Okay, thank you. Are there some departments, some agencies, that have struggled to engage in this process, and, if so, which are those and has there been any work to bring them more into the process? Farooq Ullah: Yes. The different organisations are all at completely different levels. We’ve done assessments over the past few years which show that departments are at very different levels. Treasury is always separate and, as I mentioned, Foreign and Commonwealth Office traditionally was very poor. DECC has struggled currently to get its own Sustainable Development Action Plan up in place nearly two years after its creation. The context though needs to be taken into account. It’s not so much who’s good and who’s bad: it’s where you are on the journey that needs to be considered, and those who are lagging need support—centrally from Government once we cease to exist—to ensure that all people of all organisations are brought up to a certain standard, a level where we can assure the public that they have a good understanding of their own sustainable development impacts.

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Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence Ev 7

20 October 2010 Andrew Lee, Minas Jacob, Shirley Rodrigues and Farooq Ullah

Andrew Lee: I think Farooq is being very polite and tactful. I think there are two things actually that I’ve noticed over five years at the SDC. The first is that departments that have big operations kind of get this, because it’s a bit like a big company. Your Perm Sec is the chief executive. You don’t want to be wasting money on energy or whatever. The MOD is an interesting example of that, which of course is massive. 60% of the impact of Government operations is MOD—that’s going to become rather less presumably under the spending review proposals. So one thing is that if you’ve got operations you can do it, but then you get the corollary of that, which is departments who have a relatively small operational impact but huge policy influence—I mentioned the Treasury, and the Cabinet Office is an interesting example—have struggled much more. Some have been unwilling and some have just struggled, I think, with how you actually do this. That is where I think DH and DE—or DCSF as it was—are interesting models for you to look at, because they really have tried to use sustainable development and to develop a sustainable schools policy, to develop a toolkit for the NHS and so on and so on. They’re in the middle of trying to do operations and policy. Q19 Zac Goldsmith: Can I quickly ask, where an individual department has performed well, and you’ve named a few, how much of that is down to pressure from the Minister as opposed to pressure from department officials? I am interested in the dynamic. If you are setting out to apply pressure in a department, where would you most effectively apply it? Andrew Lee: I suppose the easy answer is that it has to have ministerial leadership. There have been cases of very good initiatives driven by officials, but they will tend to run into the buffers sooner or later. The sustainable schools policy, as previously pursued by DCSF, basically went down the tubes because Michael Gove came in and said, “No, I want to do things differently.” I think you’ve got to have a Minister behind it, but having a Minister behind it is not enough. Charles Clarke under the previous Government, and Peter Hain, when he was at Northern Ireland, were both examples of Ministers who really drove through with a cart and horses sustainable development policy, pretty much with grudging acceptance from officials, and then it backfires of course because it doesn’t stick unless you’ve got it at all levels—it’s in performance objectives, it’s in the day job for everybody. I don’t claim unique expertise on this. It is the same as any organisational change. You’ve got to have leadership at the top, but you’ve also got to have really active participation and engagement from the people doing the job, otherwise it will just be a flash in the pan. The Minister moves on. I think I dealt with four Housing Ministers in my previous role. I was getting dizzy after a while, going into the same office and having the same conversation about the existing housing stock with a new Minister. Unless the officials at senior level get it, it ain’t going to happen. So, it’s both, I think.

Q20 Dr Whitehead: The proposed or suggested arrangements for oversight of sustainable development would presumably fold into Cabinet Committee in the future. How do you think that might work? Shirley Rodrigues: Shall I take that one? We’ve had some discussions or we’ve certainly sent advice in to the Cabinet Office Minister, Oliver Letwin, advising on how we think it might work. Essentially, as Andrew has already said, it absolutely needs the Cabinet Office or a Cabinet Committee—some sort of structure that takes sustainable development in its remit. The options vary from having a separate Cabinet Committee or Cabinet Sub-Committee. I think discussions are now focused on possibly incorporating sustainable development into the Home Affairs Committee, which is fine. Along with all the comments that we’ve made here, it really depends on how it’s delivered. That’s fine as long as sustainable development isn’t just seen as a standing item on an agenda that you look at, maybe once a quarter, look at a few indicators and then leave it. It doesn’t really pick up the international aspects or the fact that sustainable development is a cross-cutting issue. How it is going to be looked at and implemented is going to be really critical. Is it going to be supported by some sort of access to expertise, both internally within Government but also externally to a body of expertise that we’ve had at the Sustainable Development Commission very cheaply through a series of commissioners over the last 10 years who have been experts in their field? Those are really the big issues. The biggest issue I think for us, certainly on the policy side, is that we have been able, alongside the policy we’ve talked about—co-development of policy and helping departments look at policy—is to look at the big wicked issues, the massively important issues that run across Government, which aren’t being looked at, partly because they’re so difficult. Some of the reports that the commission has produced over the years around energy, behaviour change and moving to a more sustainable economic system—those are really big issues that fundamentally will change the way the UK moves forward and how it operates in the international arena. We saw this with the Public Accounts Committee comment about the lack of strategy or strategic vision. Who’s looking at it at Cabinet Office level or Cabinet Committee level? Well, we would see a sustainable development Committee doing exactly that. The sort of issues that have come through the commission over the years have been those massively important issues that are so difficult but need an airing amongst a group of Ministers that come to some sort of consensus about how you move forward that doesn’t exceed environmental limits and doesn’t exacerbate unfairness. Those discussions have to be held at ministerial level, with Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister leadership. Q21 Dr Whitehead: The Cabinet Committees are not resourced in their own right. Referring to Caroline Lucas’s earlier question, do you have any thoughts on how such quite important questions about watchdog

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Ev 8 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

20 October 2010 Andrew Lee, Minas Jacob, Shirley Rodrigues and Farooq Ullah

roles and resourcing of that might run alongside such Cabinet Committee oversight? Shirley Rodrigues: Again, we have advised the Secretary of State at DEFRA, who is the lead for sustainable development, and Oliver Letwin and Chris Huhne, who all have a role in agreeing what happens in terms of embedding sustainable development in Government. Currently there are some 20 or so policies and research analysts—these are over and above the watchdog staff that Minas has talked about—who provide that work with departments in terms of co-developing policy and so on, but then provide that sort of wider expertise to deal with those big issues. We have absolutely no idea how that expertise is going to be provided for, either to the Environmental Audit Committee in terms of the watchdog role or to the policy advice to Government. We would see that as additional. The expertise we provide is very specific around sustainability. It is not just policy advice on planning or education or health. That is the missing bit which I think will drop through the cracks, and we are not sure how that is going to be provided yet, but we’ve asked the question and I’m sure that you will too. Q22 Dr Whitehead: Perhaps I could touch on a possible example. The Treasury Green Book on procurement has interesting guidelines on green procurement, but on the other hand apparently a number of contradictory guidelines in terms of what is value for money and various other things. If you are a procurement officer and you have all this in front of you, and you presumably wish to keep your job, I guess you would look at some of those guidelines, attempt to reconcile the inconsistencies with other guidelines and then procure on the basis of what appear to be the overriding guidelines as opposed to the advisory guidelines; and therefore you will probably not procure very sustainably. What mechanisms would you see in the context of some sort of Cabinet Committee oversight of reconciling those sort of issues, where a department clearly has put into its own guidelines its own view of the extent to which sustainability might trump other issues which it also considers important? Shirley Rodrigues: I think the first thing is that there are some tools, and we have talked about some of those already—the Green Book—which are imperfect because the guidance has not dealt with those issues. We’ve been working very hard with the Government Economic Service and the Better Regulation Executive and others to try to exactly sort out those issues. The messages we’re getting back through the SDAP process and through departmental contacts is, “It’s confusing and how do we get the right answer?” That needs to be sorted out, but I think overarching for me would be the fact that the sustainable impact test is seen as an add-on test, to be done after or alongside other impact tests. It is not seen as the first thing you do to identify what are the sustainable impacts, tensions or complexities which then throw up those sort of issues that you need to look at. Then, in terms of procurement, some of this will be a political issue; some of it has to take into account money, budgets—you know, this is the real world. But

I think the first thing is understanding that there are environmental limits that have to be maintained, and there are social impacts and other issues that are also priorities which Government has set out. One of the issues for us is that we still haven’t had a statement yet from Government about what it thinks are its sustainable development priorities, which we would call for urgently because that would help then guide people in terms of policy decisions or procurement decisions or whatever. Farooq Ullah: As you readily point out, there is a lot of supplementary guidance and conflicting guidance around the Green Book and decision making in Government. There is some good work going on, and Shirley mentioned the Government Economic Service and the newly formed Social Impacts Task Force. The issue is that the Social Impacts Task Force in particular is seeking to produce supplementary guidance for the Green Book and the Magenta Book on how to measure social impacts of any decisions— investments or otherwise. The problem and the major risk is that the supplementary guidance will just continue to be ignored. This needs to be revised. The Green Book needs to be overhauled and any new developments and understanding of how to measure impacts—environmental, social, economic—needs to be put in a co-ordinated integrated fashion into a much better, more concise Green Book, which allows a user, practitioner, procurer—whomever the role is—to understand all types of impacts of a decision, to deal with the interplay between those impacts and to find any mitigating measures which should be put in place before a final decision is made. This includes looking at monetised costs and benefits as well as nonmonetised costs and benefits, and putting it all in an upfront summary for ministerial decisions. Andrew Lee: That does rather bring us back to this issue of indicators. I know this can be a very arcane discussion and some of us have lived and died on this for years, but unless there is something clear in place about how the Government intends to measure its progress, and how it is going to measure the progress that the country as a whole is making, which balances economic, environmental and social aspects, we are building on sand. How do you apply the Green Book to Heathrow airport or to the Severn tidal barrage, never mind sort of day-to-day decisions, unless you can be pretty clear how you’re measuring those three things? Sustainable development means you’ve got to make progress on all three at once, or at least with the cumulative decisions you make—it’s sometimes hard to apply it to one individual decision, but over time that cumulative impact needs to be measured. What we are hearing at the moment is a lot about input/output measurement, which is fine. Of course you need to do that, but that could be just measuring for the sake of it—the cost of everything and the value of nothing. But how are we going to measure progress towards or away from sustainability? It’s not just about well-being; it is well-being, but it’s more. It’s not just about environment; it is environment, but more. It’s not just about conventional economic measures. This is what Cabinet Ministers ought to be fighting about. They ought to be doing this transparently in a forum where it can be seen and

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Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence Ev 9

20 October 2010 Andrew Lee, Minas Jacob, Shirley Rodrigues and Farooq Ullah

observed, and they ought to be applying these principles to how you put these measures in place in Government, and then add to that— Chair: We’ve almost come to the end of our time. I know that Zac Goldsmith wishes to come in. I’m not sure if any other members of the Committee want to catch my eye, but Zac? Q23 Zac Goldsmith: Thank you. I have a very quick question. In terms of the priorities of this body, the Environmental Audit Committee, obviously there is a huge range of concerns and issues and it is not practical to imagine that we can take on all of the work that you’ve done. For all the obvious reasons, that’s not going to happen, but there are priorities, and I suppose my question is: how high up the list of priorities, in your view, should be the goal of helping the Government establish that mechanism you just described for really accounting for natural capital, so that every decision by every department is judged on the basis of how it takes from or adds to Britain’s real natural wealth? For me that’s a big priority, but based on your experience as the SDC and your knowledge of this organisation, how high up the list of priorities should that be? Shirley Rodrigues: Massively high up. I think it is one of the issues that we have struggled with over the years—the issue of environmental limits and valuing natural capital. We know that DEFRA has tried to do some work on it and has got nowhere. We have started some work which will leave some challenges, I think, for DEFRA going forward. Because of that, and because of the way the Green Book is configured, it’s meant that people start obviously looking at the economic issues, with maybe a bit of social and maybe a touch of carbon. It doesn’t give you that whole rounded sustainable development approach, which is absolutely critical. I think one example you might want to look at would be the abolition or the moving of the Infrastructure Planning Commission into CLG. Major infrastructure

applications that were going forward—we have a statutory role to look at that. Nobody is looking at that now. One of the big issues that we raise in our evidence would be: who is going to look at the cumulative impacts against environmental limits? For example, on carbon, we have carbon budgets. That is the one environmental limit that is quantified and could be measured. The IPC, as was then, were told it wasn’t their job to look at the impacts on carbon cumulatively. So you could have been in a ludicrous situation where they were approving a whole series of new energy infrastructure, transport infrastructure, that would have had massive impacts on carbon budgets, but it wasn’t their role to report on it; it wasn’t the Climate Change Committee’s role to monitor that, either. We could be breaching environmental limits on carbon; nobody is looking at that. The same issue on biodiversity. It is much harder to manage but we’ve had various reports coming out about how important ecosystems, TEEB and so on, are. It is a massive issue that I think is a big priority for the Environmental Audit Committee to look at. Farooq Ullah: I think, at its most basic, it is absolutely fundamentally important that Government understands the link between natural capital and environmental capital and well-being, both economic well-being and societal, social, well-being. If they can understand that link, the flows of natural capital to well-being, it would be a massive step forward in decision making. Q24 Chair: Thank you very much indeed, all of you. I think time has run out for us. We are very conscious of the work that you have done over the years that you’ve been in existence. Thank you for that. This is obviously an ongoing debate, so if there are further issues which you think need to be put into further evidence to the Committee, please let us have it. Andrew Lee: Thank you, and the very best of luck in your enhanced role. Shirley Rodrigues: Thank you.

Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Flora Goldhill CBE, Acting Director General and Chief Operating Officer and Richard Mundon, Director of Operations, Department of Health, gave evidence. Q25 Chair: I thank both of you for coming along. Our session is very curtailed this morning, so I hope you will bear with us. We are hoping to have a full half hour. That gives you some indication of where we are. I think we wanted to invite you along because the Department of Health seems to have been cited as a good practitioner in terms of sustainable development. To start off with, what we would like you to do is perhaps just introduce yourselves and then my first question will be: from your perspective, has the Sustainable Development Commission been good value for money and what arises out of that? Flora Goldhill: Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting us today. I’m Flora Goldhill. I am acting Director General and Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Health. My colleague, Richard Mundon, is Director of Operations at the Department

of Health and he leads for us on sustainable development. Our view of the Sustainable Development Commission is that they have been very good partners. They’ve really helped us understand the agenda. I think I would say by way of introduction, though, that health and well-being is at the heart of what we in the DH, the NHS and public health do and believe in. I think we have been very open to what they could offer us. I think they particularly helped us interpret what we do in the language of sustainability. As the SDC have just said, you often don’t realise that you are talking about sustainability when you’re talking about particular things, but we have found them an extremely valuable partner and we’ve learned a huge amount from them. We believe we are on the way to embedding what we’ve learned. We’ve

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Ev 10 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

20 October 2010 Flora Goldhill CBE and Richard Mundon

particularly valued the fact that they’ve embedded in the department one of their team, who has really worked with departmental colleagues, to help them understand the sustainability agenda and present it in a way that’s helpful to broader understanding. Q26 Chair: That all sounds very well and good, but, if I was going to convey to one of my constituents about how that’s made a difference in the Department of Health, I’m not sure that they’d know where the detail of the policy is. Can you give us an example of something that’s real—something that’s actually delivered results—and how you’ve changed your policy, how you’ve done things in a different way and how that’s led to money savings and environmental well-being? Flora Goldhill: Richard will have many examples, but if I could just start with one example that the SDC helped us with, they helped us develop a sustainable development tool that supports the NHS in understanding sustainability. Some 80% of organisations in the NHS use that tool to help them make decisions about sustainability, which deliver better quality and value for money. Q27 Chair: Can I just ask you there whether you are talking about the NHS estate or whether you are talking about hospitals and those, if you like, who are technically outside the NHS estate? Richard Mundon: The tool that Flora is referring to is a good corporate citizen model, which looks at buildings as part of its remit, but also looks at many other aspects of sustainability. One of the things that Andrew was talking about a little earlier is that Government departments are very often focused on operational estate. The Department of Health has a very small operational estate and most of our opportunities for delivering sustainability are around how we influence people and how we deliver policy, so we were very keen to develop a tool that was broader than just operational estate and looked at other aspects as well. Q28 Chair: Can I just press you on this a little bit? I think you were here for the earlier evidence session. It talked about, I think it was, designing obesity out of the equation. So how is it possible for a new hospital to be designed within the NHS which didn’t have a kitchen at the heart of it, where local food could be produced in terms of promoting high, good nutritional standards for people in that hospital? How do you make sure that all the different tickboxes are ticked when it comes to sustainable development? How has working with the Sustainable Development Commission assisted with that agenda, or not got to where it should be on that agenda? Flora Goldhill: The role of the department, obviously, can’t be to get into all local decisions. Local decisions are for local people. What we do is create an environment, create a framework, create the strategy and policy and the levers by which we encourage sustainability, but we can’t do it for individual providers on the ground. That is something where they have to be accountable for themselves. But we do want them to take those things into account. For

example, the way that contracts are constructed requires providers to produce a Sustainable Development Action Plan themselves so that in the NHS those who commission services can understand how sustainability is going to be delivered through provision; but how individual providers do that is something they have to be held accountable for. Q29 Zac Goldsmith: Can I ask you, just on that point, am I right in thinking that the department’s latest Sustainable Development Action Plan doesn’t make any reference at all to sustainable food procurement? That is my understanding of it, in which case I think that would provide something of an answer to your question, but that also to me seems quite shocking given that it is a Sustainable Development Action Plan. Is that correct? Richard Mundon: It mentions sustainable procurement— Zac Goldsmith: Food procurement. Richard Mundon:—and the NHS supply chain that is responsible for most of the procurement in the NHS has a specific role around food, so through their actions between 64% and 65% of food in the NHS is locally reared or sourced, so there is a specific output as a result of that. The Sustainable Development Action Plan is not specifically about food but it does refer to procurement. Q30 Caroline Lucas: I want to explore a little bit more about what the loss of the SDC will mean to you in more concrete terms. For example, in some of the reporting that’s been shown, although you have been doing very well on sustainability, just recently on some indicators your performance has gone down—for example, on water use. In your note you say that the department hopes to work with the SDC to address performance slippages. In the absence of the SDC, where will you go to get that kind of advice? Flora Goldhill: Just to go back to one of the points that the SDC made about leadership, we are already engaged with our Ministers, and our Ministers are engaged with DEFRA Ministers and have clearly demonstrated commitment to this agenda, so we have got that leadership right at the top. We have a new Permanent Secretary who takes up post in November, and I am absolutely confident she will be committed to this agenda. We have a very good network of champions—I think that’s in the papers we submitted to you—and there is a lot of enthusiasm in the Department of Health for this agenda because they believe in it. It is part of the core of what they do. What we will be doing is really exploring all opportunities to learn good practice. That’s the way we want to do this. We are confident that we’ve learnt the benefits of working with the SDC and we want to go on working with the best people who can advise us on this. That will be our way forward in this, so we’ll be making as many connections as we can in the hope that we don’t miss anything in the way of good practice. Q31 Caroline Lucas: Apologies, but that does sound a little bit vague. It is one thing to have leadership in champions—that is absolutely essential—but it is also

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20 October 2010 Flora Goldhill CBE and Richard Mundon

essential to have expertise and the best quality advice. In the absence of the SDC, are you confident that you will easily be able to access the quality of expertise and advice that you have traditionally been able to access via SDC? Flora Goldhill: There are a number of routes into this, and I will ask Richard to pick up in a moment, but we have a very big research and development budget in the Department of Health. We can use it in many ways. We will be looking at sustainable development as part of the way that we think about our research programme. That will clearly be built in. We will be looking for expertise wherever it exists. I am sorry I sound vague, and am not able to say exactly what exists where.—Richard can help us with that. Richard Mundon: The real benefit that the SDC has brought to the department around things like water, which was one thing you mentioned, is transparency. It’s given us a great deal of transparency, and transparency brings a need to act. By bringing these things to our attention in a much more transparent way, we’ve acted on them in a way that perhaps we wouldn’t otherwise have done. They have offered some expertise around those areas where there are particular issues, but they aren’t at the moment the only source of expertise on that. There are lots of different places. We would look at other organisations. We’ve got the NHS, for a start, who have many properties, who have developed a degree of expertise in how we might improve sustainability in their organisations. We go to the centre of excellence on sustainable procurement in the Cabinet Office, who also have expertise. And we have colleagues in other Government departments who are both wrestling with the same issues and have developed some expertise around this—for instance, in DEFRA and in DECC. So there are sources of expertise around this that we already use or will use more as the SDC isn’t on the scene. Q32 Caroline Lucas: I have just a quick follow-up on that. In your experience, how useful have you found the Sustainable Operations on Government Estates—the SOGE targets? How useful have they been in terms of incentivising sustainability? Richard Mundon: Very useful. It is transparent. It shows you absolutely where you are in terms of comparators with other Government departments. That acts as an incentive to try to improve performance. We in the Department of Health have generally been very good on those indicators. You mentioned the occasional blip, which everyone has. The SDC have brought that to our attention and helped us where there are issues. They haven’t, frankly, spent an awful lot of time with us because we haven’t had massive issues around that. Things like carbon from transport has been one of the things that’s been a perennial issue with the Department of Health, and we have worked with the SDC on that. But we’ve reached a stage now where we’ve learnt a lot from that relationship and started to act and put plans in place which address those concerns. So they have been helpful, but we still feel confident that we can build on that and move on.

Q33 Dr Whitehead: What about the arm’s length bodies? How do you manage the sort of processes you’ve described in terms of arm’s length bodies within the Department of Health, and what sort of targets and arrangements exist for employees in those bodies—assuming they’re still there? Richard Mundon: Some of them will be, yes. The existing Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate targets don’t extend to arm’s length bodies, so we have a relationship with each of them based upon a planning framework. That planning framework requires them to take account of sustainability in the same way that the core department does. They are an extension of our family, really. We expect the same levels of performance from them as we would from our own estate. Generally speaking, they are very good at that. Some of them are exceptionally good. Organisations like the Health Protection Agency and NHS Business Services Authority are very good and have sustainable plans of their own that would stand up to close scrutiny. We have regular meetings with the arm’s length bodies to ensure that their plans are on track and that they are performing in the way that we would expect them to. Q34 Dr Whitehead: So are those linked by means of key performance indicators that are in the contracts with the arm’s length bodies, or are they just a matter of custom and guidance as far as their relationship with you is concerned? Richard Mundon: There aren’t contracts as such with arm’s length bodies. There are agreements around their performance and performance indicators. Some of those take the form of KPIs; some of them are not quite so precise. It varies from organisation to organisation, depending on how big it is. Some arm’s length bodies have much less capacity to be dealing with sustainable development issues than others, and therefore you need a tailored approach to how we deal with them. There is a variety of different indicators and measures that we use. Q35 Dr Whitehead: If you decided within the department that this was all a waste of time for the future—different circumstances, problems in the health service—what sanction would there be on you if you decided to do that? Flora Goldhill: I can’t envisage that we would decide to do that. Going back to what I said at the beginning, health and well-being is absolutely core to what we do. Public health colleagues have argued sustainable development for as long as I can remember. If the decision were taken that this were not a priority, I can’t see it not being part of how we do business in health and social care. Q36 Dr Whitehead: I think the thrust of the question, among other things, is to whom might you be accountable for what you do in this area? If it were, for example, a Cabinet Committee, how might that impact on what you do, or do you see for the future this being very much something that, as you have suggested, is internally generated by your own wishes as a department to run yourself in the best possible way according to what you consider your mission is?

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Ev 12 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

20 October 2010 Flora Goldhill CBE and Richard Mundon

Flora Goldhill: I think in the department we welcome scrutiny of what we do. We have absolutely no difficulty about scrutiny. I think audit is helpful. Audit, and sustainable development could be open to audit. I think the critical thing for us in scrutinising what we do is that the measures are clear and that we can do them readily; that we can collect data readily; that we don’t create burdens on those that are providing services; that we can compare data easily. These are the kind of things that we would ask for. We would be very happy to be accountable to a Cabinet Committee. There would absolutely be no difficulty in having scrutiny. In fact, I think scrutiny always does raise your game. Q37 Chair: I just have a few very quick, short questions, just to get some idea of how things are moving. Looking toward the Liberating the NHS White Paper, I am just interested in how you feel sustainable development will be embedded into the new architecture that will come out from that? Flora Goldhill: I think the critical piece of architecture is the NHS Commissioning Board, which will be responsible for health outcomes. It says in the White Paper that it will be responsible for designing the model contracts, and the contracts that the NHS use at the moment for commissioning, as I said earlier, require providers to produce a Sustainable Development Action Plan. We envisage that that would continue in the way that the NHS Commissioning Board design contracts. Q38 Chair: But the specific question is, should it have sustainable development in the health care system, actually as part of its remit, because if it doesn’t have it, how can that direct the general direction of policy making on sustainable development lines? Flora Goldhill: The functions that are envisaged in the new health care system are set out in the White Paper and will be in the Health Bill, which is about to go into Parliament. I think the opportunity will be available to people to argue whether sustainable development should be a core function of any of the bodies that are being created. Q39 Chair: But as it is set out at the moment, do you believe that sustainable development will be at the core and at the heart of that? Flora Goldhill: At the moment I don’t see it as stated in that way. Q40 Chair: So it’s not there? Flora Goldhill: I think I go back to my earlier point— that in order to deliver good health outcomes you need to take account of sustainable development, and therefore it’s integral to that whole principle of delivering better outcomes for people. Q41 Chair: But my point is that our line of inquiry with our previous witnesses and with yourselves is, when we’re looking at new legislation which is coming in, who is responsible for ensuring that that function of sustainable development is one of the key policy drivers? It would be helpful if you could say

whether or not you think that it is there. But if it is not there, presumably some further work would need to be done to make sure that it is stated? Flora Goldhill: I think I would go back to the proposals made by the Sustainable Development Commission that Dr Whitehead was referring to, which is a Cabinet Committee of some kind looking at the work that we, as a department, do. I think in terms of the NHS, as a core function I think it has to be integrated, it has to be mainstreamed, into what we do. Q42 Chair: Right, but is it there now? Sorry, is it in what you envisage as coming forward in the new legislation, or does further work need to be done on that to ensure that it is? Flora Goldhill: I am sorry, perhaps I don’t understand the question clearly. If your question is, “Will there be a function to deliver, for example, sustainable development?”, at the moment that’s not envisaged. Q43 Chair: It’s not? Flora Goldhill: It’s not envisaged in that way. Q44 Chair: It’s not envisaged? That was my question, thank you, that’s helpful. Does the Care Quality Commission have the remit for sustainable development as well, as currently envisaged? Flora Goldhill: It doesn’t have that in its remit at the moment, and there are no plans to change it so that it specifically states that it should have that as a function. Q45 Chair: If there were plans to change it, where would those plans come from? Would they come from the Cabinet Office or from yourselves? How do you see the whole issue of sustainable development being championed? Flora Goldhill: Clearly a cross-Government approach is very powerful, and that gives us an impetus to doing things. I think the Cabinet Office is a good place to co-ordinate that. All departments pay good attention to what Cabinet Office requirements are, and we do everything we can to meet those requirements. Q46 Zac Goldsmith: Can I just add to that? In the absence of the SDC, assuming it ceases to exist as from today, and in the absence of anything being put in its place, where would a reluctant department feel the pressure to pursue the sustainability agenda? Assuming you were a reluctant department, where would you feel that pressure, effectively? Flora Goldhill: We would feel it here, obviously. Q47 Zac Goldsmith: Where is “here”? Flora Goldhill: Here, in front of your Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee. We would feel it here, certainly. We would feel it through any audits that were put in the public domain. If there were targets we would obviously want to do our best to meet them. So anything that was in the public domain where we were being measured and scrutinised would incentivise us to want to perform well.

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20 October 2010 Flora Goldhill CBE and Richard Mundon

Q48 Zac Goldsmith: But if we are honest about it— and this is not a reflection on your commitment—if the department is reluctant to take this issue, this agenda, seriously, the answer you’ve given suggests that there isn’t really any pressure at all. If you look at the Department for Education, it will be judged on whether or not it delivers enough school places and whether or not they are good quality. If there isn’t someone there with an absolute commitment also to ensuring that the wider agenda is taken into account, it seems to me that without the SDC there isn’t that pressure. Is that unfair? Flora Goldhill: I think the question you are exploring, as I understand it, is what could you put in its place? Q49 Zac Goldsmith: Yes. Flora Goldhill: It could be something done through financial penalties imposed by the Treasury. It could be clearly something from Cabinet Office on the cross-cutting agenda and targets that they set. We certainly paid close attention to the Prime Minister’s requirement for a 10% reduction in carbon consumption. So all of these things do make us act, but where we would be held to account if we were reluctant—it would be somewhere like this, I think. Zac Goldsmith: Thank you. Q50 Chair: We are coming to the end of our session now, I say to colleagues. On that last question, just a different way of asking it: would it make any difference if delivering on sustainable development were a part of the specification for whoever the chief officer were in the departments—either in your department or in any other department—if that was a requirement of the job

description that that chief officer had to deliver on? Is that one way of doing it? Flora Goldhill: It is a way of doing it. I think the question would be how powerful that would be, because I think if you hold people to account for their objectives it would have to come from the top. It would have to be something that Government expected its civil servants to do. I think it was said before that there have been targets and some departments have not done anything about it and there has been no sanction, even with the SDC. I think the question is, if the SDC were not to exist, what would actually change in terms of sanctions? I’m not clear that anything would change. It is about what’s put in the public domain and what is scrutinised. I think that is the critical part. Q51 Chair: Okay. I have one absolutely final question. With regard to the new Director of Public Health role and the new arrangements that there are to link up the Department of Health with local authorities—do you see that new role as being a trigger for bringing in sustainable development policies and principles into local policies and services from local authorities? Flora Goldhill: Most certainly it will be an important trigger, and the Directors of Public Health, I think, will have this as a very key component of their job roles. They will want to work with all partners at local level, so I think they are very key to delivering sustainable development on the ground. Chair: Right, I think that brings us to the end. We do have the comprehensive spending review and Members are very anxious to get down to that. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much for coming along.

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Ev 14 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

Wednesday 3 November 2010 Members present: Joan Walley (Chair) Peter Aldous Neil Carmichael Martin Caton Zac Goldsmith

Simon Kirby Caroline Lucas Sheryll Murray Dr Alan Whitehead ________________ Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Michael Anderson, Director General, Strategy, Finance, Performance and Evidence Group, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, William Jordan, Chief Sustainability Officer, Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office, and Sam Rowbury, Acting Director, Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement, Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office, gave evidence Chair: I would like to welcome you all to the Environmental Audit Committee this afternoon, and thank all three of you for coming in. We do not want a long introduction from each of you, but if you introduce yourselves and let us know the remit you have responsibility for, that might be helpful. Mr Anderson: I’m Mike Anderson. I am the Director General in Defra, under which sustainability comes. I also run the Green Economy programme, and in fact all our corporate services and spending review. But the sustainability agenda comes under me in policy terms in Defra. Mr Jordan: I’m William Jordan. I’m the Chief Sustainability Officer for Whitehall. I am responsible for delivering the policies that Mike Anderson and his colleagues in DECC come forward with for government on sustainable development in Whitehall. Mr Rowbury: Hello, I’m Sam Rowbury. I’m the Acting Director of the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement, which is a team in the Efficiency and Reform Group in the Cabinet Office that supports William in his role as Chief Sustainability Officer. Q52 Chair: As you know, we are looking at the ramifications of the decision about the Sustainable Development Commission. We want to kick off by asking you if you could give us some idea about government performance to date on sustainable development and where it needs to be urgently improved. We would like to have a sense of where you feel that direction of travel should be. Mr Anderson: Perhaps we should divide it up, as I’m the policy person, starting with me on policy across the piece, which is a bit wider I guess than the operations and the procurement under William. Sustainable development has come a very long way in the last 10 years or so, and the SDC made a major contribution to that during the period when they were arguably in charge of the agenda, at least in terms of an arm’s length body. We would say that the general principles of sustainable development are well understood in government departments—that was something that has happened in the last 10 years and I don’t think was there beforehand—and that policies presented by policy officials, for Ministers to decide on, all have that strong evidence base of the sustainable development agenda sitting within it.

That’s partly why this Government has decided that the Sustainable Development Commission is no longer necessarily the right way forward to drive the agenda. Where do we need to focus it next? We can talk more if you want examples of what has happened before. Where I think we need to focus it next is across the three planks of sustainable development. The main focus of the Coalition Government’s agenda is the green economy and driving that very hard. There are a number of remits within the structural reform plans of different departments, all of which correlate into the green economy; some of it low carbon, some of it beyond that. For example the Green Economy Roadmap, which is a joint piece of work with Defra, DECC, BIS, also with the Cabinet Office, HMT and DfT involved in it. On the environmental side, the big challenge for us— again we can talk about it in detail if you’d like—is the natural value programme: how we value, in economic terms, the natural environment. That would be very much part of Defra’s natural environment White Paper, which we will be presenting soon across government, and the resource efficiency agenda connected to that; the fact that water and various minerals are running out ultimately, and how we deal with that resource efficiency agenda. Finally, on the social side, the inequalities agenda is very much part of this Government’s agenda, as you can see reflected in things like the public health White Paper. I think that’s where the focus will be but you can see, in everything I’m saying, it’s about it being embedded in the activity of those departments, rather than an add-on, with or without the Sustainable Development Commission helping us. So I think that’s the approach. Q53 Chair: Can I just pick you up on what you said just there about the resource efficiency measures? That’s obviously going to be a key part of the European Commission programme as well. But can I just ask you, in relation to the Green Economy Roadmap, how you see all of this being embedded? Who is going to do it? How are you going to be crosscutting in the way that you take that forward? Mr Anderson: That is precisely the question that we need to address now. There are certain specific activities, such as the Green Deal—which I think the

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3 November 2010 Michael Anderson, William Jordan and Sam Rowbury

Secretary of State for DECC has announced—that are clear exemplars of a sustainable development approach to a particular agenda; the social, environmental and economic aspects to the Green Deal. So that’s already happening. The Green Economy Roadmap, which is again very much part of this Government’s agenda, will need to identify specific activities that will drive that agenda, rather than theories and strategies and that type of approach to it. They’re very much more interested in concrete actions that we will take. That work has only just started now, about exactly what we’re talking about. The fact that you have DECC, BIS and Defra driving it demonstrates you have a troika of departments who are very much behind it, and the Secretaries of State. We will need Treasury support for this. That’s a key part of whatever we do when we buy it in, because without Treasury support we are probably wasting our time. Q54 Chair: Could you just share with us why you think it has not been sufficiently embedded up until now? Mr Anderson: That’s a very good question. I think partly it is this notion of “add on”. One of the problems we’ve probably had with the sustainable development agenda is, partly, that we haven’t explained it very well; it is still a bit of a term of art, a bit of jargon, if you go down to the street. I don’t know about your constituents, but when I talk about “sustainable development” it doesn’t immediately resonate with a lot of people out there. We haven’t explained it that well. Secondly, having the idea that it’s the Sustainable Development Commission over here or a Sustainable Development Unit over here—part of which are my guys behind me here from Defra—isn’t always the best way to approach it. It looks as though, “All right, it’s just their responsibility” rather than everybody’s responsibility, as a policy official in the advice they give to Ministers, that any bit of evidence has to have a short-term effect, a medium-term effect, a long-term effect, which is after all the sustainable development agenda. So it’s fundamentally flipping this around and changing it from being the job of an arm’s length body, or a particular advocate into: it had better be everything you do in government, otherwise you’re not going to make the right policy choices. That’s the space we have to get to. Q55 Zac Goldsmith: Practically speaking, what level would that leadership have to come from? Mr Anderson: The simple answer is that it has to go through all levels of government. You have to have ministerial, prime ministerial, deputy prime ministerial leadership. The Ministers that I’m aware of who are deeply engaged on this and interested in it are: the Prime Minister himself, not least in relation to things like wellbeing indicators; the Deputy Prime Minister in relation to his chairmanship of the Home Affairs Committee; Mr Letwin, sitting in the Cabinet Office, who is responsible for government policy, who is a very useful ally—if all government policy partly goes through him, he is looking at it through a sustainable development lens—and then the

Secretaries of States in the departments we’ve talked about. However, if the officials aren’t already producing our policy advice thinking through that prism, we’re making a mistake. You may have read the summary of the Government Economic Service Survey on the economics of sustainable development, for example, so when we make policy, when we do impact assessments, when we’re being checked by the NAO for our activities, it has to be part of what we’re doing. In a sense, you could say it should be the natural bailiwick for a civil servant because, in giving our advice, we should always be looking for the long term as well as the short term. There may be tradeoffs but that’s part of our job. Q56 Caroline Lucas: I take the point that if we’re talking about people in the street, yes, they might not be able to get their heads around what sustainable development means; it sounds technical; it sound jargon. But what we’re talking about are government ministries. We’re talking about a concept that has been around almost 30 years, since Rio. We’ve had the SDC for 10 years trying to embed it. I’m rather alarmed that it all sounds like, “Well, it depends whether or not we have the right Minister in the right place to take it up”. Is it the case, would you say, that there just simply hasn’t been sufficient high-level political capital put behind this idea to date? Is that the problem? Because it seems to me that we’re talking about 30 years since this idea has been around. How many more years do we have to wait for it to be properly embedded in government? Mr Anderson: No, I don’t think I said it depended on the Minister. I think I said I don’t necessarily think it was the right approach that we took, in terms of getting sustainable development embedded into the various agendas. Because there have been different Ministers over time that are interested in the agenda, and different politicians interested in the agenda. I think the point on this is: was the Sustainable Development Commission the right way to do it? At the time it might have been because there was a lack of advocacy of the agenda, perhaps, at that time, because of the need to begin to impart a bit of expert advice into departments because of some of the watchdog roles that the SDC played, both on operations and on policies. But I think we’re saying that, certainly under this Coalition Government, the agenda has moved on and they want to do it differently, and I think that’s where we are. Q57 Zac Goldsmith: I want to rephrase my earlier question. My question was: at what level? Your answer, logically, is that it should be at every level. But, given that we have seen the closure of what was an arm’s length advisory body, which in my view— and probably not just my view—was largely ignored, if you had to recreate that function in an area within government, where would it naturally fit? Is it the Cabinet Office? Mr Anderson: I see, yes. It’s not about Defra, so I’m certainly not worried about that. First of all, I have to say we’re not recreating the function because that is not the point of what is being said. But if you’re

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Ev 16 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

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talking about where you drive the agenda from, William may want to talk in a second about the Cabinet Office driving the operational agenda rather than the policy agenda. I am certainly not precious about where you do it from. The Treasury would be the perfect place to drive a sustainable development agenda from, if you wanted to do it, Defra has a lot of the expertise, but it needs to be in every government department. So I think that is an open question and that’s what my boss, the Secretary of State, is talking to Oliver Letwin and the Deputy Prime Minister about, what is the best way to drive that agenda, using her personal leadership and using everybody else’s as well. Q58 Simon Kirby: I’m slightly confused now, sir. Are you saying that the Cabinet Office is the best place to drive the sustainability agenda and, if not, is there any evidence that Defra is capable of influencing the other Ministers and departments? Mr Anderson: They are two separate questions but I’m happy to—I’m also separating out because I’m only talking policy here and William does the operation. Chair: I think Mr Kirby would like an answer to his question on policy. Mr Anderson: On policy, Defra has certainly continued to influence across the piece. The government system—as you know—depends on every government department producing a policy. Let’s take planning. Let’s make it a more concrete rather than a nebulous theory. The planning proposals put forward by Communities and Local Government have a presumption of sustainable development built into them now, and the guys sitting behind me, and our department, have been deeply involved in how that is going to play out. All government departments chip in on that approach—on the Cabinet Committee rightround approach—and influence the agenda in that way. Is Defra strong enough to influence, in every single government department, every single bit of sustainable development? Well, sustainable development covers the whole of government policy, so I think we have to pick and choose, from Defra’s perspective, where we think we can have the most impact, in which areas. Q59 Peter Aldous: When you have peaks and troughs in an economy, do you feel that when things go into recession, perhaps the concept takes more of a backseat than it does in better times? Mr Anderson: That is a good question, both on operations and on policy. On operations, if you are reducing your carbon by 10% in a particular calendar year, yes, I’d guess you’d probably need to spend a bit of money on it. It is how quickly the return comes back in and whether you have that. In Defra’s case it’s about £700,000. Do we have that this year in order to make the savings in the following year? The sustainable development answer is, “Yes, you’d be better to spend it this year”, which we are doing. But in all cases it’s going to be a trade off, I think, isn’t it? Q60 Neil Carmichael: You talked before about picking and choosing which areas to focus on with

regard to sustainable development. What sort of mechanism is there for you to find out what you should be picking and choosing from, and is it from the officials or do Ministers take a lead? Mr Anderson: It’s the whole of the Government agenda. I think, in the coalition programme, the word “sustainability” is mentioned about eight or nine times. In each of Defra’s structural reform plan priorities it’s absolutely embedded in it, and we take our lead from that. Our lead is being taken from the structural reform priorities, for all government departments, about what this Government wants to focus on in the next period, in the whole period of Parliament. The local growth paper, for example, from BIS, is a good example, to make it more concrete. That is a clear priority for this Government. It clearly needs us to have the notion of sustainable development, the principles of sustainable development, embedded into it. So we need to talk to BIS, Oliver Letwin will talk to BIS. It also needs to come to the respective cabinet committee, in that case the Economic Affairs Cabinet Committee. Q61 Neil Carmichael: Health policy, for example, is not your natural area for sustainable development, but I can think of a few areas where sustainable development is highly relevant: in the building of new hospitals, the planning of facilities, or whatever, and the impact of, let’s say, the White Paper, in terms of a consortium for GPs. That’s all going to have an impact, isn’t it, on the delivery of a service and sustainable development? At that level it reeks all over, doesn’t it? The second related question is that if you take, for example, a small town in Germany, Freiberg, they have— Mr Anderson: Yes. Neil Carmichael: You know about that? Mr Anderson: Yes. Neil Carmichael: Yes. They have gone down the track of linking health with sustainability, and so forth. So how does Defra interface with health on that particular area? Mr Anderson: We have a very close relationship with health, as it happens. I have a personal relationship as well with the director generals responsible for driving that public health agenda. In particular, we have a very close connection between our social researchers on behaviour change and the relationship between health inequalities, driving public health and driving sustainable development, and also on the mental health agenda as well. There’s a lot of discussion between us about the best use of green space for people, for mental health reasons. So I would argue the Department of Health is one of the better exemplars about how you do that. The public health White Paper is not perfect, and I think a Committee like this might want to look at it and question some of the bits within it, as it should do, but it is at least a department that clearly understands that principle between the short term and the long term—a very good example of a department. I don’t think Defra—to answer part of the previous question as well—needs to be deeply engaged if health are already driving that properly. We just need to be light touch: “Are you guys in the right space on this?”

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Q62 Martin Caton: When the Secretary of State made the announcement about no longer funding the SDC, she quite rightly reminded everybody that it was not just owned by the UK Government, but it was jointly owned by the devolved administrations. I know you’re in discussions about the way forward but, before the decision in principle was made, were there any discussions with the devolved administrations then? Mr Anderson: There was. If you recall, there was a whole government Cabinet Office-led arm’s length body review about the activities taking place, and there were discussions individually with departments about what was happening. Our view was we were going to withdraw funding, whatever. The question then becomes: how does that impact on the devolved administrations and the future of the SDC? Because our decision could not be to close the SDC without the agreement of the three other governments, so it is at that point, once we’ve made our decision to withdraw funding, that we start talking to the devolved administrations and that conversation is still going on now. Q63 Martin Caton: Some of my colleagues and I will come back to the watchdog role of the SDC before. But I can’t see how the gap is going to be filled, in that the SDC was overseeing what was happening in England, what was happening in Wales, what was happening in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It had a compare and contrast role, which—it seems to me—is a hole quite difficult to fill. Was that taken into consideration when the decision was made? Mr Anderson: Yes, it was taken into consideration in the sense of the role of the SDC in capacity building across the piece and, therefore, getting best practice and seeing that in different places. But I think the answer to that is in each of the four administrations, countries, devolved administrations, a slightly different approach to sustainable development has grown up. Therefore, I am not certain whether you can compare exactly what’s happening in one with exactly what’s happening in another and say, necessarily, what should best be applied to one or the other countries. The SDC does have that cross-cutting view, but I’m not certain how much we lose from it. Q64 Martin Caton: I’m not suggesting it’s as simple as, “Look, there’s a perfect example, we’re all going follow that,” but you often can learn from the approach in different parts. But I’ll move on to another question, if I may. Does the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement, CESP, have the capacity to report on the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate, SOGE, targets without help from the SDC? Mr Anderson: I’m lost in the world of acronyms as well, but fortunately it’s William’s area. Mr Jordan: Perhaps I could answer that question. Perhaps I could take the opportunity, Chair, to respond to your initial question, since Mike has now given his initial statement on policy. My post was originally created about two and a half years ago, because the Government of the day was not doing well against its targets for Sustainable

Operations on the Government Estate and also its sustainable procurement action plan. That was the finding of the Sustainable Development Commission, acting in its watchdog role of the day. I’m pleased to say the SDC are one of the bodies that we’ve worked very closely with over the past two and a half years, as we’ve worked to put that situation right. May I just go back to your original question and answer both questions at the same time? In terms of what we did then and what still remains to be done and also what we can and cannot do to replace the SDC, as we look at a world without the SDC, the first thing that we needed to do was to establish that there was a single source of authority on sustainable operations and sustainable procurement; that there wasn’t one source of authority that dealt with value for money and another that dealt with sustainability. That was helped initially by the fact that I was then working in the Treasury Group. It’s helped now because I’m now working in the Efficiency and Reform Group of the Cabinet Office. So no one thinks when I suggest that something be done, for reasons of sustainability, that there might conceivably be any conflict between my right hand and my left where my left hand might say, “You should do this for reasons of value for money”. So establishing a single source of authority was one thing that the creation of my post and the Centre of Expertise—which Sam heads up to support me— achieved. The second thing was sending a very clear message to the world that this agenda was a priority of government. That message has been very much the message of the new administration. One of the very earliest announcements of the new Prime Minister was that this would be the greenest government ever and, as an indication of that, that we would reduce carbon emissions from the Government estate by 10% within 12 months. So establishing priority I think has been done; working with director-general champions of estates across Whitehall, director-general champions of sustainability, commercial directors, estate managers, practitioners, to make sure that we have a guiding coalition to drive action on these agendas. I think that you can always do more on it but it is much more in place than it was two and a half years ago. Finally, all this has enabled us to put in place a serious planning and performance management regime where, when we are now set a target to achieve 10% reductions in 12 months, departments have planned how they will achieve this. We report monthly; we will publish monthly performance against that target. So I think all those things are in place and they give me considerable confidence that, yes, we can continue to both support progress against the Government’s SOGE targets, which remain in force, and the new 10% target, and that we can also challenge departments around the robustness of their data, before we report it. Q65 Dr Whitehead: For the sake of clarification, could I try to understand the process by which the devolved administrations and the Scottish Government were consulted about the abolition of the SDC? Was it the case that, in the first instance, the Government stated, “We are thinking of abolishing the

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SDC, what do you think about it?” or was it a case of, “We are abolishing the SDC, what are you going to do about it?” Mr Anderson: No, our decision was to withdraw funding from the SDC, as I said. Because of the way the articles are set up with the SDC, it could not be a UK Government decision simply to abolish it. Our decision was against the parameters of how the role of the SDC was seen and the money that we were putting into it. Our department determined that that was not the best use of the spend of money for this particular body. At that point you begin the consultation with the devolved administrations about whether that leads to wind up of the SDC, because they still have the right to put money in; they still have the right to support the SDC if they want to do so. Q66 Dr Whitehead: So it was therefore the latter, “We are going to abolish the SCD”? Mr Anderson: No, no. It was, “We are going to withdraw our funding”. Q67 Dr Whitehead: Would you not accept that amounts to the same thing then? Mr Anderson: There are some conversations going on about whether you could maintain it on a de minimis budget. I think we put in about £2.5 million; “we” being our department. I think its overall cost is something over £4 million. So the question is: if the other administrations wanted to they could maintain a body for their benefit. Q68 Martin Caton: Getting back to CESP and SOGE, have Cabinet Office Ministers committed to maintaining the capacity for Whitehall-wide SOGE reporting? Mr Jordan: Cabinet Office Ministers and officials, like Ministers and officials elsewhere in Whitehall, are currently digesting their spending of new settlements. But I see no reason to suppose that people will do anything other than maintain our reporting against SOGE targets and the targets of the Prime Minister. Q69 Martin Caton: To clarify, is it the intention that CESP just takes over the SDC’s assessment of the SOGE performance in the future? Mr Jordan: What we will be able to do in the future is what in fact we have been doing in the past year. Last year we took over from the SDC the administration of the publication of performance data against the targets and the SDC has an established code for assessment of departmental performance, which we can also apply. So I think we can continue to do those two things. The SOGE targets do, of course, just run for one further year. Q70 Sheryll Murray: What plans do you have to improve SOGE targets? Mr Anderson: I suppose that’s back to me in terms of policy, although William would have to execute it. That is now currently with Ministers. I hope our Secretary of State can say a bit more next week, because we do have an action plan idea. You may have seen in our structural reform plan that we are going to do an action plan in relation to developing

this further, and how we set about it. There are ideas on that. We are going to do it, provided it goes through government. Q71 Chair: If I may just come in on that, before Ms Murray carries on. You mentioned that the action plan was coming out next week. Could you just confirm that that will be out before the Secretary of State comes before the Committee. Mr Anderson: I hope so, Chair. The processes of Whitehall are the processes of Whitehall. We are trying to do that. We have a commitment to put it out in October; you will have spotted it’s November, but we are trying to get that out, not least so you could have a bit of a conversation about it next week. Q72 Sheryll Murray: Could I just go on a little bit further: have you identified any particular inefficiencies or overlaps with other reporting processes that could be phased out? Mr Anderson: That is a very good point. It’s not a criticism of the SDC, of what we’ve done before. I don’t know how much material you’ve had the chance to flick through, but when you look at things like the Becoming the “Greenest Government Ever” document—it is besmirched with thousands of charts, as well as everything else—this has become a bit of an industry, rather than focussing on the things that matter. What we’re trying to do now is align it to departmental annual reports, to the accounting for sustainability approach that the Treasury want to take in. So we’re only doing it once and we’re doing it right. You can imagine the complaints from other government departments, when people like ourselves over- bureaucratise and over-complicate what needs to be a broadly simple system of what matters at any given stage. The trouble is everyone says everything matters at any given moment, but we do have to identify what it is that counts and what can we do now, which is why the Prime Minister steer that 10% carbon is what we’re going to do in a year—next year—was a good steer because you can focus down on that. Q73 Sheryll Murray: You have clearly anticipated my next question, because you have answered it already. But should the SOGE targets be extended to arm’s length bodies, do you think? Mr Anderson: We are, in Central Government, the exemplar in relation to this. If you look at business, for example, business is just doing this across the piece. I attended a nine-day conference on sustainability, sponsored by IBM and the Prince of Wales and Business in the Community. This is so much a part of what everybody does, and it’s so much a part of what many local authorities and many arm’s length bodies do, but it’s not everywhere and, therefore, we do need to continue to develop that. I know William would like to comment. Mr Jordan: Yes, under the SOGE framework, when it was first set up, reporting by arm’s length bodies was voluntary. A small number had done so. Reporting by the executive agencies of government was mandatory. That didn’t seem to mean 100% of them did it, when I took up my post. We’ve now have

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very close to 100% on executive agencies and we will continue to encourage arm’s length bodies to report. I believe that, prior to the general election, the previous administration announced that it would extend reporting on an 80:20 basis to arm’s length bodies. That is to say that it had intended, had it remained in office, to extend reporting to make it mandatory for arm’s length bodies, subject to de minimis threshold of 1,000 square metres or more of floor space, provided that you also had 250 full-time equivalent employees. I think there is a lot to be said, if you want to extend to arm’s length bodies to go for some de minimis threshold of that kind; it makes the numbers much more practicable to report on. I see the case for reporting and I encourage from a voluntary basis at the moment. Mr Anderson: Can I just add something else on that in relation to the expansion of the agenda, not just the bodies, because carbon footprinting is something we are beginning to look at much more, because the supply chain matters in relation to government departments. But it is trying to get the right evidence base on that, which is the next stage. That is out next stage, and I suspect you’ll be seeing things in the next few weeks about carbon footprinting that we are trying to do in Defra itself very much, in the lead of that, because that sits in our teams. So there are plans to expand all these things, as we get the evidence base and as people can shoulder the burden of what that means for them. Q74 Sheryll Murray: Can I just move on to sanctions? If a department fails to meet a SOGE target; do any exist? If it fails to meet the sustainable development indicators, do any sanctions exist at the moment? Mr Anderson: William is aching to answer that, I can see. Mr Jordan: I think this depends partly on what you have in mind by “sanctions”. The clear thrust of the new administration is towards transparency of reporting. I’ve already mentioned that we are now reporting monthly data performance outcomes against the 10% carbon target. I see this very much as the way of the future. We’ve also introduced, under the new administration, the commitment to real time displays of energy usage in 18 headquarters buildings in Whitehall. That means that departments are being held to account in a completely different way than has hitherto been possible. I was sharing a platform with a director-general from DECC, who was saying his department had experience of members of the public phoning them up immediately following the Monday Bank Holiday saying, “Why did you fire up your gas heating system on the Bank Holiday Monday? Surely there was no one in the office”, which is a very good question and the sort of thing that previously would have not been accessible to the wider public, and the sort of thing that means you are strongly motivated to succeed. So the new model, which we’ve been working on, with real time displays, and with the monthly reporting on the 10%, will lead to a totally different regime and a totally different incentive structure. What we have done hitherto is to publish results for

the SOGE targets after year end. Originally these were published in March, following a financial year that had ended 12 months previously. We succeeded in bringing that forward to December. That is not a satisfactory reporting regime. So I think that is the kind of holding to account that departments will now encounter. Q75 Sheryll Murray: Finally, have any real penalties been considered—for instance, using the threat of fining departments or holding back some of their budget for poor performance? Mr Jordan: I’m not aware that we have considered holding back the departmental budget for poor performance. Chair: If you weren’t aware, who would be aware? Mr Anderson: No we haven’t done. The short answer is that there are no financial penalties. There has been a discussion around carbon budgeting in relation to that, but that’s moved on a bit, because it’s a very, very complex system to try and work out—we’re not comparing like with like a lot of the time. You have to be careful, because if you’re comparing the Ministry of Justice estates, say, prisons—if you look at Defra sometimes we’re in mid-table on some of these performance things, which is a bit depressing for a department like ours. Our excuse, reason, rationale for that is we run a lot of laboratories, and we haven’t yet found the answer to being as energy efficient in laboratories as we need to be. So the question is: would you penalise us for that? Would you give a financial penalty for that? Or would you say, “Actually, guys, yes, we understand that and the best practice is whatever it is and you guys should be doing that”. I would be very surprised to see the Government go down the penalty route, frankly. Sheryll Murray: So would I, but I just needed to ask the question. Mr Jordan: You were asking me, if I wasn’t aware of this, who might be aware of this? As I was saying earlier, I believe I work for two of my colleagues, one of whom, in Defra, is here today, the other of whom, in DECC, is not here today. I’m not necessarily privy to what might go on in the deepest councils of other government departments. Q76 Caroline Lucas: Thanks. From the previous evidence we have heard, it is clear that the job of improving sustainability in the different government departments is a very labour intensive role; it requires a lot of close collaboration on an almost daily basis. How many staff are available to assess the sustainable development units in Defra that might be embedded in other departments to try to do that kind of work, and is it something you’ve considered? Mr Jordan: Shall we start by saying what the staffing allocation is in the CESP? Mr Rowbury: So currently we have a team of 14, which is essentially made up of four people who deal with the performance management, and they have an account management role with each department and work very closely with departments to assess their data, validate it, quality assure it and challenge that. We then have two further teams who lead, one on the sustainable operations side and one on the supply

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chain sustainable procurement side. Their role is more about delivering specific projects, working with departments to try and identify common barriers that we can bring together at the centre and get to grips with and overcome. So the function of the team is essentially twofold in that you have this kind of challenge piece, which is about looking at department’s plans and their data and their kind of performance management function, scrutinising that and working with them to improve the quality of those plans. Then the second function is around support, which is about looking at what is going on in one department and then trying to share that with other departments. So do it once but then spread that information out across Whitehall. So if someone is leading in a particular area we can learn how that information can be disseminated more widely. We have a network of practitioners, who are the sustainability leads in each department, who we bring together to share information and knowledge, learning what works and what doesn’t work. We would also work with expert bodies outside government, such as the Carbon Trust, to bring in their advice, where we can provide guidance or recommendations to departments on the kind of priority actions they should be taking and implementing within their estate and their operations. Q77 Caroline Lucas: The staff in the Sustainable Development Unit? Mr Anderson: In Defra there are about 30 people in the Sustainable Development Unit, but I’d add to that the 60 economists and the 180 scientists. It depends on what we’re trying to achieve. I think you talked about embedding people, which I think the SDC did in the Department of Health and the Department for Education. I don’t think that’s the policy that we would take, for the reasons that I said at the beginning, that it is not the approach of the current Government to try and embed people who are just the sustainable development people, if you see what I mean. Q78 Caroline Lucas: What specialist knowledge is available to CESP and Defra and how does that compare to the specialist advice that was provided to the SDC? You mentioned the Carbon Trust but who else can you call on? Mr Rowbury: We will go to whichever expert body we need to go to get the relevant advice. Something we’ve done quite recently is to produce some information in support of the 10% commitment, around priority actions that a department could work with its facilities management provider to deliver. So this is looking at the temperature controls within the building and how you can adjust those to reduce the energy use. It’s about looking at how you manage the operating window of the building, so that the heating comes on at 9 o’clock in the morning, rather than, say, 8 o’clock in the morning when the first people arrive, and things like using your security staff who might be walking about the building to check for monitors that have been left on by staff. Q79 Caroline Lucas: That’s not specialist advice. What I’m thinking about is: the SDC had top of their

game specialist commissioners who they could call on at almost any moment for real specialist advice, and what I want to be convinced of is that there’s a plan here somewhere to have a list of people who are already being talked to about providing some kind of similar advice, not a security guard who is going around looking to see whether or not a monitor has been left on. Mr Rowbury: In terms of our engagement with SDC, I can’t remember a particular example when they would have provided us with that sort of practical advice. It would have been when the commissioners— Q80 Caroline Lucas: No, sorry, let me be clear. They would have provided that to another government department. In their absence, we’re trying to cobble together what is going to provide that kind of support, and what’s been suggested is that the Sustainable Development Unit in Defra and CESP can somehow provide that degree of specialist support. If you don’t have it in your own team—or maybe you do—but if you don’t, then who else are you going to be able to pull in to be able to give kind of advice, and what plans are there to talk to them in the same way that the Sustainable Development Commission had, as I say, a number of commissioners and others who they could call on at any minute? Mr Jordan: I think it’s probably worth saying we’ve worked with a range of specialist bodies over the years, including the Energy Savings Trust and Waterwise, on different aspects of the targets. We do not feel that there has been a lack of technical expertise available to us, or to government departments, as they look to develop their sustainable operations and sustainable procurement. What there has been is a lack of prioritisation and leadership and converting that advice into practical action. That’s how the world looks from our perspective. Mr Anderson: I think that’s right. There is an enormous wealth of people to call on on the sustainable development agenda. I’m having lunch next week with the sustainable development partner of PwC who runs sustainability in PwC. We will be looking at the stakeholder base as part of the wind down of SDC. They do have a good stakeholder base as well, and we’re talking to them about getting access to that. When Will Day and I interviewed for the potential of four commissioners in March, that never took place, I think something like 300 people applied from outside, who were offering sustainable development practitioner advice to be a commissioner. Q81 Chair: Sorry, I don’t quite see how this is answering the question, in terms of how those people out there are in touch with you and connected to you. Mr Anderson: That’s what I’m saying in relation to the database. One thing the SDC are talking to us about is who they called on, as well, in order to get that expert advice. Because at the minute, what happened before was that people might go to the SDC and say, “Can you get us advice?” Well they didn’t have all the capacity for all the advice across all the areas, so they would then find someone as well. What we’ll have to do is cut that middle person out and get straight to where you get the proper advice, whatever

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the issue is. All departments do that all the time, whether it’s on economics, whether it’s on science, whether it’s on any of the areas that would be of interest. I think you’re right about how co-ordinated that would be and are we in the right space. I think that it is important for us to try and ensure that happens, and that is a very serious conversation going on with the SDC at the minute. Q82 Sheryll Murray: Are you aware of any other bodies that various government departments already consult that would fill the role of the Sustainable Development Commission with regard to expert advice? Are you already aware that this is perhaps being duplicated with some departments? Mr Anderson: The guys have already mentioned the Energy Saving Trust there in relation to the operations that are already around and the Carbon Trusts are also providing a lot of that. So there is a lot of duplication out there. We also have to look, in government, in the times that we’re now in, as to what research councils are duplicating activity across the piece. So one of the reasons, one of the drives, behind the whole arm’s length body review was indeed to try and avoid duplication across various areas. So, that has been a problem of government because we have spent rather too much money duplicating. Q83 Dr Whitehead: When CESP took over responsibility from the SDC for collecting and reviewing department’s performance data, did it get any extra staff to do that? Mr Jordan: CESP did not exist prior to its creation in 2008, so yes it got staff to undertake its functions. Those were provided partly through a transfer from Defra and partly through a transfer of resource from other government departments. Q84 Dr Whitehead: It was set up in 2008 and took over responsibility from SDC for performance data in 2009? Mr Jordan: Yes. Q85 Dr Whitehead: At that time it had 14 staff? Mr Jordan: Yes. Dr Whitehead: And it has now? Mr Jordan: Yes. Dr Whitehead: Sorry it had 14 staff in 2008 and has 14 staff now, is that right? Mr Jordan: I’d be entirely happy to go back to the record and confirm this, but, broadly speaking, yes, its funding has remained constant over this period. If the question is intended to probe how we managed to do this without additional staff, I think the answer is that we spent quite a lot of our first year working over the data very closely with the SDC to check its robustness, because our suspicion was that much of it was not terribly robust. So we always had a performance management team from the beginning. As it became clear that we were getting much better quality data, that the performance regime could be simplified, the SDC decided it would prefer to spend its time working on other issues and leave us to continue the work we’d started on the data in cutting a degree of duplication.

Q86 Zac Goldsmith: A very quick question, relating specifically to Defra. It is a bit of a crude question, but I am interested in knowing more about the relationship between a department like Defra and the SDC. How often did you seek their advice? How often did they give you unsolicited advice? How often did you take their advice? It is the SDC’s influence over the behaviour of departments that I’d be interested in hearing a little about. Mr Anderson: Yes. It was a mixed model frankly. We gave them the money to fund them and the team behind me here were in constant daily/hourly contact with them. Sometimes we gave them a remit saying, “Would you like to look at that?” Sometimes they did bits of work on their own decision, with their own board and commissioners deciding to do that, so it was a mixed relationship. With the SDC, because of the four planks of it—whether or not you’d consider that a good remit—the advocacy, the capacitybuilding, the policy advice and the watchdog, there was inevitably a mixed model, in relation to how you ran that from that perspective. Other departments could also call on them for bits of advice when they wanted to. I assume that they then decided whether they had the resource or capability and sometimes charged those departments, I think, if there was a very specific piece of work that they might need doing. But the general remit was established in the beginning. Q87 Caroline Lucas: I have a question about the transition from the end of the SDC and passing over the experience and knowledge to Defra and CESP. What processes are in place to make sure that there is a seamless transfer of knowledge and experience? Mr Anderson: Daily, hourly, minutely I think in this case. It’s fascinating to see that when you decide to withdraw funding from something there is a massive upsurge of interest in that particular thing. The complexity of dealing with that means we are in constant and total contact all the time, about which bits work where and how that goes. We can go into the detail of which elements of it you like, but it is a total conversation non-stop with the teams of how we do it. I would like to pay respect, in front of the Committee, to the individual members of staff because members of staff are having to leave, and— whatever one decides about the merits of the decision—I would like to put on the record our high respect for the value of the individuals involved. We have to deal with people who may be losing jobs at the end of March, so there is an awful lot of activity going on, on that front; then there’s activity going on, on the substance of what are the things that we will be wanting to carry on; what are the things that our Secretary of State—who is coming next week—thinks could be handed over direct to Defra, and what are the things we are just dropping. So there is a very complex conversation about which bits should go where and which bits are dropped. Q88 Caroline Lucas: I look forward to seeing it. Defra has had the second largest proportional cut arguably, with 29%, in the CSR. How is that going to affect the capacity of CESP and Defra to be able to move forward on this agenda?

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Mr Anderson: I think we’re talking about a different way of doing things. Everyone has a 33% cut in admin broadly across government, which is broadly people, so it depends which way you look at it. Q89 Caroline Lucas: It is pretty clear that Defra has had a disproportionately high percentage of cuts? Mr Anderson: I don’t think we would think that it is disproportionately high. We think it’s in about broadly the right space of what you’d expect it to be, given the parameters of the way the Spending Review was set out, which is about 29%. 30% is the figure, if you take the total. Most government departments— Chair: Sorry, we don’t want to know about the reference to other government departments, we just want to know how it will affect your capacity to do— Mr Anderson: That’s fine. What I’m saying is we will be reducing across the piece in Defra in various areas. We will need to see how many people we need to run the future agenda, as articulated, and then cut our cloth according to that. That’s exactly what we’ll be doing.

Mr Jordan: I believe that occasions like today are a fine opportunity to hold this group of officials to account. Q93 Sheryll Murray: Yes. I just want to go back a question, if I can, because when you were asked about posts being lost, I fear that when our report is published we’ll start to have a lot of scare stories throughout Defra employees. Could I just ask you: obviously, any cuts in personnel will take account of natural wastage, retirement, and of course it crosses all of Defra’s areas, from the small sea fisheries office in Plymouth, right through to the headquarters up here? I just was a little bit concerned that we’d made a statement on numbers that perhaps could have been misconstrued. Mr Anderson: Thank you for your message. Thank you.

Q91 Caroline Lucas: In terms of the watchdog function of the SDC, there was a statement from the Minister, Jim Paice, basically saying, “There are already many organisations and commentators who will continue to hold the Government to account and thus that a dedicated watchdog body is unnecessary”. Are you convinced that there is no need for any other body to be carrying out that watchdog function? How is it going to be done? Mr Jordan: This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the transparency agenda. I do think that external bodies will have the data in future, with which to hold government to account. We’re already experiencing that. This Committee will hold government to account. The National Audit Office will conduct studies that will hold government to account.

Q94 Neil Carmichael: According to your memorandum on this subject, you are going to replace sustainable development action plans with business plans in departments. Is that right, yes? My question is: are you going to review those and are you going to have a part in drawing them up for the other departments, and how is that going to work in terms of your relationship with those departments? I can see some potential areas of dispute there. Mr Anderson: I think the way to define it is that the structural reform plans have already been drawn up by the secretaries of state in the different departments in consultation. So that’s the business plan of where departments are going. We have not been engaged on setting what the business plan is for every government department. That’s their secretary of state negotiating with the centre and the Prime Minister about how that happens. I think the important thing is then when those plans are being put into action, in the normal processes of policy and advice going to Ministers, are the principles of sustainable development being very much driven during that. That’s when I think we go back to impact assessments, economists looking at the way the policy is being developed, the write-round across government for giving us all an opportunity to check what other government partners are doing, and also the Home Affairs Committee process where these things are brought to discuss. Our idea would be, for example, that a carbon plan, which is likely to be brought forward by DECC, is scrutinised—if that’s the right word—looked at in the Home Affairs Committee to ensure also that the principles of sustainable development are very much part of it. I think the Secretary of State for DECC is very keen for that to happen. That’s the sort of process that I think will happen.

Q92 Caroline Lucas: Basically, the Committee has no resources to hold government to account. That’s the sort of thing that’s just so frustrating, because the Minister herself has said, “Yes, of course, wonderful, the EAC can have a role in holding government to account”. Yet, where are the staff? When we have the SDC with 14 more staff, we don’t have the capacity to do that. I’d love us to. So, is that a realistic statement, is my question?

Q95 Neil Carmichael: Just how tough are you going to be able to be with other departments? What mechanisms are you going to have to ensure their business plans, their behaviour and their policies are along the lines of and consistent with sustainable development? Mr Anderson: Departments talk to each other all the time. There tends to be a bit of a myth that departments don’t talk to each other all the time about

Q90 Caroline Lucas: How many posts do you think you’ll lose as a result of that kind of level of cuts? Mr Anderson: In the Sustainable Development Unit or across the whole of Defra? Caroline Lucas: No, in the SDU. Mr Anderson: In the SDU I wouldn’t like to say, because that’s what we have to decide depending on what the future remit will be, which is coming out— Caroline Lucas: Okay, well tell me Defra as a whole then. Mr Anderson: Defra as a whole is a 30,000 network, so you’d lose about 5,000 to 8,000 people.

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what’s going on. But what they don’t do is to try and sanction other departments. Neil Carmichael: That’s what I was getting at, though. Mr Anderson: But it is a Cabinet process of bringing that together so we get a better result. There will be no sanctions for it. It will be a discussion about what is the best way to do it, as far as I can see. However, when it gets to a political level and when it gets to the cabinet committees then those conversations can be fairly brutal, about whether a secretary of state or whether a particular department has followed the policies in mind, whatever the subject is, from health through education through— Q96 Neil Carmichael: So the enforcement is going to be between Ministers rather than officials? Mr Anderson: I’m not sure I’d use the word “enforcement”. The process is initially in the department, through departments talking to each other through officials and through Ministers. So it’s all of it. There will also be the NAO. You talked about— and you are an audit committee—when our policies are being looked at. The NAO are a deeply brutal and effective organisation for ensuring that policies are being designed in the right way and are being carried out in the right way. An enormous scrutiny process goes on already with the NAO, who I think you have access to as well, in terms of their capacity, and who wrote quite a good paper on sustainable development for you in July, I thought. Q97 Neil Carmichael: If Defra is in charge of pursuing sustainable development, what role do you play in other departments’ plan making, delivery and policy making, and so forth? Mr Anderson: It is the same conversation we just had there I think. We are the keepers of sustainable development in government, and people turn to us to ensure that we are content that they are doing the right thing. We have our various classic, bureaucratic programme boards, sustainable development programme boards, and things that I chair with all other government department officials. Other boards and activities take place across the piece at official level to ensure that those principles are taking place. The challenge will be whether—I think we referred to it at the very beginning—in a time of cutting back on money and a time of all government departments having to focus on managing agendas in a very different way, will we be able to ensure that the principles of sustainable development are still taking place across the piece? I think that’s a good challenge for us and for all of government—it’s not just for Defra. I think that’s something that this Committee, ourselves, and hopefully the politicians most engaged, will be looking at all the time. Q98 Neil Carmichael: Now let us take planning for example because that’s quite an interesting subject: new planning policy, Department of Communities and Local Government launching it. One of the key themes is that Central Government have less to do with planning—you can see my direction of travel here—so, Central Government deliberately says,

“Local authorities are in charge”. How do you, as Defra, get sustainability driven into plan making at the local level? Mr Anderson: I think that does redound to the approach of this Coalition Government, as to what they do or don’t want to see happening at local level, and there is a deliberate devolving of all activity to local level. That must mean, ipso facto, that there is going to be patchiness in some of these areas. However, all local authorities are going to have to publish what they do; they will still have to share data in the same way. We need to ensure they have access to the evidence, to the capacity that they are aware of the things that we are talking about in relation to sustainable development. But as I understand the principles of localism and Big Society, we are trusting as well these people to understand better in their local community what it is that is sustainable, better than some Central Government diktat, written by a director general in Defra who has a shared government office with hundreds of other people, trying to second guess what is going on in there. That, as I understand, is the philosophy behind this and, therefore, I wouldn’t expect to be centrally diktating or measuring exactly what they’re doing. But I think you’re right that there is an important question about ensuring they have access to the evidence and the knowledge required to, therefore, be able to do the right thing. Q99 Neil Carmichael: Also, presumably, there is a leadership function that needs to be applied here, because best example—presumably, emanating from Defra and other departments—needs to be seeping through towards other things. The same logic clearly applies to, let’s say, education, because you’d want to be sure that schools and things were assuming the same sort of strategies, wouldn’t you? Mr Anderson: Yes. Q100 Chair: Can we just ask a little bit about the CSR negotiations and whether or not Defra was involved in those with individual departments? Mr Anderson: Within, sorry? Chair: With the individual departments in respect of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Mr Anderson: In some departments, yes, because, for example, there is a relationship between Communities and Local Government on waste and Defra, so there are some elements of some spending reviews of other government departments. We were involved with the BIS Spending Review because of Regional Development Agencies. We were involved with Communities and Local Government again on the GO Network, and with DFID, for example, in relation to the £100 million we now have of ODA money to be dedicated to international forestry, so yes. Q101 Zac Goldsmith: Defra is already working on mechanisms for enabling the Government to value ecosystem services. First of all, can you tell me when that is likely to be completed and reported? Mr Anderson: I don’t think I want to make a commitment to a month. It is soon. I think 2011 is the last I’ve seen of it. It’s under the control of our chief

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scientist, Bob Watson, who is the man driving it mostly— Zac Goldsmith: Has a date been set? Mr Anderson: I don’t know the answer to that. I can come back to you on whether there is an exact date set. I know we are reaching the latter stages of the national ecosystem assessment. Q102 Zac Goldsmith: On that, in light of whatever findings are presented, has there been any indication from the Treasury yet that they want to see the Green Book updated to reflect the much broader concerns that we have? Mr Anderson: The natural value question is a fascinating question for government and how we are going to build that in. The Treasury are in conversations with us about this. We know that the Green Book doesn’t quite have all the things that we wanted in, in order to value natural value and our natural environment White Paper is likely to major on this as well. If you want to talk about Defra having real traction in Whitehall—if you’re asking me the best way to set about it, it would be inside the economic argument that’s going on in Britain at the minute. That has to be the best way for us to be able to pull the rest of the agenda behind it—sustainable development, bio diversity, all these other areas. The best way is if we get inside: “This is what you should be looking at in economic terms”. It also takes you slightly beyond the GDP question that we are asking ourselves now, as to wellbeing indicators and going beyond simply just the GDP. So there’s a lot of work going on on that. Q103 Zac Goldsmith: Yes, you’ve answered my next question already, thank you. It would be interesting to know, if there was pressure to expand the brief of the Green Book, where should that pressure come from? Who is responsible for deciding on the terms of reference for the Green Book? Is it the Treasury? Mr Anderson: The Treasury are the Treasury, but there’s also a raft of economists out there who are part of the advice to Treasury about the best way to go about this. Q104 Zac Goldsmith: Will Defra be asked for its opinion on the future of the Green Book? Mr Anderson: Yes, we are already in discussion on that and we don’t think it quite gets there yet and— Zac Goldsmith: Just for the record, we had a discussion with the SDC at previous sessions and their view, very clearly and unambiguously is that the Green Book needs a complete overhaul. I just wanted to send that message to you. I think we covered those points there. Q105 Peter Aldous: Sam, what sort of input has CESP had on the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group? Mr Rowbury: What sort of— Peter Aldous: Has CESP had an input on the Cabinet Office, on the agenda of the Efficiency and Reform Group?

Mr Rowbury: Yes, we are part of the Efficiency and Reform Group so we are feeding into the process as the group gets up and running. We are talking to procurement colleagues about the approaches that are being developed there in centralised procurement. We’re talking to estate colleagues, and many of these are the kind of colleagues that we were working with when OGC was without the Cabinet Office. So we are talking to estate colleagues around the Government property vehicle that’s being developed, and looking at how we can build sustainability within the new processes and systems that have been set up by the Efficiency and Reform Group. We can tell a good story around how resource efficiency, energy efficiency and driving out waste within government fit within that efficiency reform story. We can talk about the savings that can be delivered from improving energy efficiency of your building, as well as the carbon savings. That’s a good message that you can get, you can take it to Departments and take it to the finance directors, who will be approving some of the investment cases for new technologies or whatever. Q106 Peter Aldous: Did you have direct input into Philip Green’s review of procurement? Mr Rowbury: The team personally, no, we didn’t feed into that, although they did happen to sit right next to us so I know there was some informal dialogue. Peter Aldous: Was there any particular reason for that or not? Mr Rowbury: Not particularly, I don’t think we were consulted on that. It’s not necessarily a natural fit for us. I think where we would start to get involved is in how the recommendations from the review start to get taken forward. Q107 Peter Aldous: How do you feel that the Efficiency and Reform Group is balancing the sustainability agenda against the whole need to save money? Mr Rowbury: Well I think they go hand in hand. I think it’s the same. I think you can deliver resource efficiency and save money. So the sustainability and the value for money arguments are paralleled. Q108 Peter Aldous: So you’re happy, when it comes to looking at the OGC’s procurement policy, that they’re not just seeking to save money, they do reflect the need for sustainability as well? Mr Rowbury: Yes, I think that’s fair to say. Mr Jordan: That is the whole rationale for us to bring this agenda forward from the Cabinet Office. Q109 Dr Whitehead: Sir Philip Green was appointed to review government efficiency and his focus was on the procurement of goods and services— IT, travel, print and office supplies—no hint of any discussion on sustainability in that review, would that be right to say? Mr Jordan: The review has been published and Philip Green chose what he decided to look at and how he decided to look at it.

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Q110 Dr Whitehead: But did anybody, at any stage, within any of the bodies responsible for sustainable development within government departments, say, “Excuse me, might it be a good idea if we had a hand in this review?” because there does appear to be a rather large hole in it? Mr Jordan: I didn’t seek to influence the outcome of the Philip Green review. The review recommends the centralisation of procurement to save large sums of government money. The centralisation of procurement was a policy objective, to which the new administration was already committed, as you can see from reading its Structural Reform Plan. So the Philip Green review, in a sense, broadened and deepened the direction of policy travel and we believe that, in relation to the procurement of energy— because we are in fact working extremely closely with the team that is responsible for the procurement of energy in the Cabinet Office—sustainability and value for money will go hand in hand with centralisation.

Sorry, a guide to green procurement and a guidance for procurement officers relating to government procurement that is produced by the OGC. Mr Jordan: We have published a fair amount of guidance over the years including a leaflet, called Buy Green and Make a Difference, which explains how to procure in a sustainable manner within the framework of the EU procurement directives.

Q111 Dr Whitehead: I’m a little puzzled by this because it does appear, from what you’re saying, that none of the what you might call internal government watchdog functions that we have been discussing today concerning sustainable development, either had a route to participate in this review or indeed had the inclination to suggest that they might. Yet, just two weeks ago, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said, “We are committed to procuring in a way that is sustainable but maintaining a quango is not a guaranteed way to achieve that”. So presumably, the alternative way to achieve that was within government departments that had a role, and a function, to oversee the question of sustainability in conjunction with the question of value for money and procurement, for example, but nothing happened in that respect. Mr Jordan: We are committed to procuring sustainably. We were committed to procuring sustainably before the Philip Green review and we are still committed to procuring sustainably today. Dr Whitehead: Yes, I accept that, but when a great big review turns up about the whole question of government procurement, concerning which sustainability—I would imagine, indeed on commitment—should be a substantial issue, none of that commitment appeared to be forthcoming, as far as the involvement or even a suggestion that they should be involved in that review, by any government body that is committed to sustainability in procurement. Mr Jordan: I had the pleasure of attending a lunchtime session, at which Sir Philip Green outlined, to a number of commercial directors across Whitehall, his emergent conclusions, so I did have a degree of engagement with the review. Had I felt that the review was going to affect, in any adverse way, our commitment to sustainable procurement, I therefore had the opportunity to raise that question. As it was, it broadened and deepened the existing direction of quality travel and I don’t think there is anything that should have been done otherwise in relation to the review. Dr Whitehead: But there is already in existence the Green Book on sustainable procurement within OGC.

Q113 Dr Whitehead: I think the thrust of my question would be—following on from what appears to be the non-involvement of anybody concerning sustainability with the Green review—what power or authority would CESP have in, for example, at the very least, ensuring that procurement guides have a balance within them, say, between saving money and sustainability? Indeed there have been criticisms of the OGC’s sustainability guidelines, inasmuch as they appear to be entirely cancelled out by other guidelines that also exist for procurement officers, which seem to suggest the opposite of what the Green guidance documents suggest. Would CESP have any role in that or would OGC simply say, “Go away, you’re part of our department, don’t rock the boat”? Mr Jordan: I would be very interested to see, and I would encourage other departments to draw to my attention, anything that they felt cancelled out any guidance that I was about to publish or that was standing guidance. As far as I’m concerned, guidance I’ve published is guidance for government and there is nothing I am aware of that cancels out any guidance that I have published.

Q112 Dr Whitehead: CESP presumably would have a role in looking at the extent to which that leaflet, for example, might not be completely cancelled out by other guidelines about how procurement might work as far as, say, Treasury considerations are concerned? Mr Jordan: At the time that we published that leaflet, which was written within the CESP, we were part of the Treasury group and there was no question, whatever, but that this was the policy of the Government of the day across every government department.

Q114 Chair:, I am very conscious of the time, we have a few short quick questions before we need to close our session. You have talked quite extensively about the role of Defra, but wouldn’t the Cabinet Office be the better place to hold Ministers to account on this cross-cutting agenda? Mr Anderson: That is a very good question, Chair, and the Secretary of State, I think, is a good person to ask next week as to her view. I think she wants to see personal leadership from herself. She is committed to that. But we will need support from other government Ministers, key government Ministers. As I’ve said before, Oliver Letwin is deeply engaged on it. Again, I don’t think it matters because it’s about embedding the agenda across the whole of Whitehall. Q115 Chair: In terms of embedding it, I’m still not sure that we have the evidence, or understand the evidence, that Defra is best placed to influence and

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hold Ministers to account in other departments. How would you say that Defra is able to do that? Mr Anderson: Again, I think that goes back to some of the conversations we’ve had. I don’t think it’s Defra holding to account, and I don’t think that’s the way that this Government wants to do it. It is about every government department being held to account democratically by the data it’s putting out, and it’s also about the processes that we’re going to put in place. There are still open questions. Hopefully the Secretary of State will have some of those answers next week because we’re right on the brink of: are we going to have an approach in one of the committees or are we going to embed it in a different way? So maybe next week she will be able to talk to you a bit more about how it’s going to work across government. Q116 Chair: We will wait until next week. But can I just ask: there have been reports of a new Cabinet committee for sustainable development, might we know what that is by next week or— Mr Anderson: I don’t think that—I have to be careful because I’ll probably be wrong—is likely to be the favoured answer because we’ve tried that before and it didn’t work, I think, Chair. Q117 Chair: So where have those plans got to, have they been shelved? Mr Anderson: They haven’t been shelved. I don’t think that’s the favoured option because what happens is it becomes an add-on again. You get sustainable development Ministers looking at sustainable development and not looking at the whole picture. So, when you say should the things be in the centre, they should be in the whole central process, and that’s the likely direction that we’re going to go, rather than have a group of Ministers over here to decide, looking at it, I think. Q118 Dr Whitehead: Are you considering any new statutory obligations to require either departments or public bodies to achieve their sustainable development targets, or rather is anybody, to your knowledge, considering new statutory obligations? Mr Anderson: No. Dr Whitehead: That is off the agenda? Mr Anderson: It’s not on any agenda that I’ve seen. I know Wales do it but we don’t. Q119 Dr Whitehead: How are local decisions on sustainable development—not the actual decisions themselves but the cumulative impacts of those decisions—being monitored? I noted that you mentioned earlier that local authority action may be, shall we say, patchy but I think you would agree, nevertheless, that those patchy actions will have a cumulative impact. How would that monitoring happen? Mr Anderson: Yes, cumulative impact goes back to Mr Goldsmith’s question as well, in relation to natural value and the wellbeing indicators. I think we do have to try and have a system in place. Essentially it’s the whole government system approach as to a cumulative impact and we have that internationally, in the sense that’s what they’re trying to do next for the next Rio

Plus Summit. I think we have to find a way, in the United Kingdom, of looking at the cumulative impact of all government departments’ policies. I think that is a huge challenge that has never been fully cracked anyway. If you were to ask me whether the SDC do that, no, I don’t think that they could. They could help identify gaps—and I think they did that from time to time—but I think it’s a much bigger issue than that. Dr Whitehead: But you could perhaps do that, and indeed it has been done in the past through the Audit Commission, for example. Mr Anderson: You could try all sorts of different ways of doing it I think. Q120 Dr Whitehead: But with the abolition of the Audit Commission, would you accept that one of the areas of ability to do that has now been taken away and, therefore, your— Mr Anderson: I wouldn’t comment on that. I think that the Public Affairs Committee would probably think that they were also engaged in looking across the piece as well. So I think there are a number of bodies that have that capacity. I think we have moved from bureaucratic accountability to democratic accountability—I think is the expression—and therefore, it is about people being held to account across the piece rather than by bureaucrats looking at bits of paper, I think. Q121 Dr Whitehead: How would democratic accountability exactly add up with cumulative impacts of local— Mr Anderson: I think, ultimately, a country probably knows whether it’s sustainable development. Q122 Dr Whitehead: Would it be done by a vote or— Mr Anderson: Well ultimately, I suppose that’s always the measure. I suppose, ultimately to measure whether a government has achieved sustainable development will be, indeed, whether the people feel that sustainable development has been achieved. That is a question that all governments at all times face. Q123 Peter Aldous: Yes perhaps, up to now, there has been a view that the concept of sustainable development needs to be driven out on, what I would call, a “top down” basis. From what you’ve seen of local government and local communities, do you think the “bottom up” process might work and might work better? Mr Anderson: I think that it is worth trying because both are likely to be patchy, because you can’t get everything from central diktat, and you can’t get everything from local activity, so we do have to be brave enough to change the game, as we’re going through this, and where we see problems there are problems; whether a local community is the best place to make a decision about its local wind farm is a good question.

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We will have to have some national intervention at some moments in time and it’s getting those parameters right. Planning is one of the key areas. I think, as Mr Carmichael was saying. If you get planning right what are the national parameters of planning on sustainable development? Then, within those parameters, the local area should be able to

make its decision about what looks best. I think that is where we’re trying to go. Chair: There we must leave this I’m afraid. May I just thank all three of you for coming along. It has been an illuminating session, and we look forward to the second round when we see the Secretary of State in due course.

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Ev 28 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

Wednesday 17 November 2010 Members present: Joan Walley (Chair) Caroline Lucas Ian Murray Caroline Nokes Mr Mark Spencer Dr Alan Whitehead

Peter Aldous Neil Carmichael Martin Caton Katy Clark Zac Goldsmith Simon Kirby

________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Mr Barry Gardiner MP, Vice Chair, GLOBE UK, Dr Samuel Fankhauser, Chief Economist, GLOBE International, Mr Charles Seaford, Head of the Centre for Well-being, New Economics Foundation, gave evidence. Q124 Chair: I welcome all three of you to our inquiry this afternoon. I will just say to you that we’re very keen that we have a broad as possible cross-section of evidence into this particular inquiry on embedding sustainable development. I thought it might just be helpful, because you’re representing three different organisations, if you could perhaps each introduce yourselves and perhaps say in no more than about two sentences the important issue you want to get across to us, and then we’ll go ahead with our questions if that’s okay. Mr Seaford: I’m Charles Seaford. I’m from the New Economics Foundation and I’m concerned with the way that Government are organised to ensure that there’s effective sustainable development policy. Chair: Thank you. You need no introduction, Barry, but please go ahead in terms of GLOBE. Mr Gardiner: Barry Gardiner. In this capacity, I am the Vice Chair of GLOBE UK. I’m really representing John Gummer, Lord Deben, who is the President of GLOBE and I’m also here in my capacity as the CoChair of the Land Use and Eco-Systems Commission, which is looking specifically at the issue of the valuation of natural capital. Dr Fankhauser: My name is Sam Fankhauser. I’m here as the Chief Economist of GLOBE International. My day job, as it were, is at the London School of Economics in the Grantham Research Institute. Chair: Fine; I think Neil Carmichael is going to kick off on governance issues. Q125 Neil Carmichael: Yes, I am; thank you very much. Both GLOBE and the New Economics Foundation have been talking about establishing a new unit or committee of some sort to oversee sustainable development. First of all, what sort of unit or structure do you envisage? Mr Seaford: I envisage a small unit; probably but not necessarily a civil service unit located in the Cabinet Office and it should probably report to a Cabinet Office Minister who would have responsibility for it. Its role would be to develop a strategy for economic development that would be relevant across Government and then to act as a mediator between the conflicting positions that different departments are bound to have when it comes to implementing that strategy. I think it’s important to say that we see this unit as not simply sitting around developing strategy

but also engaging very widely with business, with the public, with NGOs and so on, and with different tiers of Government—local government and national devolved Administrations. So we see it as central, but by virtue of being central and not departmental that might facilitate a wider engagement. Q126 Neil Carmichael: Is the Cabinet Office a powerful enough Department to accomplish that task? Mr Seaford: Not in itself, but the key is that it reports to a Minister who has the confidence of the Prime Minister and perhaps the director of the unit should be part of the Number 10 staff. If you just think of it as another Cabinet Office unit, then absolutely right, it won’t work. But if it has the right people and the right levels of confidence with the right people, then it has a good chance of working. Q127 Neil Carmichael: Jack Cunningham or David Hunt could tell you how difficult it was having that office and being expected to co-ordinate the flow of information of Government when they both tried it. They had different political complexions but the job was the same, and I think they’d probably both concede that it wasn’t a very easy thing to do. I’m just wondering if that is an example of why perhaps we should be looking at something else. Mr Seaford: I wouldn’t say it was easy but I’d say there are things you can do to make it easier. One of the things we suggest is that this unit has a budget; not a new budget, but it would take in some of the budgets that are currently allocated to different Departments and would then allocate it. So it would be a little bit like a mini-Treasury and the Treasury does have enough power to make things happen. You could say this should be a unit within the Treasury but the feedback I get is that the sorts of things we want this unit to do just aren’t the kinds of things that the Treasury does. Q128 Neil Carmichael: There are two alternative, aren’t there? One is to set up a strong Cabinet Committee, which might work. Would you like to comment on that, Barry? Mr Gardiner: May I first of all make it clear that Charles and I are not speaking with one voice here?

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Neil Carmichael: No, I gathered that because I could see you needed to say something. Mr Gardiner: My perception of this, and certainly GLOBE’s perception of this, and what we have tested now with over 100 legislators in 35 different countries, 16 of the G20 countries, is a very different model indeed from that which Charles is talking about. What we are suggesting is that unless you have a clear focus, a clear line into the Treasury, then these things will not happen. We all know in our own experience as legislators that the control of the purse, the control of revenue is absolutely critical. That’s why we believe that it is absolutely essential that this is something that is mainlined into the heart of Government at the Treasury. That is why one of the proposals that you will see in the natural capital action plan, which I hope the Committee has been circulated with, can I just check that, Chair? Chair: Yes. Neil Carmichael: Yes, thanks for that. Mr Gardiner: One of the key recommendations there is that a new ministerial position should be set up within the Treasury, which really has almost the powers of the Chief Secretary of the Treasury but in relation to valuation of natural capital. Each Department should have to prepare an inventory of its area of work and all the resources that lie under it or which its decision making has an impact upon and that that report should be signed off, in effect, with that new ministerial position within the Treasury and that ministerial position should be responsible, to a large extent, for the use of Government’s natural capital, use of Government’s natural resource. We think that is absolutely essential and talking to colleagues all across the world from Angola to the Chair of the Finance Committee in Japan, that model has buy-in from them. Q129 Neil Carmichael: Would you expect that to be a Cabinet rank appointment because a Chief Secretary hasn’t always been? Mr Gardiner: Indeed. I think it would have to be of that substantial level. The Chief Secretary has often been looked at as the number 22 in the Cabinet, around the Cabinet table, but I think we all know that the power that the Chief Secretary wields is considerably higher up the pecking order than that. Neil Carmichael: That’s because he’s in charge of expenditure. Mr Gardiner: But, you see, the key thing here is when you’re looking at any decision making in Government, what Ministers are bound to do is to look at the cost benefit analysis and they have to take into account all the different elements in the decision that they take—the revenue costs of that, the likely ramifications of it. What we are trying to say is if you do not take into account the value of natural capital in exactly the same way that you would take into account the value of built capital or indeed human and social capital, then you are not conducting a proper cost benefit analysis. It’s not to say that that valuation of natural capital captures the only value that it has; there are other values. There are aesthetic values, there are spiritual values that the environment has but it’s critical that the valuation does capture that economic

value to human society because very often in classical economics—and here I have to defer to Sam—these things have been regarded as externalities. They’ve been regarded outside of the equation and they’re not taken into proper account. We’re simply saying, “Treasury, do your job properly. That means, in your cost benefit analysis, include all the relevant factors”. Q130 Neil Carmichael: Two weeks ago, we heard from DEFRA about policy and implementation in terms of their role in sustainable development. I was left with the feeling that it was yet another job that DEFRA have to do. It made me think, “Do we have a strong enough Department here?” Then I was looking at DECC the other day and thinking there was a bit of poacher/gamekeeper situation there. What I’m driving at is should we, if we’re serious about this, be looking at a Department that really does have all the bells and whistles for dealing with these issues, not just in terms of sustainable development and the activities of Government, but far and wide? Mr Gardiner: A big question. I think there are many ways in which you could cut and carve the departmental responsibilities. You could very easily argue the same case for a combination of international development and environment going together or have a separate farming department. There are all sorts of things one could look at here but, ultimately, this is not about having a single, strong Department. This is about having sustainable development mainlined into the heart of Government and that means the Treasury. Unless it’s that, no single Department will ever have the clout with all the other permanent secretaries because it will be their issue. It’s only when it’s the Treasury’s issue that every other Department has to pay attention. Q131 Chair: Can I just ask you, in terms of the Treasury and what you’re suggesting, how would that be positioned inside the Treasury in such a way to influence what goes into the Green Book because it strikes me that it’s the Green Book and the Treasury that is so critical to whether we are keen and committed to embedding sustainable development? It would be influencing every single decision that comes out of the Green Book. Mr Gardiner: Yes. Again this is one of our proposals; I understand exactly what you’re saying about the Green Book, Chair. At the moment, the Green Book is pretty thin in comparison with other Green Books around the globe and in other legislative countries. I think what we said is that there should be a parallel set of natural capital accounts and I think it’s probably important that Sam sets out how far technically down the road we are to being able to do this. We’re not saying that everything is there to be able to do it fully, but it’s there far enough for us to be able to start the process of implementing parallel natural capital accounts with the Budget each year and, ultimately, not just having them in parallel but incorporating them into the whole Budget process. Chair: I know Dr Whitehead wants to come in on the issue of natural capital and I know that Zac Goldsmith wants to come in as well. Do you want to start off on natural capital and then get a response?

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Q132 Dr Whitehead: Yes; thank you. I’ll start off halfway through because you’ve already raised a number of the issues I wanted to raise myself. You will of course be aware of the Government Economic Service recommendations in the July report. How far do you think they go in terms of what you’re saying this afternoon? What do you think of the strengths and weaknesses? Mr Gardiner: I’m sorry, I’m not aware of the Government Economic Service’s— Dr Whitehead: On valuing natural capital. Mr Gardiner: No. Tell me. Dr Whitehead: The review was launched in 2008 and reported in July 2010 and made a number of recommendations on the impact assessments, scope of environmental evaluation and the way in which natural capital could be valued between Departments. I was wondering what you thought of those recommendations, but if you haven’t read the report, you can’t say. Chair: Presumably what you’re saying is that we need a step change in terms of how natural capital is evaluated and taken account of. Mr Gardiner: Certainly from where we are with the Green Book today, we do and there is technical work going on to make sure that we have further tools available to integrate yet more into the Government’s accounts. Q133 Dr Whitehead: The fact that this report has made a number of recommendations and you are strongly advocating that process seems to me to be quite a process of momentum. There is then the issue, as you’ve mentioned, of getting departmental buy-in to that process and clearly that would entail, say, the Defence Department and the Department of Health valuing natural capital in a coherent way across their Departments. How would you see that buy-in process taking place? Mr Gardiner: The buy-in comes from the control that the ministerial position in the Treasury would have over their use of resource. Instead of simply allocating the Department’s revenue and its capital resource each year, looking at its built capital, the Department would have to justify its use of all the other resources that are affected by its decision making during the year. For example, if you were in the Department of Transport, you would not simply be conducting separate environmental impact assessments on what you are doing, which, if you like, at the moment function as a sort of environmental commentary on your decisions and your policies. You would have to show that there is an actual economic effect, that there is real cost here that needs to be taken into account and put into the whole of the decision- making process. Instead of an environmental commentary on the policy debate, it’s an economic contribution to it, and that’s the key difference. Q134 Dr Whitehead: Particularly in Departments that perhaps might not regard themselves as having such a brief at their heart, how do think that might become an integral part of the process? For example, the natural capital of the Ministry of Defence includes Salisbury Plain, Tynan village and gallery ranges. If

one were to say to the Ministry of Defence, “Right, you’ve got to value the natural capital with which you are charged and bring that into your policy process” but it believes there are other imperatives within its department that perhaps cancel that out, how would that negotiation take place? Mr Gardiner: There are separate elements of the negotiation that have to be brought to bear. What we’re saying in the process of assimilating natural capital accounts into your accounting framework is that you must take account of the economic costs and benefits of what you propose to do as it pertains to your natural capital. I can’t think of an appropriate example for the Ministry of Defence but let me give you an example from America, and that’s the well known example of the Catskills watershed, which I know you will know well. New York had the option of building a very large sewage plant and it would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars and it could have done that and built that to deal with all the effluent of the city and purify the water. Instead, it used the natural capital it had in the Catskill mountains for the remediation and there is now an effective payment system that goes on with the people for managing that land in that appropriate way to provide the purification in the water services. In Japan, in a very similar situation, they looked at the development of an estuary until they found out that each hectare of the mudflats contained the lug worms that remediated the effluent of 100,000 people. To have built the separate sewage facilities needed in default of the lug worms would have meant that the development was no longer financially viable. It’s simply looking at those sorts of costs and benefits and saying, “These are real costs and benefits”. It’s not that there aren’t other values attached to having mudflats and an estuary, in terms of the birdlife and the habitat and the aesthetic and spiritual benefits that one gets from that environment, but it’s a question of looking at the very real costs and benefits. Chair: Zac, did you want to come in? Zac Goldsmith: I was about to ask for practical examples. Chair: You have them. Q135 Martin Caton: How can the Government ensure that it deals with all three strands of sustainable development—economic, social and environmental— in developing its policy and programme? Mr Gardiner: Is that to me? Martin Caton: It is to whoever feels they can make a useful contribution. Dr Fankhauser: If they’re all quiet, let me have a go. One of the aggregates that people are using is to incorporate sustainable development into macroeconomic language—the sort of language that Ministers of Finance and Treasury officials understand. One of the concepts the Treasury officials understand is savings. You can translate the savings rate, which is a physical economic concept, into a sustainable development or adjusted savings rate; it’s a concept that the World Bank is using. What you then do is start off with your economic savings and you add the social and the environmental capital aspects to it. You increase your human capital every year as a

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society through things like education, so you can measure that and add that to your economic traditional savings rate. You depreciate or increase your environmental capital by depleting your natural resources, cutting down your trees or preserving your eco-systems. You can value that and you adjust your savings rate for that. So that’s one example. You start off with an economic concept that Treasury understands, namely savings, and you adjust it for human capital, social capital or sustainability—if you will—environmental capital, (environmental sustainability) and you end up with an aggregate number that is comprehensive sustainable development. Q136 Martin Caton: Can I just say that some other witnesses we’ve had, or at least evidence we’ve had, suggests that a fundamental problem is this add-on approach—at the core is the economic and then you add on the social and the environmental? The economic always trumps the other two pillars. Do you see any justice in that particularly? Dr Fankhauser: The first thing to say is I’m not sure the economic always trumps, in fact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t always trump. On the question whether adding on is the right way of going about it, you’re absolutely right; it doesn’t always make sense to just add things up. The question you have to answer is to what extent you can replace man-made capital as it were and environmental capital. Does an extra TV set make up for a lost species? In that particular example, it doesn’t, but in Barry’s Catskill example, you could say it could. You lose the Catskills and you build a treatment plant—New York had the same odds. In that case there was an opportunity to substitute but in many other cases the substitution will not be possible and then you shouldn’t add up. Q137 Zac Goldsmith: Can I just jump in? On that example and the other examples that Barry gave, it is economics that trumped. It’s a question as well as the statement I think, that when you add a new layer of accounts and you take account of things that have value that are otherwise not currently valued, decisions that may appear commercially attractive one day, appear less commercially attractive the next day. Now I’m assuming that is pretty much the case with all the examples you’ve just given. Those were economic judgments that were made, based on a complete set of information. Mr Gardiner: I think that’s very helpful because I think the difficulty in the past and the way in which the environment has been ridden roughshod over has often been because the true value of natural capital, the true value of the environment, has never been cashed out and it’s never been shown to have an economic value. As I say, I’m really keen to make it clear that we’re not trying to say economic value is the only value that exists here. There are other values that exist, but the environment has them all and, in the past, it’s very often been the case that we’ve thought, “Well, it has aesthetic value”. We all like to have lots of species and biodiversity and that’s good in and of itself; it has intrinsic value, it has spiritual value, it has aesthetic value. What we’ve been very

bad about is realising it has hard cash value as well. When you put that into the equation, very often the environmental solutions become a lot more powerful and the environmental argument then trumps the otherwise purely economic one. An extremely good example, if I can give more here, is in what’s going on at the moment in and around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The US Army Engineering Corps came out with the extraordinary statement that every levee that had watershed protection, wetland protection, remained intact. Every levee that did not have wetland protection was breached. At the moment, the US Army Engineering Corps is building a 350- mile ring of concrete and steel around that city at a cost of $16 billion. Yet the reason that Katrina and hurricanes are coming in over the levees is that the cypress-tupelo swamp that used to exist there has been destroyed at the rate of one acre per 48 minutes over the past 35 years. Each mile width of cypress-tupelo swamp cuts down the surge swells during a hurricane by six feet. That’s the real cost of losing that swamp. The real cost of losing that swamp was the $125 billion that Katrina cost. It’s the $16 billion that it’s costing to build that ring of steel and concrete around the city, and all because, in 1956, they decided that they would make the navigation on the lower part of the Mississippi River a lot straighter and easier and they cut through the swamp. The new channel killed off, through salination, the old cypresstupelo swamp. Chair: Charles, you wanted to come in? Mr Seaford: Coming back to your question about the different forms of sustainability, I just want to add that what they all have in common is perspective on the long term. In a sense, although you can reduce everything to an economic calculation, when you’re looking at the long term, it becomes increasingly difficult because there’s more and more uncertainty as you look out beyond the short term and medium term perspective. In the process of deciding what to do, you can no longer rely purely upon that kind of economic analysis. That is the reason why we were proposing a unit outside the Treasury because we think that there are strong institution biases within the Treasury that mean that although it’s perfect for the kind of thing that you’ve been talking about, I believe there is a need for people to take a different strategic perspective that doesn’t reduce to the “certain” analysis that economists tend to favour. If I can just go back to the point about the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, I totally agree that you need to be tied into the people with the money; that’s where the power is and that will always be where the power is. I am not in any way disagreeing with what has been said, but whether that power is located in the Treasury or whether it’s located in the Cabinet Office is a separate issue. Mr Gardiner: I have two things to say on that, if I may? The first relates to the whole reason that GLOBE has advanced this natural capital action plan and the valuation of natural capital. We’ve done this over a period of 18 months with more than 100 legislators in 35 different countries, always on a crossparty basis, because that’s how GLOBE functions in each of the jurisdictions that we operate in. The model

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that has been agreed is precisely that it should be located in the Ministry of Finance. Legislators across the world do not believe that unless it’s located in the Ministry of Finance, it will work. I am not just saying that as one individual partisan—we’ve tested these proposals as policies with legislators and these are the policies they’ve bought into. If I can just also add, Chair, again I hope the Committee has a copy of the document, “Natural capital: the new political imperative”, which provides a whole set of examples from around the world in which legislators and different legislatures have advanced that. Mr Seaford: You’re probably right—perhaps it should be located in the Treasury. I just think that would have to be handled with great care to make sure that the whole process isn’t captured by the existing Treasury view. For what you’re describing, Barry, I can see it works perfectly, but, for what I am describing, you would have to take great care that the whole thing wasn’t captured by the existing Treasury view of the world. That’s the only point I’m making. Chair: There’s also the cross-cutting issue. Mr Seaford: Exactly and it would have to be done strategically. You would have to get all the Treasury officials going out and engaging with everyone around the country. Maybe that would happen, but it’s going to take some effort. Q138 Martin Caton: All your inspiring examples are in other parts of the world. Can I ask you, all of you, how is the UK Government measuring up to bringing these three pillars together in the sustainability agenda? Mr Gardiner: I am hugely heartened that it is something that is seeping out of DEFRA and I think beginning to get traction in the ears of other Ministers and Ministries where it may make an impact. I think it’s hugely positive that it is likely to be something that is featured, I hope very strongly, in the White Paper that DEFRA produces. I would hope that, with the support of the Cabinet Office, it would then be taken up at the highest levels in Government. I think if you look at what’s happening internationally, the World Bank has just launched its new global partnership to Green National Accounts. There are researchers at the World Bank, Langer and others, who have been working on these ideas as theories for years. They’ve been working on them for between 20 and 30 years, but it’s not until now that the World Bank has picked up and said, “We’re going to launch this as the pilot initiative with Ministries of Finance in key countries, both developed and developing”. I’ve had two meetings with Bob Zoellick of the World Bank and GLOBE representatives, and he is really aware of the impact that this can have. I think our own Government is not blind to that and I think there can be a very good all-party consensus that says, “We see that this makes sense. We want to implement it and we need to get on with it”. Q139 Neil Carmichael: First of all, surely economics in its broader sense is all about resource management and the scarcity of resources and so forth. It is not necessarily a question of finance only; it’s everything. The fundamental issue about

equilibrium is where the scarcity is and where the supply is. You apply that logic to the whole issue, which is why I find it so baffling that in terms of protecting the environment, sustainability and so forth, we don’t seem to be applying that logic. I would just like to ask for a brief comment from all of you as to why we do not, because we’re obviously not, otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here. I have a feeling that the reason why everybody thinks the Ministry of Finance is the place to be is that they know it’s very powerful in Government and the assumption is that because it’s so powerful, it will be able to drive forward the appropriate changes. A key thing is to make sure that there is something driving the right kind of changes. How can we guarantee that Ministries of Finance will always do that? Chair: Can we have brief answers, please? Charles. Mr Seaford: Why doesn’t the economics take into account the environment, which it should? There are a number of reasons. Firstly, because the discipline of environmental economics is relatively new compared with the discipline of economics as a whole, it just takes time for these to filter through. That’s one reason. I think there’s a second point though, which is that the environment is more difficult; there’s less certainty and there’s a theological certainty about the core of micro-economics that is very emotionally satisfying. Neil Carmichael: I don’t think many economists would agree with that. Mr Seaford: You read what Treasury economists say; you listen to it. It’s very beautiful in a way. It’s a wonderful, enclosed system that is quite similar to certain varieties of theology. Q140 Neil Carmichael: I think you’ve just inadvertently put your finger on the problem. It is too enclosed, isn’t it? Mr Seaford: Yes, exactly. Q141 Neil Carmichael: I’m asking why? I think we know it’s enclosed. I think the question is why is it so enclosed? Mr Seaford: The reason is because that is emotionally satisfying and institutionally satisfying. That’s how you get promoted. You don’t get promoted in the Treasury by saying, “This whole system’s complete rubbish. I think we should start again”. You get promoted by saying, “This is very good; just a tiny little tweak here or a tiny little tweak there”. That’s how you get promoted, so that’s the answer to your question. Dr Fankhauser: Just very quickly on what you’ve just said. The first thing I would say is that good economics does integrate the environment. If you look at good textbook economics, of how public economics and cost-benefit analysis should be done, the environment is in there. So the question is whether in the real world applied economics is as good as the textbook? The answer is no. There are probably two reasons at least I can think of. One is a methodological one in that to do good economics and put the environment into those processes and analyses is expensive, and not necessarily cheap and straightforward. The second is an institutional one in

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that there’s some inertia in the system that uses the old-fashioned approach, as it were, as opposed to a new one. Q142 Peter Aldous: You have put forward two fascinating alternative models. Can I just come back to the third model, which is what the Secretary of State, Caroline Spelman, put forward last week with DEFRA very much taking the lead role. That is where the resources are at the moment. Rather than reinventing the wheel, do you think that her model can work? Mr Gardiner: No. Q143 Peter Aldous: Why not? Mr Gardiner: If you wanted to do a pecking order of Departments of Government, nobody around this table would say that DEFRA was the most powerful Department. If you did a pecking order, I suspect that most people round this table would say that it was fairly low down it. Let’s be realistic. Of course, a Secretary of State will big-up the capacity of their Department and the influence and the power of their Department and so on. Goodness me, Caroline doesn’t even have a seat at the Cabinet Sub-Committee that deals with these things. So let’s have some perspective on this. If this policy is owned by a separate environmental Department, it will not happen. The only way of getting this to happen is to have it owned, not just in the Treasury but by a special and senior Minister created for the purpose of doing this job in the Treasury. That’s how it will happen. Q144 Zac Goldsmith: Can I just quickly come in on that point? I totally agree with you. The ownership needs to be at the level of the Treasury. A lot of people who have given evidence over the last week have said the same thing but there’s a difference between the workload and the ownership. First of all, I would have thought that DEFRA is a Department where natural capital is the biggest issue by far. It’s also the place where there’s most expertise and there’s a real appetite there, as we heard last week, for leading on this agenda. Do you agree there’s a distinction between the workload and the responsibility of carrying this assessment out and the ownership that ought to be considered? Mr Gardiner: Again, thank you. I think that’s extremely helpful. Yes, I do. In the proposals that we put forward, we’ve also said that there should be an external committee. We’ve specifically put in a role for the National Audit Office; again as a way of making sure that these policies are embedded, which goes back to Neil’s point. This has to be holistic. It hasn’t to be locked in the Treasury, it has to be held to account all across Government so that all of these strands are brought to bear. That happens through your own Committee, it happens through the EFRA Committee, it happens through the ECC Select Committee, it happens through those Departments. It will take all that combined work in Government, and above all parliamentarians doing what we are supposed to do in holding the Government to account, to make sure that it happens.

Q145 Chair: But surely the issue is that this is Parliament—we are Select Committees, we are not Government Ministers nor are we Government Departments. In the previous Government, up until some time before the general election, a cross-cutting committee existed that was meant to bring the leadership from the top down to exercise that wideranging scrutiny and appraisal. Why did that not work? Mr Gardiner: Chair, you’re absolutely right. It didn’t work. Again, if I can go back in time; in 1956, the US Department of the Interior commented on the new river channel that I described earlier and said that it could cause severe environment consequences. That was seen as an environmental commentary on what was otherwise an economic decision and no matter how good and how great the people on a sustainable development committee might be, no matter how esteemed in their own environmental sphere, they will always be seen as giving commentary upon what is fundamentally an economic and political decision. It will be environmental commentary, which is valuable but it doesn’t control. That’s why it needs to be in the Treasury. Mr Seaford: Cross-cutting has never worked or very rarely, and I agree with Barry on this one. What unifies people is a plan, a sense of where we’re going, a sense of moving forward. Our perspective would be that you only get that cross-Government agreement through thinking strategically. Q146 Chair: So you want all the Departments of State to sign up for the ride. Mr Seaford: They will have to do their bit and they will have to negotiate, but, on the details, yes. Chair: We need to move on. Q147 Caroline Lucas: Thank you. I wanted to move us on a little bit more to the scrutiny role because we had an interesting debate about where the drivers need to be for sustainable development across Government, whether it’s in the Treasury or in the Cabinet. What about the role that the SDC used to carry out of real scrutiny and not just external scrutiny but working very hard within Departments, giving support, giving advice, giving that quite labour intensive input? In the absence of the SDC, where do you see that coming from? You began to touch on it, Barry, when you started to talk about the NAO but can you say a bit more about that scrutiny role in particular? Mr Gardiner: One of the things that we were very keen to do in the GLOBE process that we put together was to involve the former Comptroller and Auditor General in that process, because I don’t think anybody in the world had more experience of that audit and scrutiny function of Government. Also, it fits very naturally with the fact that in most legislators around the globe, it is Parliament that has the power of scrutiny as we do here within the Public Accounts Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee; it is a power reserved to Parliament. Therefore, we think it’s very important that the audit function or the equivalent of our National Audit Office should always have a very key role in ensuring that this is being performed properly. We will need not just auditors;

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we will need key scientific interlocutors as well and that’s why, as part of the recommendations that we put forward, we said that there would need to be some external independent advice that is able to work with Government to achieve that. Chair: Any comments, Charles? Mr Seaford: Broadly speaking, I agree. However, as a matter of fact, if you’re talking about audited policy, the Sustainable Development Commission didn’t do very much of that, it was stronger on the operations and procurement side. Clearly, for this Committee, the appropriate form of advice is that offered by the National Audit Office, obviously also working for the Climate Change Committee. Q148 Caroline Lucas: How do you see that really working though because I was a bit disturbed when the Secretary of State came and spoke rather airily of this Committee taking on lots of the role that the SDC has been playing in the past? We’re all terribly committed I’m sure but, nonetheless, the SDC had a lot of staff at its disposal in a way that we don’t. So practically speaking, would you imagine a secondment of NAO staff auditors to us or how would you see that working in practice? Mr Gardiner: I think the model would be much more along the lines of the independent Climate Change Committee on which there are scientists and economists who are able to exercise their professional skills to look at an issue. I defer to Sam, who sits on Climate Change Committee, and who may want to add something, but I envisage that the proposed model would be a similar parallel body that has the power to make recommendations and decisions. Dr Fankhauser: If I may very briefly; as Barry says, I’m a member of the Committee on Climate Change, which is an independent committee that works reasonably well in terms of independent scrutiny. I see some differences between the climate change agenda and the sustainable development agenda in the sense that the climate change agenda is internationally driven. There’s an almost “outside the UK” target because there has to be an international agreement to decarbonise the whole world. For that reason alone, in a sense, you need the external scrutiny that something like the CCC can provide. There may be a role for that on sustainable development but sustainable development is much more an issue of good internal management and managing your own economy properly. Decarbonisation has to become that too, but sustainability is perhaps, more mainstream, it’s more bread and butter. The balance of power is probably more towards exercising scrutiny internally in the Government and in Parliament, and internal audit, rather than through external scrutiny. Mr Gardiner: Can I also just point out that we do have bodies such as Natural England and one of the worries I would see at the moment is the way in which their resources are being trimmed, because if sustainable development is an area of Government that is really going to take off, Natural England’s powers as an arm’s length advisory body to Government will need to be beefed up, not trimmed down.

Mr Seaford: Can I just make one small additional point? It’s much easier to audit something if you’re auditing it against something. In other words, saying “This is the agreed strategy, this is where we’re going, this is what we’re going to do” rather than just saying, “Well, you’re doing quite well; you’re not going quite well”. So the proposals we were putting forward for the audit function were very much to be seen as the other half of the strategy development. Is the strategy adequate? Are we performing against the target set in that strategy? That is how the Climate Change Committee works. Q149 Zac Goldsmith: I have one thing to add, which is slightly off topic, because we don’t have that much time. If this Committee were to try to make suggestions and recommendations as to the kind of model the Government should adopt, what would be the one, two or three countries that we should look to for inspiration, not just in terms of individual projects you described already, but in terms of the approach of the Finance Department in different Governments? Who is leading the way on this issue? Dr Fankhauser: I don’t know about the best institutional arrangements, but one example that’s always used in terms of good environmental management and the good management of the natural resource assets of the country is, surprisingly, Botswana, which has very disciplined rules as to how the diamond wealth and other natural resources get accounted for, including the depreciation every year and what you do to compensate for the depreciation of those assets. There are probably countries closer by that are similarly good at that, maybe Norway. Mr Gardiner: Mexico is another example, and there are other countries that have gone some way down the road to recognising payment for ecosystem services, for example, Costa Rica. But this is something that is very much in its infancy and we need to be championing and taking it to the next phase. Q150 Neil Carmichael: This is not in connection with the questions that we have been asking, but I wanted to probe the role of arm’s length Government agencies. How can we be sure that we can hold them accountable on questions of accountability? We’re already worrying about whether DEFRA is powerful enough but just imagine the agencies that are responsible to DEFRA. How are we going to direct them to be more interested in the environment? Chair: No answer. If not, we are beginning to run short of time. I’m conscious that Caroline Nokes wants to come in. Neil Carmichael: Will you think about it because it’s an important question? Chair: Please write in with the answer. Q151 Caroline Nokes: Unfortunately, I’m going straight back to arm’s length bodies. Barry, you made a comment about arm’s length bodies needing to have their role beefed up rather than trimmed down, but we have the Secretary of State saying that the

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Government should not be paying arm’s length bodies like the Sustainable Development Commission to be holding the Government to account. Is that a workable strategy and what are the risks involved? Mr Gardiner: I’m not here either to agree or disagree with the decision that was taken on the Sustainable Development Commission; that’s not part of my purpose. To try and get to the nub of your question as to the function and role of arm’s length bodies alongside Government, there are clear dangers with such bodies—speaking as someone who, as a Minster, had to work closely with them—because they are bloody frustrating things in that when they get things right, well, it’s the arm’s length body that decided it or the regulator that decided it, and when it gets it wrong, well, of course, it’s all your fault as the Minister. So, in many senses, it’s a pure and more accountable Government if it’s the Minister taking those decisions but Ministers cannot expect to have the wealth of technical expertise that a body like Natural England has and that’s why we have those advisory bodies to say, “Look, I don’t know about coral sea fans off the south coast of England but I know a body that does. It’s called Natural England.” They’ve got technical experts; they go down, they photograph the blinking stuff. They show you what the trawlers have dredged. They show you what it looked like with the pink sea fans beforehand and they show what it looked like afterwards—a desecrated graveyard. They then come back and they provide you with the evidence and then, of course, you go and you take the wrong decision. At least you’re taking it on the basis of clear evidence and that’s what we need; as Government, as Ministers, that’s what you want. You want somebody who’s going to present with those facts and say, “These are the parameters that your decision has to take account of”.

Mr Seaford: A very quick comment on that. Arm’s length bodies need to have a very clear mandate—no mission creep. They need a very clear mandate that is linked, as in the case of the Climate Change Committee, to statutes, which stops them getting too big and going off and doing all kinds of things that aren’t relevant—which is also relevant to the point about trimming down costs—and also gives what they have to say more credibility and more authority. Q152 Chair: How should Governments allow organisations like yours to get involved in this process of scrutiny? Mr Gardiner: As GLOBE, we are a group of legislators both in this Parliament and across the world within the G20 broadly, but in other countries as well, and therefore it is simply our role as parliamentarians that means that we have a responsibility to scrutinise what Government do. In some of our Parliaments, of course, parliamentarians can be Ministers. In many legislatures that’s not the case, but always, always, whichever legislative jurisdiction you’re in, it is the parliamentarians’ role to be holding Government to account. I think that’s something that we feel within GLOBE has been very useful in this process, because we believe there is a natural location here for us to be looking, scrutinising, auditing what the Government do in relation to the natural environment. Chair: Charles, did you want to come in on that last question? Mr Seaford: Yes. I would say what any NGO like ours would say, that we can add more value through informal discussion than through formal stand-off. Chair: Well, at that stage thank you very much, all three of you, for the time that you have given us this afternoon. Thank you.

Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Dr Duncan Russel, Exeter University, Dr John Turnpenny, University of East Anglia, Carol Day, Solicitor, WWF-UK, and Halina Ward, Director, Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, gave evidence. Q153 Chair: May I welcome you? I think you all sat in on the previous session that we’ve just had. We’re perhaps running a little bit behind time, so I’m going to ask everybody for briefer replies and perhaps briefer questions as well, if I can. We very much wanted to get as broad a perspective as we could and hear evidence not just from Government agencies or Government Departments. We’re aware of the work that you have each done and, if you like, the importance that you attach to innovation and to there being proper engagement on the whole issue of democracy and research. So, could I just invite you each just to introduce yourselves and give a very brief proposal as to why it’s important that we listen to what you have to say, then we’ll go into the questioning? Dr Russel: My name is Duncan Russel and I’m based at the University of Exeter. I’ve been doing research since 2001 on environmental policy integration, which is one way of embedding sustainable development in

Government, in the UK and also the European Union, and I’ve also been involved with John in a project examining the role of this Committee. Chair: Scrutinising this Committee, I’m aware of that, yes. Thank you. Dr Turnpenny: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for inviting me. My name is John Turnpenny. I’m from the University of East Anglia in Norwich. My particular area of research interest is embedding evidence within policymaking and how that works in practice, particularly looking at policy appraisal systems but also looking at other mechanisms, including the Environmental Audit Committee, and also looking at practical lessons for how these research results might be implemented. I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank our colleagues, Tim Rayner and Andrew Jordan at UEA, for their contribution to our evidence today. Chair: It’s on the record.

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Halina Ward: I’m Halina Ward and I’m Director of an NGO which was launched in September 2009. It’s called the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development. It kind of does what it says on the tin. We work not just on embedding sustainable development in Government but more broadly on what has to happen to democracy as a political system so it’s properly equipped and capable of delivering sustainable development outcomes. Carol Day: I’m Carol Day. I’m a lawyer at WWFUK. I was a campaigner before I was a lawyer and I’ve worked in environmental charities all my life, both at the local level of county wildlife trusts through now to the international level with WWF-UK. Q154 Mr Spencer: I’m interested in measuring the progress we’re going to make. We’ve already got a number of indicators and targets in place for measuring whether we’re the greenest Government ever. Can you tell us are those indicators and targets adequate for us to be able to measure that and, if they’re not, what targets and indicators and measurements should we have in place? Carol Day: I hesitate to go first. Chair: Please go first, Carol. Carol Day: Horrible job. Well, in recent meetings with Government we’ve been told that the 2005 document doesn’t really apply because it’s the last Government’s position. So, I guess we find ourselves in a bit of a vacuum as far as that’s concerned. So, my first point would be that we need obviously a new, renewed commitment to some targets and also some improvements on where we’ve got to so far. We obviously had the five principles of sustainable development, but in the 2005 document even, I think it was recognised that we needed to place more emphasis on living within environmental limits. We’ve had initiatives like the Climate Change Act, which I think tends to focus much more on the production emissions end and perhaps not enough on the impact of consumption and our growing consumption in terms of things like carbon footprint, but also other areas as well. In the Living Planet Report, which we issued very recently, we basically showed that if every other country in the world lived as the UK does, we’d need something like two and three-quarter planets to support the number of resources that we actually use. So, I think really, in terms of limits, we certainly need some limits around consumption. But I think there are other improvements that we can make as well on where we were in 2005. Certainly, in the research that FDSD and WWF are looking at at the moment we’re making a much more explicit link between sustainable development and future generations, and I think this is where we’d really like to see much more emphasis in the future. Obviously the international definition we have of sustainable development is very much about not compromising the needs of future generations because of the needs of the present. I think one of the things that we would really like to see is more of a midfield approach, if you like, something which is actually looking forward in that sense in terms of future generations as well as a policy scrutiny and a rear-looking view as well.

Chair: Halina, did you want to add? Halina Ward: Just very briefly, there has been a lot of discussion recently about adding well-being and quality of life indicators to the national indicator set, and that’s certainly something that in principle we’d welcome. A slight note of caution perhaps, that this is a real opportunity to think creatively about how the indicators are formed and how they’re collected. It’s one thing to ask somebody, “Do you feel happy today? Yes, I bought a car yesterday” and quite something different to ask somebody, “Do you feel happy? Yes, I know my neighbours. We do favours for one another” and so on. I think that the actual process of gathering the indicators of quality of life or wellbeing, which is in itself valuable, needs to be something quite creative that encourages people to think as they’re giving their responses about broader well-being—the things that really make us happy beyond the satisfaction of immediate material needs. Dr Russel: The thing that I would like to say about indicators is that it’s all well and good having a great set of indicator sets, but ultimately there are two issues. First, if you do not reach your targets within indicator sets, what happens? So it’s a matter of process beyond just measuring where we are. The second thing is that to date we haven’t really learnt much from indicator sets because at the moment we have an indicator but we don’t know what the signals are that are creating that indication. So we don’t know whether it’s because of a certain policy that’s led to us meeting or overshooting that indicator, or we don’t know whether it’s due to economic effects or changes in behaviour and so on. So, if you take, for example, an indicator on carbon, if we see a reduction in carbon emissions is it because we’ve seen a reduction in economic activity; is it because of some behavioural change; is it because of some new technology? So, indicator sets actually need to be linked more to analysis on what has actually led to changes within the measured criteria, and then it offers opportunities for learning and for Government to adjust their position based on that. Dr Turnpenny: I’d just like to agree with that and say how important it is that we have good evidence, and not only good evidence but good mechanisms for collating and bringing together that evidence and applying it in the most focused way. There’s a lot of evidence out there and without a clear mechanism and a clear way of deciding on a way forward, we find that it becomes very difficult to decide. Having a good evidence base for indicator development and interpretation is important. Q155 Mr Spencer: I think the thing that motivates politicians is the fact that someone at some point in time is going to say, “You have succeeded” or, “You have failed”. There needs to be a system in place to measure that, so people are given a target. I can’t see or understand how we’re going to be able to measure some of those things, particularly when you talked about emotional well-being. That’s an impossible thing to measure, isn’t it? It’s almost an opinion rather than a measurable outcome. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to integrate that into Government policy.

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Halina Ward: Well, indicator development has become something of a dark art, as I understand it. I think perhaps with some of these qualitative data sets that we’re looking for, it’s much more important to view the process of developing the indicators as an integral part of the indicator reporting. That’s what I was trying to get at in my point about well-being indicators. So, there is a learning process that goes on in the development and the formation of judgments about what’s important, and it’s important to have people involved in that process who are not the usual suspects, if you like, as well as simply providing passively a report with lots of numbers and lots of text to people and saying, “That’s it, that’s what we said we were going to do. That’s what we’ve done. What do you reckon?” It’s not an interactive way of developing a discussion about the level, the measure of a Government’s commitment to sustainable development. So I’d like to see it being much less technocratic an exercise in a way and much more an interactive process of engagement involving citizens and local groups.

Q157 Martin Caton: How does the UK Government compare with other Governments in embedding sustainable development— Chair: I ask everyone to come back within 15 minutes after the vote. We’ll start as soon as we’ve got a quorum. Sorry, we’ll just have to go down and vote—that’s what we’re here to do—and then we’ll come back. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming. Chair: I think there’s enough of us here to continue. We want to get through as quickly as we can. Martin, do you want to resume for us, please?

Q156 Zac Goldsmith: I was going to just follow up on that point. I agree this is incredibly difficult to measure. I’ve looked at a number of different models, indicators, usually not developed in Britain, but indicators to try and capture some of these things. It seems to me that the people who design some of the indicators that are already being discussed have done so without any real regard to what it means to be in Government or what it means to actually make policy decisions. It’s almost as if the indicators and the tools have been developed in such a way to make it impossible for policymakers to implement them in a practical way. So, for example, I’m fumbling here, but certain areas that have already been picked up on are impossible to quantify, but unless you can find a way to quantify them it’s almost impossible to hold the Government to account. So, happiness is something which is very subjective, but there are very clear signs of unhappiness, which are measurable. So, if more and more people are self-harming, if more and more people are committing suicide, more and more people are becoming hooked on drugs, for example, those are things which you can measure. I know they’re negatives, not positives, but would it not make more sense to focus on things which can actually be quantified in a more technical way? Halina Ward: I view the process of indicator development and reporting as part of a system of more deliberative democracy, if you like. That’s why I gave the answer that I gave. In a sense, I’ve reached the limits of what I’m able to say. I’m not a really technical indicator bod. I just understand that they’re the map but they’re not the territory and you need something different to get at the territory. Zac Goldsmith: I suppose the concern is that a Government could look at that stuff and say, “This makes a lot of sense and we’d like to pursue that agenda”, but it wouldn’t make any difference at all from a practical point of view in terms of how the Government govern. Whereas if you were able to say, “We have seen that over the last five years there has

Q158 Martin Caton: What I was saying before we were interrupted was how does the UK Government compare with other Governments in embedding sustainable development in its work? Dr Russel: I’ll start with that one. The comparative work in the project that I’ve been involved with on OECD countries suggests that, rather surprisingly when you look at some of the reports that this Committee has produced in the past, the UK is among the front-runners in terms of embedding sustainable development, which when you look at some of the evaluations of how the UK is actually doing is rather concerning when you take a global perspective. The UK, along with Sweden and Norway, have been the most innovative in terms of designing mechanisms and approaches for integrating environment and sustainable development concerns across policy sectors. For example, things like the Environmental Cabinet Committee under former Administrations was a very innovative body when it was actually set up in 1990, under the Conservative Environment White Paper. Also, the UK has innovated in things like policy appraisal in terms of actually setting up the mechanism. However, what we actually see in the research with all of these countries, UK, Sweden and Norway, is that they’ve developed this body of tools, mechanisms and so on, but this in itself has not been enough to actually embed sustainable development because they haven’t been backed up by sufficient incentives for sector policymakers to actually engage with sustainable development—for example, providing funding, providing career progression paths to help policymakers engage. There also hasn’t been enough central steering to sanction departments or sectors when they’re actually not engaging with sustainable development. So, a lot of it is put down to political will. However, how we understand that and how that does or does not manifest is something that’s still quite under-researched and probably something we need to research more. But on the international scene the UK is a leader. I think John just wants to talk a

been a rapid increase in the number of people suffering from mental illness”, for example, that is something against which you could judge a Government’s record. And I just think without those tangibles, those actual measurable things, it’s very hard to pin a Government down. That’s my concern about some of the indicators that have been developed.

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little bit more about the policy appraisal aspects of this. Dr Turnpenny: Sure, yes. Dr Russel: Unless you’ve got any follow-up to what I said. Martin Caton: No, I’d be interested to hear from Dr Turnpenny. Dr Turnpenny: In the previous session there was a little bit of talk about appraisal systems and how they might work. I’ve done a fair bit of work over the last few years on how policy appraisal systems have worked in practice. The UK, of course, has its regulatory impact assessment system and many other OECD countries also have appraisal systems of varying colours and purposes. But we found that there are some common reasons why they don’t work as expected. For example, they often come late in the policy process; they don’t influence the development of policy early on. Often the people who are consulted are what you might call the usual suspects, the people who always get consulted about those particular policy areas. They can be seen as somewhat of an add-on to the policy process, and particularly in the UK they focus very heavily on regulatory burdens. There is very little on the sustainable development and environment side. The European Commission has a system of appraisal that does focus more in a more concrete way on environment and sustainable development impacts of policies, but even here there’s still a very heavy focus on regulatory burden. And I think that it shows that if you have an amount of analysis you can have a large amount of data, you can have a lot of expertise, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into more sustainable policymaking. There are a whole lot of barriers as to why the evidence as gathered by assessment systems is not being taken up and not putting through into the statute books or even into the outcomes in terms of a more sustainable society. A lot of those burdens relate to high-level institutional constraints, the fact that policy is often made on the basis of policy that had been made before, so it’s incremental rather than radically changing. And doing more analysis is a useful step but it isn’t going to give you a more sustainable society. So, what I’m focusing on at the moment in my research is looking at mechanisms beyond policy appraisal, so looking at mechanisms like parliamentary committees, bodies such as the IPCC, the Climate Change Committee, NICE, looking at how these bodies gather evidence, how they’re embedded within the political process, what kind of barriers they face and how can they overcome these barriers. I’d just like to stress that it’s not always about lack of data or lack of evidence. It’s about the overall purpose of decision making and what is really driving, what are the paradigms, what are the really high-level impetuses behind policy making, because if that doesn’t fit with the data, then the data can often be ignored. Q159 Chair: What about the political will? Dr Russel: That’s what it boils down to—oversight and having the oversight to ensure that the data are used in a way to make the policy process more

transparent. It’s about managing the process of data flows, and that’s pretty crucial. Q160 Martin Caton: Ms Ward, do you want to make a contribution? Halina Ward: Thank you very much. There were two areas that I wanted to highlight. They’re not so much about embedding sustainable development in Government, but about equipping Parliament to play its role in delivering sustainable development. There are two particular areas to consider. One area is about the integration of future generations and the interests of future generations in the fabric of Parliament, and the other is the role of Parliamentary Commissioners. Because we’re short of time, let me just tell you the titles of some of these parliamentary functions. Hungary, which has the most well developed of these functions, has a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations as one of four Parliamentary Commissioners, effectively ombudsmen. He can scrutinise legislation. He has to respond to complaints from members of the public. He can even play a role in formulating Hungary’s position in European Union negotiations. That’s one. Canada has— Q161 Martin Caton: Just on that one, what sanctions has that ombudsman got? Halina Ward: He can initiate court cases. I understand his principal audience—it’s not the limit of his powers—is administrative decisions, but he also has ultimately, I believe, the power to invite or request organisations to cease damaging activities. The translations are difficult from the Hungarian and there are multiple translations. His powers are attached to Hungarian constitutional protection for the right of Hungarian citizens to a healthy environment, but there’s no reason why we have to see that institution as being inherently connected to a written constitution or protection for that kind of right. I have some additional written evidence I’d be very happy to submit to the Committee if that would be useful. Chair: We would be very pleased to receive that. Halina Ward: It’s rather detailed and I’m anxious about putting it on the record here and missing the detail. So, the second I wanted to mention was New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Again, that person, who is appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives, partly responds to requests from Parliament to provide independent advice for Parliament and partly has a right on his or her own initiative to scrutinise certain activities of public agencies. Again, I’d be very happy to provide you with a more detailed role on that. Canada has such a role—the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development. The Israeli Knesset still has relevant legislation and from 2001 to 2006 had a Commission for Future Generations. The Finnish Parliament has a cross-party Parliamentary Committee for the Future. So, these are all mechanisms, creatures of Parliament, which help to equip Parliament, the driver of our democracy at a national level, to play a fuller, better informed and more scrutinising, if you like, role on sustainable development. I think those

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are important areas to look at more closely and we’ll certainly be doing so in the run-up to Rio plus 20 as well. Carol Day: I just wanted to add in to the point about the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner that one of the things that really appealed to both Halina and I was the forward-looking role that the Commissioner can play. Just an example of that, when we were looking at the Marine and Coastal Access Act that was going through in 2009, lots of NGOs were lobbying very hard for the Marine Management Organisation to have a much stronger role in relation to sustainable development. We were pressing for something like, “Promoting or furthering sustainable development”. We weren’t successful in that and we ended up with, “Contributing to the achievement of sustainable development”, which is on a par with most of the other duties on similar bodies but we were hoping to get something much stronger. Now, as NGOs, I think it can be quite difficult, but as a Parliamentary Commissioner who is mandated to perform that function, I think he or she might possibly have been more successful in getting those strategic forward-looking commitments into draft legislation. Chair: Sorry, have you not finished on that? Q162 Martin Caton: No, I have finished on that bit but there is another aspect of the international stage. The Government have decided to withdraw funding from the SDC and to abolish the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Will that be picked up in the international community and, if so, what message are we sending? Halina Ward: I think it will be noticed. The institutional framework for sustainable development is one of the key issues for consideration in the run-up to Rio plus 20 and at Rio plus 20, which is a global reaffirmation of nations’ commitments to sustainable development. That focus on the institutional framework for sustainable development includes the national and the local dimensions as well as the international, and I think perhaps the role of the UK then becomes in a sense convincing that it’s possible to do more with less in the current environment. I think it will be noticed and I think that the UK possibly has to go with some humility into that process and say, “We do want to be the greenest Government ever”. That is the policy commitment”. (I’d like to see this Government saying, “We want to be the fairest ever” as well” because that’s the flipside of sustainable development),—“and here’s how we reconfigured our institutions” and with some humility be prepared to learn from other countries who have not necessarily rolled back on existing institutions and are equally thinking about how to get more sustainable development from less public sector financial resources, if you like. It will be picked up on, though, I think. Carol Day: Can I raise a note of concern in terms of not only where we are now but we are very concerned that it’s going to get worse with something like the Public Bodies Reform Bill? Teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, you all know how controversial this is, but you’ve got something like 177 public bodies potentially affected. Now, quite a large number of

those are bodies which would have sustainable development as part of their functions—even if it’s not their statutory duty. So, if we take the Forestry Commission, the Environment Agency, Natural England, JNCC, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the Marine Management Organisation, quite a few of them, particularly Natural England, can use their powers in lots of ways to promote or further sustainable development. But as far as I’m aware, Natural England is the only body that actually has that aim as part of its statutory purpose in terms of future generations. I think we’d be really worried if public bodies with such innovative functions were in danger of being either abolished, merged or modified by that Bill. Dr Russel: If the UK doesn’t maintain this leadership and continue to be a front-running state. The danger is that it’s not just the UK that is on this earth, it requires action by other states. Now, if the UK is seen to be running backwards rather than going forwards, then that doesn’t send a very positive message out to other nations and other states about embedding sustainable development into policymaking processes. So I think it would send a very dangerous signal and would probably weaken the UK’s position within the negotiating parties and the discussions. Q163 Peter Aldous: If we could just move on and look at the future scrutiny of the Government’s sustainable development performance, just inviting your views as to how you think that scrutiny should be made more effective and where it should be directed. Dr Russel: At the moment, there has been scrutiny of the UK sustainable development strategy and its embedding of sustainable development, including by this Committee, the Sustainable Development Commission, academics, the various bodies. However, to date it’s been quite piecemeal, so just focusing on, for example, policy appraisal or green housekeeping within Government or focusing just on one specific issue such as climate change. And I think the scrutiny and evaluation mechanisms that exist need to actually take—especially in the lead-up to Rio plus 20—a broader perspective of how the UK has and hasn’t been performing, particularly with regard to understanding why as a front-running state in terms of what’s on paper, it hasn’t actually translated to what was expected on the ground. I think that’s where scrutiny has particularly failed. It’s tended to focus on the bits and pieces rather than looking at the whole. You need to look at the bits and pieces, but you need to bring that up to the wider perspective. Q164 Peter Aldous: So, what specifically would you be doing for it to become an overarching approach rather than the piecemeal approach we’ve had to date? Dr Russel: I’d like to say I’d like this Committee to do an investigation. This is the start of the process, I would say. But the problem is with the Sustainable Development Commission losing its funding, then I don’t know where the capacity for this type of thing lies; maybe the National Audit Office or someone like that who has the resources, has the expertise and can provide that broad overview.

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Q165 Peter Aldous: So this Committee backed up with resources from, say, the National Audit Office? Dr Russel: Yes, but you need those resources. Dr Turnpenny: I think it is important that there is a cross-cutting independent body. There was talk before about DEFRA. Holding Government to account has to be done by a body which cuts across Government Departments, doesn’t get bogged down in particular departmental politics, doesn’t get particularly sidetracked by departmental issues, but it’s also independent. It has a step away from Government but it also, crucially, is linked to democratic mechanisms. There needs to be this dual role for a link with a democratic institution and a link with expert advice, one step removed at least from Government. One of the important things about the EAC, one of the important things about the Royal Commission, is that Government have to respond to it. Government have to listen and make some kind of response. The Secretary of State was talking about Government being held to account by the data they it produce. Well, there’s a lot of data. There’s so much data. How do we have a guiding hand through all the data that are being produced? For example, if somebody decides that they don’t like the fact that their house is falling into the sea and they say, “I’m holding Government to account because of this”, the Government don’t have to respond to them. The Government have to respond to a body which has a specific function which is inbuilt within its constitution. So that’s very important. Dr Russel: Can I just add one more point to that? The responses also have to be meaningful and I don’t know how you do that, but looking at the responses to this Committee in the past, some of the Government responses have been pretty glib, I would say, and dismissive without actually providing a robust account of why they made the decision the way they did and why they did things their way. They have often been quite dismissive and I don’t think that’s very constructive. I don’t know how you get around this, but the responses need to be more meaningful, more detailed and more transparent than that. Q166 Katy Clark: I just wanted to pick up this issue of resources because my understanding is that the Sustainable Development Commission has about 700 staff and access to all sorts of expertise. If you’re talking about resources, what kind of resources are needed to fulfil those functions? It’s been suggested to us that this Committee could fulfil that role, and obviously the people on this Committee have got a whole range of other responsibilities as well and, frankly, don’t have that kind of expertise. How much money and resource is needed to fulfil these functions? Chair: I think it might just be helpful, just for the record, what we’re talking about is 700 or so resources that the National Audit Office has as well as the resources which the Sustainable Development Commission have. Halina Ward: Clearly, in the current environment for the immediate future, the role of the Environmental Audit Committee needs to be strengthened because that becomes a principal scrutiny mechanism. That

means access to independent research resources. It means access to the kinds of resources that allow you to play a role in framing visions of sustainable development proactively rather than simply—not that you always do that—responding to what’s already there on the table in terms of Government outputs. That is a role that the Sustainable Development Commission played with its group of independent experts. You could look to tool up the Environmental Audit Committee itself to have access to those research resources, or you could look to tool up the National Audit Office and make its resources available to the Environmental Audit Committee on request when the Audit Committee felt it needed additional resources or independent research inputs or analysis. There’s a certain “ad hocery” to an extent about relying on voluntary written submissions in an evidence process, and I think there is a need to think more about how that could be strengthened. The Finnish Parliamentary Committee for the Future does commission research projects into, for example, the future of democracy. These are very valuable resources and they come out of a cross-party parliamentary committee. I’d like to see you doing more of that. Q167 Katy Clark: I think the fear is that the resource is going to be considerably less and that this is a cut and that these functions aren’t really going to be duplicated elsewhere. That’s why I’m asking whether you think the level of resources that have been put in in the recent past are the appropriate level of resources. Dr Turnpenny: Well, I think it’s clear that there aren’t going to be huge amounts of resources swimming around, but I think that within those constraints the Environmental Audit Committee can hit very hard with a small fist. My personal belief is that the Environmental Audit Committee’s focus on the advocacy role for particular policy ideas and having a safe space for even the most radical of ideas to be proposed and discussed in an environment which is separate from Government is extremely important. Not only that, but it is important to act as a kind of policy entrepreneur to make windows of opportunity in order to grasp chances to bring evidence and ideas and feed it into the policy process when it might be the most receptive to these ideas. We’ve heard about several different countries. The German Enquête Commissions is another good example. Every so often, the Bundestag sets up a commission that is made up half of parliamentarians and half of experts who are invited, and their role is to draw evidence together on a particular topic, a big topic, things like atomic energy, and they then report to Government. You’ve got the expertise; you’ve got the democratic legitimacy. The vote is not always unanimous, but then why should it be? These are big issues. There’s always going to be disagreements; there’s always going to be politics; there’s always going to be an amount of debate. I think it’s important that the debate is at least on the table, that it’s open, that it’s transparent. Halina Ward: Just very briefly:, “was the level of resourcing appropriate?” I don’t know the detail of the

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Sustainable Development Commission’s budget, but in terms of raw cash numbers I would say yes, the resourcing on this issue, sustainable development, the integrated approach to environment, social development and economic development was entirely appropriate. We have lost something very significant, particularly if we aspire to mainstreaming sustainable development, in losing that independent scrutiny function from an arm’s length body. I don’t think, quite simply, that with the current level of resourcing we’re going to get the same quality of scrutiny on an agenda that is, after all, deeply important to the future of us all and future generations. That’s something to really deeply regret. So then we do need to think very creatively about how to get more from less and rejigging current functions or current responsibilities so that if nothing else we can give a much more significant nudge—that famous word—to ordinary citizens and NGOs that this is still something that’s really important and this Government welcome outside scrutiny. Q168 Peter Aldous: All four of you have spoken very passionately about what needs to be done here by Government. What role do you think there is for your three organisations in the future? Carol Day: Well, we can continue to be a thorn in the Government’s side, and we do that across a whole range of functions in terms of our lobbying work here and at international conventions. Yesterday I met with DEFRA and the Ministry of Justice on access to environmental justice, because they’re putting up a very poor performance in terms of the implementation of the Aarhus Convention and social justice is one of the principles that we were talking about in terms of sustainable development. So I think NGOs play an absolutely crucial role in keeping the Government on their toes. But the point I was making before is that we can only go so far and really what we would like to see is a body which is not as vulnerable to Executive attack as we’ve seen. I think the EAC certainly can perform some of those functions but in terms of resources and where else those other functions might be taken forward, clearly that should be somewhere that needs to be independent and impartial. But in terms of NGOs, I think we will always be there to play a vital role in terms of lobbying and making sure that duties are enforced. Q169 Peter Aldous: Just picking up on something Carol said and just thinking of the other three of you, the Secretary of State, who was with us last week, did say that DEFRA are now holding regular stakeholder events, and you’ve just alluded to one there. Have you been involved in those events? Halina Ward: No. I did listen to the Secretary of State’s evidence and it struck me that the language that she used was about convening meetings with civil society groups or NGOs to talk to them about decisions that had already been made. I do think that one of the tremendously valuable roles that NGOs and civil society can play is in bringing new ideas into the policy process. That really needs to be welcomed at a time when the capacity of the public sector and the Government to develop those ideas is restricted. So,

please, open your doors and let us come and talk to you and float the new ideas and the innovative thinking that’s at the cutting edge that might just, with your knowledge from inside Government, be transformed into something that is workable. Q170 Chair: I think this is something that we want to pick up with you, really, because I noticed in your evidence, Halina, that you’d mentioned, I think, that you weren’t aware of this inquiry taking place until the last minute. We have a website and, inside Parliament, we certainly want to be the Select Committee that deals with the environment in a crosscutting way. So any suggestions as to how we could improve our information in order that people can engage with us would be helpful. Suggestions on that would be helpful. But I think the other issue is that what’s coming out of all four of your separate contributions in terms of the evidence to our inquiry this afternoon is that given the decisions which the Government have made and the question marks that there are now about how there will be embedding of sustainable development in policy making by Government in the future, what’s the role of Parliament and Select Committees in this? I think that in the past a Select Committee has had a very clear role and a very clear function, but we’re aware, for example, that the European Scrutiny Committee looks at legislation, looks at directives or has an active role to play. I’m thinking that we need some kind of hybrid whereby we can exercise pre-legislative scrutiny, look at international negotiations and European directives that are coming into this Parliament, and we can look at Government policy in the light of their various pieces of legislation, which is going to get rid of some of the regulations that are there at the moment, for want of a better word. How can we look creatively and innovatively given the resources that we currently have, which are very few compared to what there is within the Sustainable Development Commission? How can we effectively provide that pressure or scrutiny or creativity in terms of where future environmental policy goes? We need to be looking at it in a different light using examples of best practice, so I think that any further thoughts that you’ve got on that, given what you’ve already said today, would be very helpful and we would receive it very gratefully. Dr Turnpenny: There’s a piece of research that I’ve just started doing on different mechanisms for embedding evidence within decision making, as I mentioned before. One of the parts of that is classifying bodies by different functions. So, for example, how far they are away from politics, what kind of policy function they have, how they handle multiple interests and value conflicts, how they interact with the outside world and, of course, different types of scrutiny advisory bodies are appropriate at different times for different situations. So, I think I could certainly contribute. I could send some of the work; I could keep you up to date on the work that I’m doing in that.

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Chair: I think that would be helpful in our recommendations. Dr Turnpenny: Yes, it might help promote some kind of outside thinking about different models that might be appropriate. Chair: I am conscious of time but I know that we did just want to have a series of short questions on localism. Q171 Dr Whitehead: In addition to what we’ve heard about the withdrawal of funding from SDC and the end of the RCEP, there also is, of course, the withdrawal of regional spatial strategies and a number of local indicators, but at the same time the Government have indicated that they wish to drive power downwards towards local authorities and for those local authorities to become more autonomous in their dealings. How, bearing those in mind, might we ensure that perhaps that move is a policy that causes local authorities in general to pursue better sustainable development arrangements rather than perhaps, not to put too fine a point on it, a charter for fractured NIMBYs at various local levels without actually pulling that data back to see what’s happening? Chair: We are short for time, so one of you, please. Dr Whitehead: Sorry, that’s an all-purpose question. Halina Ward: It’s really important that local authorities continue to value the expertise that they can add to local decision-making processes, even if those processes are very highly devolved to community groups. It’s very important that local authorities continue to value the role that they can play in setting local policy frameworks against which actions are judged. And it’s very important to ensure that local authorities have mechanisms for ensuring that trade-offs, where one community makes a decision at the expense of another, are properly managed as between local authorities. I see a real risk that localism could bring unsustainable development because one community’s woodland amenity is another community’s dark, spooky, unsafe place that needs to be razed to the ground and turned into a lovely park. That is happening and unless communities and local authorities stress the value of expertise and local policy frameworks in those highly decentralised localist decisions we’re going to have real problems with localism, I think. We also like it from a sustainable development perspective because lots of decisions need properly to be made at the local level. Q172 Dr Whitehead: But that’s the dichotomy, isn’t it? There could be much greater autonomy at local level but, as you say, the problem is the Sudan dam phenomenon breaking out where one authority’s

autonomy is actually undermining another local authority’s action, for example. Halina Ward: It has to continue within a local policy framework rather than being completely devolved so that the loudest community groups get what they want and other people get shut out. Carol Day: Can I just very quickly add to that? I totally share your concerns. I used to work on planning for 10 years at local county wildlife trust level, and I think the danger is at the moment local authorities are going to be making decisions in an almost total policy vacuum because they don’t have the detail they used to have in the planning policy guidance notes before them. I think that will lead to delays and sometimes bad decision making, more legal action and certainly people being very frightened and taking defensive decisions. So I think greater involvement in terms of public engagement in spatial planning but also in other things like identification of marine conservation zones, for example. We need people to be getting involved otherwise those decisions could be very bad. Halina Ward: What we need is a mass investment in a sense of active citizenship, rather than simply doing good to our neighbours and volunteering at the local school or hospital. That does require an investment, and it requires an investment that local authorities can play a tremendously important role in as well. Q173 Chair: Do you see evidence that that’s happening at the moment? Halina Ward: I don’t yet. I hope it will and I hope that we can help to ensure that it does. Dr Russel: Very quickly, I think there’s a real danger that sustainable development will belong to nobody, because the Government are not taking responsibility and the local authorities aren’t being mandated to take responsibility. So, there’s a danger it’s going to fall between the gaps of responsibility. I think, crucially, even within the Government localism agenda, it’s up to central Government to set the tone to steer what should be going on, while also allowing flexibility for localities to be able to operate within that agenda. So, it is a matter of setting goals and targets and allowing some kind of flexibility in terms of how they’re met. Without that, I think ownership will be lost by everybody and we have a mess, basically. Dr Turnpenny: It should be an intelligent devolution of power rather than a devolution of responsibility. Halina Ward: And statutory duties on local authorities matter in that at the local level. Chair: Thank you. With that, I think we’ve come to the end of the session this afternoon. It’s been most helpful and I’m grateful to you all for coming along. Thank you very much indeed.

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Written evidence Written evidence submitted by the new economics foundation Summary Sustainable development objectives are universally supported in principle, but are often not acted on when they conflict with more immediately pressing objectives. It is this conflict that has to be managed. The traditional approach is to institutionalise the conflict into different departmental points of view. The alternative, which we recommend, is to make the conflict the business of a central unit. This is because the traditional approach: — Is at times wasteful and inefficient. — Makes it difficult for the government to respond in an agile way when things don’t go according to plan. — Cannot mobilise society for the major changes that will be needed in the 2020s. — Cannot provide the kind of strategic perspective which the scale of the challenge demands. — Cannot give enough air time to non-climate change threats to sustainability. Hence we recommend: — The Cabinet Office Minister of State should have responsibility for ensuring that the prosperity and well-being of citizens today is not bought at the expense of their prosperity and well-being in the future. — There should be a dedicated unit serving the Minister of State, to develop a long term strategy, to monitor performance against this, and to co-ordinate and engage with all those whose support will be needed for implementation. — The unit should hold a significant budget which it would then allocate to departments—this would be instead of not in addition to existing budgets. — The Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) should each report regularly on the adequacy of the evolving strategy, the success with which it is being implemented and on potential improvements. Main Submission How can mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of Government operations, procurement and policy-making be improved and further embedded and mainstreamed across Government departments? 1. Our response covers policy only and is based on a single, simple observation. Sustainable development objectives are universally supported in principle, but are often not acted on when they conflict with more immediately pressing objectives. It is this conflict between the long and the short term that makes the issue difficult and it is this conflict that has to be managed. This requires both effective policy making and effective and independent policy auditing: there are biases in government towards the short term and against action and we need external pressures to counter them. 2. As far as policy making is concerned we believe there are two possible approaches to managing the conflict: — The conflict can be institutionalised into different departmental points of view, and resolved through cabinet committees, cross cutting targets and the associated machinery. This was the approach of the last government. — The conflict can become the business of a central unit, either permanently or at least for a while, and resolved through a combination of strategic analysis and the widest possible engagement with the private and public sectors and the public at large. This is the approach we recommend. 3. There are good arguments for preserving the previous approach: playing out the conflict in this way helps ensure that different points of view are represented, with the political equivalent of the invisible hand resolving differences. However we also believe it has real shortcomings (the examples are all from before May of this year): — It is at times wasteful and inefficient, with work being duplicated in different places to support different departmental agendas (for example on occasion this happened on supply chains, low carbon skills and consumption patterns), and poor alignment of policy development and implementation (for example on employment subsidies, fuel poverty, behaviour change and regional policy).

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— It makes it difficult for the government to respond in an agile way when things don’t go according to plan—institutional bias and associated entrenched positions are designed into the system. One senior official has said that this slowness is actually a merit of the system, preventing politicians from constantly shooting off in new directions, but anyone who has worked in the private sector will know that responding to events slowly is hardly a pre-condition of good strategic decision making. — It cannot mobilise society for the fundamental changes all parties agree will be needed in the 2020s and beyond, and indeed sends out very mixed signals: business, citizens and indeed the public sector need a very clear sense of where government thinks we are going if they are to play their role. — It cannot provide the kind of strategic perspective demanded by the scale of the challenges involved; these are simply too large for the negotiation of trade offs, micro-economic analysis and direction (or nudging) from the centre that the current structures are designed to deliver. As a result, no-one is dealing with them (as one senior official in a position to know has put it). A much broader strategic approach is needed, integrating economics (ie how to mobilise the private sector), organisational strategy (ie how to mobilise and co-ordinate government and the wider public sector) and political strategy (ie how to mobilise the public). The Secretary of State for the Environment told the House of Commons on 22 July that “We will put processes in place to join up activity across Government much more effectively.” Governments have been trying to do that unsuccessfully since the middle ages; it is strategy not simply process that makes effective joining up of major policy development possible. — It does not effectively integrate responses to non-climate change threats to sustainability into long term economic policy—the process is structured as a negotiation (between say DECC and BIS) which means the third player (in practice often DEFRA, representing biodiversity for example) does not get the air time it deserves. 4. Hence we recommend a structure along the following lines: — The Cabinet Office Minister of State should have responsibility for ensuring that the prosperity and well-being of citizens today is not bought at the expense of their prosperity and well-being in the future; he should also be the Prime Minister’s representative in negotiations between departments on this agenda. — There should be a dedicated unit serving the Minister of State, to develop a long term strategy, to monitor performance against this, and to co-ordinate and engage with all those whose support will be needed for implementation; the Director of the unit could also be a member of the No 10 Staff. — The unit should hold a significant budget which it would then allocate to departments—this would be instead of not in addition to existing budgets. — The Minister of State should chair a quarterly meeting of junior ministers across Whitehall with sustainable development responsibilities, with a view to spotting and nurturing opportunities for co-ordination and co-operation and for generating new ideas. — The remit of Cabinet sub-committee ED(EE) should be expanded to include policies designed to ensure sustainability and the successful transition to a low carbon, sustainable economy (it should also be rebadged). 5. The role of the central unit in more detail would be: — To identify risks and ways of mitigating these. — To caretake and communicate an evolving framework for the policies designed to deliver the transformation to a low carbon, sustainable economy. — To monitor performance against the metrics in this framework, building on existing systems such as carbon budgets. — To co-ordinate and ideally reduce the number of Whitehall initiatives that fit within this framework, and where there are policy conflicts, create areas of agreement that can be acted on, when necessary negotiating changes. — To build capability by providing analytical tools for policy makers (eg inputs to the Green Book), advice, training and commissioned research — To stimulate and respond to the networks beyond Whitehall that encourage creative, joined up policy. — To engage with the public, business and the public and third sectors. 6. This would make much of the role of the Sustainable Development Programme Office in DEFRA redundant. 7. We believe this unit, if it stuck to this brief, would win the necessary Whitehall support. The Institute for Government reported recently in “Shaping Up” (2010) that while senior officials would strongly resist “micromanagement”, they would generally welcome “stronger leadership” from the centre. We also believe that a

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small but strategic centre is more compatible with devolution of powers to local government than is traditional departmentalism. 8. As to the policy audit process, we recommend that the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) each report regularly on the adequacy of the evolving strategy, the success with which it is being implemented and on potential improvements. The CCC would, of course, be concerned purely with climate change; the EAC, ideally reporting after the CCC and incorporating its findings, would take a broader view of sustainability. We recommend that the EAC is supported by the National Audit Office in this work. How can governance arrangements for sustainable development in Government be improved, and how can sustainability reporting by Government departments be made more transparent and accountable? 9. Our response covers policy only. The existing sustainability reporting as it applies to policy making is largely post hoc justification and as such a complete waste of time and money. The various official structures that have from time to time sprung up (such as the Sustainable Development Programme Board) have been equally pointless. 10. The governance and reporting have to be conducted by a unit with the confidence of the Prime Minister. What it says will then count—but, conscious of the need to retain that confidence, it will also remain sensitive to the conflicting pressures that departments face. Hence our recommendation above that the unit reporting to the Cabinet Office Minister of State is also responsible for monitoring policy across government: it would develop the strategy, monitor progress across government against that strategy, and then report on that progress to the Cabinet, as well as the EAC and the CCC. The latter, as noted, would then supply an independent audit. Was the SDC successful in fulfilling its remit? Which aspects of its work have reached a natural end, or are otherwise of less importance, and which remain of particular continuing importance? 11. Promoting awareness of the concept of sustainable development The SDC established greater awareness of the concept amongst a number of officials, largely but not exclusively those dealing with operations and procurement. It also had some successes in its work with DCFS on the curriculum. However it was not successful at promoting the concept to the wider world. The concept— basically not depriving our children and their children of a decent life—is very simple and intuitively appealing. The SDC, and DEFRA under the last government, made it rather complex and difficult to understand. Promoting wider awareness of the need for sustainable development—and of how this means more than dealing with climate change—remains of vital importance. 12. Establishing good working practices within Government The SDC made a significant contribution to establishing good operations and procurement working practices within Government (it did not influence policy working practices). This was largely through its successful SOGE and SDIG reports and associated capability building processes. Much of this work is done and the baton can easily be passed on to the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement. 13. Advising key Ministers and others across Government The SDC partly fulfilled its remit in this respect: it was successful in DH and in DCSF/ DfE but less successful in other departments. This was probably because it failed to win the trust of key Ministers, and was unable (and to some extent unwilling) to use its inside track to identify how it could help Ministers solve the problems they faced. 14. Monitoring performance against sustainable development targets and reporting on these. As just noted, the SDC fulfilled its remit in this respect effectively, in so far as the targets related to central government operations and procurement. In formulating a future architecture for sustainable development in Government, how can it take on board wider developments and initiatives (eg to develop “sustainability reporting” in departments’ accounts) and the contributions that other bodies might make (eg Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement)? 15. We do not have any additional comments to make under this heading. How, without the assistance of the SDC, will the Government be able to demonstrate that it is “the greenest government ever”? 16. The extension of the Cabinet Office Minister of State’s remit as proposed above, together with the formation of a supporting unit and the development of ED(EE)’s remit, would begin to demonstrate the

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Government’s commitment. The kind of public engagement that we are calling on the new unit to perform would continue to demonstrate this. 11 October 2010

Written evidence submitted by WWF-UK and FDSD Bullet Point Summary 1. The Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (FDSD) and WWF-UK (WWF) welcome the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into how sustainable development can be further embedded in Government policy decision-making and operations. 2. This is an important inquiry. And it is also a timely one—particularly in the light of the Government’s decision to withdraw funding for the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) as of March 2011. Whilst we are naturally concerned about the implications of the decision to effectively abolish the SDC, we also recognise that this provides the government with an excellent opportunity to ensure that the UK’s approach to sustainable development is addressed systematically, institutionally and democratically. 3. We want to see sustainable development integrated into the heart of the UK’s democracy, elevated to becoming a central organizing principle of both national (central) and local level government. That has not yet happened. For it to happen, it will be important to place greater emphasis on the role of Parliament as a central driver of democratic decision-making for sustainable development. Independent watch-dogs, such as the SDC, are valuable but vulnerable to attack by the Executive, rather than Parliament. 4. There is a range of governance options for addressing the imperative to make sustainable development an organising principle of government, building on the UK’s continuing international obligations in respect of sustainable development as well as the nation’s approach to sustainable development to date. This could include constitutional, legislative and executive protections. 5. The Coalition government has committed to place two “animating purposes” at the heart of its term: bringing about a radical redistribution of power from central government to local communities and people; and governing for the long-term (see DPM Nick Clegg’s “Horizon Shift” speech of 9 September1). Each could potentially reinforce a national commitment to sustainable development. But the UK’s current overall governance architecture does not provide the right “enabling environment”. 6. There is currently little to ensure that sustainable development outcomes result from the power shift and long-term thinking that the Coalition government wishes to promote. We are convinced that institutional innovation is needed to secure the right “enabling environment”. 7. Unfortunately, our attention was drawn to the existence of this inquiry only within the past day. Both the Foundation and WWF would welcome the opportunity to submit more detailed commentary or oral evidence to the Committee in due course. 8. Our submission is focused on the first part of the Inquiry’s fourth question: “[i]n formulating a future architecture for sustainable development in Government, how can it take on board wider developments and initiatives?” Introduction 9. WWF-UK is one of the world’s leading independent environmental organisations, with established experience in the management and conservation of natural ecosystems world wide. WWF-UK’s Legal Unit term implements a programme of wide-ranging and strategic activities aimed at achieving targeted but fundamental improvements to the consideration of environmental law within the legal systems of England and Wales, the UK, Europe and the UNECE. This response is made on behalf of the Legal Unit. 10. The Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (FDSD) is a UK charity launched in September 2009. Uniquely, our work is dedicated to developing ideas and innovative practices so that democratic decision-making can work better for sustainable development. We see the pressures and conditions leading to unsustainable development as symptoms of democratic failure. 11. Both groups undertake a wide range of activities on sustainable development. However, for the purposes of the present submission we confine our comments to informing the Committee about research commissioned in October 2010. The research is designed to inform an emerging debate on whether, in the light of rapid-evolving institutional change within Government, there is an opportunity to establish new, innovative mechanisms to underpin commitments to environmental justice and sustainable development, thereby ensuring that the interests of future generations are brought to the heart of the UK’s democracy. 12. The aims of the research commissioned by FDSD and WWF are two-fold: (1) to examine whether the absence of a written Constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment in the UK is an obstacle to institutional innovation for environmental justice, sustainable development and future generations; and (2) if not, to identify—on the basis of comparative research—a range of institutional options/mechanisms to 1

See http://www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Nick_Clegg_speech%3A_Horizon_shift&pPK=f8f7b543-d586–40e2b4c9-e7be68970bf3

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further integrate sustainable development, environmental justice and inter-generational equity into the UK’s political and policy processes. The research is being carried out by Peter Roderick, who is also a signatory to this submission. The Hungarian Model as an Example of Recent International Developments 13. The stimulus for our research came from a meeting convened in February 2010 by FDSD, the Government Legal Service Environment Group and the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (UKELA) and hosted by the Ministry of Justice, at which the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations was invited to speak about his role. More information about the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner can be found at the link below2. However, we provide the following information for the Committee by way of summary. 14. In 2007, the Hungarian Parliament resolved to create a new independent watchdog function, informally known as the “green ombudsman”, to safeguard the constitutionally protected right of Hungarian citizens to a healthy environment. The idea stemmed from work conducted by a Budapest-based NGO Védegylet (“Protect the Future”). In 2000, Protect the Future had proposed an institution that could act as a spokesman for those who are the “most excluded of the excluded” from democratic representation: that is, future generations. It was Protect the Future member László Sólyom, former President of Hungary (until August 2010), who drafted the law establishing the Green Ombudsman role. 15. In May 2008, the Hungarian Parliament elected environmental lawyer, academic and former public prosecutor Dr Sándor Fülöp to become Hungary’s first Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations for a six-year term. The Commissioner for Future Generations is one of four Parliamentary Ombudsmen, with others addressing civil rights, data protection and freedom of information, and the rights of “national and ethnic minorities”, respectively. 16. Ombudsmen typically work to investigate organisational and functional “maladministration” of one kind or another. However, the Hungarian Green Ombudsman’s functions are far broader. Whilst he is mandated to investigate complaints relating to a broad range of environmental issues (familiar “Ombudsman” territory), the functions assigned to his role reach deep into the policy process. The Green Ombudsman is mandated to act as a policy advocate for “sustainability” issues across all relevant fields of national and local legislation and public policy (including acting as a source of specialist advice to Parliament). Plus, he has a wider mandate to widen the knowledge base—undertaking or promoting research projects targeting the long-term sustainability of human societies. UK Parallels 17. It is over 20 years since sustainable development was adopted international as the policy language for recognizing that human beings must not be allowed to continue to deplete the earth and its life, without jeopardising the ability of future generations to provide for their own needs. Over that period, increasing attention has been given within UK government and Parliament both to sustainable development and to the interests of “future generations”. 18. For example, in the UK, four Children’s Commissioners work to promote the views and best interests of children and all young people. And whilst there are (at least) twelve Government ombudsmen in the UK whose offices look into complaints about discrete organisations or kinds of organisations, there is no direct equivalent of the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. 19. Furthermore, a number of directly relevant Parliamentary Committees have been established (including the Environmental Audit Committee), and they play an important role in bringing sustainable development considerations to the parliamentary process. And Parliament’s support services also provide a valuable role—for example through the imminent Environmental Limits report of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. 20. Extensive relevant policy activity includes the Foresight Programme; the July 2010 Government Economic Service’s Review of the Economics of Sustainable Development; the two-year National Ecosystem Assessment (due to report in early 2011), followed by Defra’s Natural Environment White Paper in April 2011 and in July 2011 by its revised guidance on Impact Assessments, the Green Book and other policy appraisal guidance to take account of sustainability and the value of nature. 21. Finally, there has been a myriad of ad hoc statutory interventions, almost entirely in the broad environmental field (e.g. a search of the UK Statute Law Database provides 173 results for “sustainable development” and 8 results for “future generations”). 22. There are significant limitations to these and other initiatives. For example, a 2007 report of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, “governing the future”,3 begins with a preamble which highlights the importance of “governing for the future”, but is actually a review and set of recommendations on “strategic thinking” within government. 23. Whilst the Environmental Audit Committee has the power to consider the extent to which the policies and programmes of Government departments and non-departmental public bodies contribute to environmental 2 3

See http://jno.hu/en/?&menu=home http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmpubadm/123/123i.pdf

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24.

25.

26.

27.

protection and sustainable development, its powers fall considerably short of those enjoyed by the Hungarian Green Ombudsman. Similarly, the SDC—whilst originally established as an independent advisory body on sustainable development—did not have such a wide ranging and strategic remit. The decision to establish and then withdraw funding for it aptly illustrates the pitfalls of relying solely on executive, rather than legislative, action, to embed sustainable development within government. In contrast to these piecemeal guarantees of sustainable development, sustainable development has been placed at the heart of the Welsh Assembly’s governance of Wales. The Assembly’s website announces that “Sustainable development is the process by which we reach the goal of sustainability. It is the central organising principle of the Welsh Assembly Government and the public sector in Wales.”4 The UK’s “hotchpotch” approach can be contrasted with those countries where there appears to have been more systematic consideration of how best to embed sustainable development within government (although we have not yet evaluated the outcomes). For example, one legal study has identified 17 countries where “future generations” have been recognised constitutionally, as motivating forces and in substantive provisions, either directly or linked to environment or sustainable development (Czech Republic, France, Estonia, Andorra, Ecuador, Argentina, South Africa, Belgium, Armenia, Bolivia, Burundi, Cuba, Germany, Bhutan, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine). Countries including Hungary, Canada, New Zealand and Israel have passed laws to create offices of varying kinds and powers to champion the environment and sustainable development. In 1993, the Finnish Government created a cross-party “Committee for the Future”, charged with carrying out an “active and initiative-generating dialogue with the Government on major future problems and means of solving them”. The Israeli Knesset passed legislation to enable the creation of a Commission for Future Generations, a non-political entity which operated from 2001 until 2006. Headed by a Commissioner for Future Generations, the Commission’s functions included providing parliament with opinions and recommendations and other issues relevant to future generations.

An evolving UK Debate 28. Following Dr Fülöp’s inspirational visit in February 2010, FDSD convened an NGO meeting to discuss what inspiration the UK could take from his role. The meeting recognised that the establishment of some form of “Parliamentary Commissioner” for the environment and/or future generations was only one possibility. 29. The NGO meeting considered whether the absence of a written constitution in the UK may make it difficult to replicate such a model in the UK. At the same time, some participants recognised that existing rights and responsibilities arising from international, EU and domestic legislation may mean that there is no need for a formal constitutional “right to a clean and healthy environment” as a precondition for institutional innovation in the interests of sustainable development and future generations. It was on this basis that FDSD and WWF commissioned the research outlined above. And in a related initiative, a group of UK NGOs and individuals (working both in the UK and internationally) wrote to the Rt Hon David Cameron MP and Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP in June 2010, urging the new Coalition government to “future proof” UK democratic processes, thus tackling short-termism in the nation’s governance (letter attached for information). 30. Ensuring the needs of both present and future generations are met in the interests of sustainable development requires a systematic Parliamentary and institutional approach. 31. The Government’s decision to withdraw funding for the SDC (alongside decisions to abolish a number of other public bodies) makes this inquiry particularly timely. The Coalition Government has committed itself to being the “greenest ever”—to deliver a green and more responsible economy, fairness and the Big Society—whilst cutting the deficit, increasing efficiency and delivering structural reform to create better value for the tax payer. The Government will look beyond near-term pressures to support reforms that better position the UK for meeting long-term demographic, economic, environmental and social challenges, any of which could imperil long-term fiscal stability if left unattended.—(HM Treasury (2010) The Spending Review framework). 32. We see a significant risk, with the withdrawal of funding for the SDC and failure to provide institutional underpinning for the Coalition government’s commitment to long-term thinking, that the UK has withdrawn from the idea of sustainable development as an overarching societal goal; let alone one that is embedded at the heart of our country’s democracy. Political commitments to make this government “the greenest ever”, to “govern for the long-term” and to promote a “power shift” have potential to support, but do not add up to, sustainable development. This is particularly worrying at a time when the world community is beginning preparations for a World Summit on Sustainable Development (dubbed “Rio + 20”) to be held in 2012. Concluding Remarks 33. There is a range of possible mechanisms to ensure this government embeds sustainable development 4

http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/?lang=en

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across the broad spectrum of policy decision-making and operations. Some of these are raised in this submission. However, as our research progresses, we undertake to send the Committee and the government further information about the particular mechanisms that we consider offer long-term, cross-cutting and cost-effective benefits for environmental protection, access to justice and sustainable development. We do not see “future generations” or even “long-term thinking” as a substitute for the core idea of sustainable development—that human activity and decision-making needs to take account of environmental, social and environmental issues in an integrated way. But both are currently systematically under-dimensioned in both the UK’s institutional architecture and its commitment to sustainable development. Adding institutional weight to the interests of future generations offers significant potential to systematically embed sustainable development in the UK. 34. At this stage, we simply draw the Committee’s attention to the following broad range of possibilities: 35. Constitutional protection could include express recognition of the rights and interests of future generations or the right to a clean and healthy environment within constitutional instruments, and in the law-making process (such as a part of the reform of the House of Lords) 36. Statutory protection duties—appropriate duties could ensure that public authorities are obliged to consider how their decisions could impact on future generations, to demonstrate if they were favouring present over future generations (and vice versa), and not to take decisions that could have significant effects on the ability of future generations to provide for their own needs. An analogous example of how the first element of these duties might be formulated can be seen in section 1(1) of the Equality Act 2010 (“An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage”). 37. Institutional protection—the creation of a new body could help ensure that a “missing dimension” of sustainable development was embedded within government, by ensuring that the rights, interests and voices of future generations are recognized, championed and heard within our democratic process and governance system at national level. Such a body might broadly drawn on the parallels of the UK’s Children’s Commissioners, who work to champion children, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission in respect of equality and human rights. A new body would need to participate in the development of policy and law, and to have the right to receive petitions from members of the public and to make recommendations to public bodies. The office or body should be under legislative, not executive control. 38. Voluntary protection—this could not of itself ensure that sustainable development was placed at the heart of government, but might include, for example, further development of community-led initiatives such as those exemplified by the Transition Town movement, local future councils and forums, and the Scotland Futures Forum. 39. In addition, local authority protection could serve to place sustainable development at the heart of spatial planning (as for example envisaged by Section 39 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004) and to ensure that the government’s planned “power shift” results in mass pursuit of sustainable development at local level, not licence for a myriad of local groups to pursue “nimby” (not in my back yard) interests at the expense of integrated approaches to sustainable development. 40. We hope that our submission reinforces the need for the government to address the integration of sustainable development in the business of governance in a strategic and long-term manner and prompts the Committee to consider a range of new and innovative mechanisms to further sustainable development. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require further information about any of the points raised in this submission. 13 October 2010

Supplementary written evidence submitted by WWF-UK and the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development This Addendum contains summaries of legislation in Canada, Hungary, Israel and New Zealand providing for Commissioners who are independent of the executive and who have varying powers relevant to protecting the environment and future generations; and an impressionistic summary of the Committee for the Future established by and within the Finnish Parliament. Very brief indications of some of their experience, and an evaluation, are outlined at the end of each summary, but these are not intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive. The following aspects of these different institutions might be worth noting in overview: — the longest-established institution, New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, probably has the scrutiny role that is nearest to that of the Environmental Audit Committee in the UK, with a similar role also undertaken by the civil servant appointed by the Auditor General of Canada to be the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development;

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— only the elected Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations is obliged to investigate petitions from members of the public, though the Canadian Commissioner examines and monitors responses from ministers to petitions received by them, and the New Zealand Commissioner invites the public to suggest investigations; — a unique legislative foundation for advocacy in favour of the environment, sustainability and future generations has been given to the Hungarian Commissioner, combining in particular: investigation of complaints from members of the public; participation in the law-making process and in Hungary’s position in EU negotiations; intervention to prevent activities which are violating or which could violate the right to a healthy environment guaranteed in the constitution; and strategic research; — the closest structural involvement with the law-making process has been provided for in the law establishing the Speaker-appointed Knesset Commissioner for Future Generations within the Israeli Parliament, though the Hungarian and New Zealand Commissioners have important functions here as well; — visionary and forum roles appear to be the hallmarks of Finland’s Committee for the Future, which appears not to have a scrutiny role, not to receive or to investigate petitions, and not to intervene to prevent environmentally-damaging activities; — the right to a healthy environment guaranteed in the Hungarian constitution is central to the Commissioner’s functions in that country. In Canada, Israel and New Zealand, the absence of any such constitutional right (or associated State duty), evidently did not prevent the establishment of the institution. In Finland, the right to a healthy environment is referred to as one of two foci of a weak constitutional duty on public authorities, but appears to be unconnected to the work of the Committee for the Future. It can be reasonably concluded therefore that the existence, or otherwise, of a right to a healthy environment, or of a duty on the State to achieve the right, is not a prerequisite to the establishment of an institution independent of the executive to protect the environment and future generations. Equally, and bearing in mind as well the general supremacy of Parliament in our own constitution, their existence or otherwise in the UK would not be a bar to the creation of a similar institution here. Canada Summary: A Commissioner, appointed by and reporting to the Auditor General (AG) since 1995, for the purpose of reporting, monitoring, examining and inquiring into progress by federal government bodies towards sustainable development; to help process petitions “about an environmental matter in the context of sustainable development” from Canadian citizens to which Ministers must respond within an extendable period of 120 days; to examine and monitor those responses; and, since 2007, to report at least biannually on Canada’s progress in meeting its Kyoto reduction obligations. The “needs of future generations”, as a component of sustainable development, are expressly included within the Commissioner’s remit. 301 petitions have been filed since 1995, and an independent report in 2008 found that the Commissioner and AG had had “a positive impact on the federal government’s management of environmental and sustainable development issues”; had “served an important educational role”; and had “developed a strong domestic and international reputation as a centre of excellence in environmental auditing.” There is no substantive right to a healthy environment contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Legal basis and appointment The Canadian Parliament legislated in 1995 “to help strengthen parliamentary oversight of the federal government’s efforts to protect the environment and to foster sustainable development”5. It did so by amending the Auditor General Act6, to create the office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, in the office of, and appointed by, the Auditor General (who herself is a Parliamentary appointee7). Under section 15.1 of the Act, the Commissioner is to be “a senior officer” who “shall assist the Auditor General in performing the duties of the Auditor General set out in this Act that relate to the environment and sustainable development.” The appointment of the Commissioner is to be made in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act, and no term is provided for. (The Auditor General is appointed for ten years, and cannot be re-appointed.) 5

6 7

Foreword to the Report of the Independent Green Ribbon Panel, January 2008, entitled “Fulfilling the Potential: A Review of the Environment and Sustainable Development Practice of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada” , available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/acc_rpt_e_29778.html#p1 The Act, as amended, can be read here (accessed 04/11/10): http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/A-17/FullText.html Under s.3 of the Auditor General Act, the AG is appointed by the Governor in Council “by commission under the Great Seal… after consultation with the leader of every recognized party in the Senate and House of Commons and approval of the appointment by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons.”

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Constitutional rights The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains the usual kind of civil and political rights, and does not contain a substantive right to live in a clean or healthy environment (or similar formulation)8. Powers The Commissioner has statutory powers to: — report, monitor, examine and inquire into progress by federal government bodies towards sustainable development; — help process petitions “about an environmental matter in the context of sustainable development” from Canadian citizens to which Ministers must respond within an extendable period of 120 days; — examine and monitor those responses; and, — since 2007, report at least biannually on Canada’s progress in meeting its Kyoto reduction obligations. The “needs of future generations”, as a component of sustainable development, are expressly included within the Commissioner’s remit (section.21.1(h)). Experience and evaluation 301 petitions are listed on the Commissioner’s website as having been filed between October 1996 and June 20109. 28 petitions were filed between 1 July 2008—30 June 2009, about half the number in the previous year, relating mainly to health, biodiversity, fish habitat, and environmental assessment. 77% of responses were provided within the required 120 days (compared with 86% the previous year, and 95% the year before).10 In 2008, an independent review of the Commissioner’s practice reported as follows: “Despite a diversity of perspectives on future directions, on one issue there was almost total unanimity: Over the past 12 years, the Office of the Auditor General and the Commissioner have had a positive impact on the federal government’s management of environmental and sustainable development issues. They have also served an important educational role. No one said otherwise. We agree. Within the mandate established by Parliament, we believe the Commissioner and the Office of the Auditor General have done a good job. They have developed a strong domestic and international reputation as a centre of excellence in environmental auditing.”11 Hungary Summary: Since 2008, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations has been one of four ombudsmen elected by the unicameral Hungarian Parliament. He is charged with protecting the constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental right to a healthy environment, and receives petitions from those concerned that that right has been, or is in danger of being, violated. He must investigate proper petitions and make recommendations to the relevant public body, and he can investigate violations on his own initiative. He has duties aimed at improving law enforcement, legislation, and implementation of international treaties, and can ask the Constitutional Court to intervene, as well the duty to participate in formulating Hungary’s position at the EU level. He has powers aimed at controlling the activities of individuals and companies that actually and potentially harm the environment; at moving the competent regulatory authorities to use their own powers to restrain environmentally-damaging activities; and at suspending the decisions of administrative bodies which permit activities that harm the environment. In performing his functions, he has significant powers to obtain information, to enter property and to publicise his proceedings. The Commissioner has said that he also carries out strategic development and research, covering the duty of representing the interests of future generations. By the end of last year, he had completed 97 investigations as a result of over 400 petitions received, which mostly relate to local spatial plans, noise and air pollution; and had participated in scores of legislative consultations and proposals. 8

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The Charter is set out in Part 1 of the Constitution Act 1982 enacted by the Canadian Parliament (available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/9.html#anchorsc:7); and in Schedule B of the Canada Act 1982, simultaneously enacted by the UK Parliament (available here (accessed on 29/11/10): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/pdfs/ukpga_19820011_en.pdf http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/legResults.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=Canada+Act&Year=1982&searchEnacted=0& extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0& activeTextDocId=1268538 http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/pet_lp_e_938.html See Chapter 4 of the 2009 Fall Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_cesd_200911_04_e_33199.html See the Executive Summary (Key conclusions) of the report referred to above in footnote 1, available here (accessed on 4/11/ 10): http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/acc_rpt_e_29778.html#p1

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Legal basis and election The Hungarian Ombudsman Act12 provides for the election of a Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights in order to ensure the protection of fundamental rights. It also provides for additional “special ombudsmen” to be elected by a two-thirds majority of its unicameral parliament for the protection of certain fundamental rights.13 The right to a healthy environment is contained in the Hungarian Constitution (see below). In May 2008, the Hungarian Parliament elected Dr. Sándor Fülöp as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations as a special ombudsman “[i]n order to ensure the protection of the fundamental right to healthy environment [sic]”.14 He has been elected for a term of six years, which can be renewed once.15 Constitutional rights Article 18 of the Hungarian Constitution provides (translated into English16) as follows: “The Republic of Hungary recognizes and shall implement the individual’s right to a healthy environment.” In the English translation of Section 27/A. § (1) of the Ombudsman Act on the website of the Commissioner for Future Generations, this right is described as a “fundamental right”: “In order to ensure the protection of the fundamental right to healthy environment [sic] Parliament shall elect the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations as special ombudsman.” The Hungarian Constitutional Court has also stated that: “the State does not enjoy the liberty of letting the condition of the environment deteriorate or allowing the risk of deterioration”17 Petitions Any person may petition any of the ombudsmen, including the Commissioner, if that person considers that a public authority or body performing a public service has caused a violation of a fundamental right or the direct danger thereof, subject to the exhaustion of available administrative legal remedies (excluding judicial review)18. The Commissioner may also act ex officio in order to terminate the violation (i.e., of his own motion, without waiting to receive a petition). The Commissioner is obliged to “examine” petitions, and to “select himself the measure deemed to be purposeful within the framework of this Act” unless the matter is before, or has been heard by, a court, or if he deems it to be “of small importance” (section 17. § (1)). The Commissioner must “reject evidently unfounded petitions, as well as petitions submitted repeatedly and containing no new fact or data on the merits, and he may reject petitions not submitted by the party entitled to do so, or anonymously submitted ones” (section 19. § (2)). If he investigates and finds a violation of the fundamental right to a healthy environment, the Commissioner may make a draft “recommendation for remedy” to the relevant authority, who must respond within 30 days with its “standpoint on the merits”. Thereafter, the Commissioner has 15 days within which to confirm, amend or withdraw his recommendation (section 20. § (1)). His recommendations can, in certain circumstances, extend to proposing the amendment, repeal or passing of legislation (section 25). If the authority fails to form its “standpoint on the merits and to take the measures corresponding to it”, or if the Commissioner disagrees with the standpoint or the measures taken, he must inform Parliament in his annual report, and may request that the case be investigated by Parliament. Where he considers the violation to be “extraordinar[il]y grave or if it affects a larger group of natural persons, he may initiate that Parliament put the debate of the given issue on its agenda already before the annual report” (s.26. § (1)). 12

13 14 15 16

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Act LIX of 1993 on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights. An English translation of the Act is available here (accessed on 4/10/10): http://jno.hu/en/?menu=legisl_t&doc=LIX_of_1993 Act LIX of 1993, section 2. § (1) and (2). Act LIX of 1993, section 27/A. § (1). Act LIX of 1993, section 4. § (5). See here (accessed on 8/11/10): http://net.jogtar.hu/jr/gen/getdoc.cgi?docid=94900020.tv&dbnum=62.The translation on e-page 10 of the English language Comprehensive Summary of the Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, published in July 2010 (“the 2010 Summary Report”) is slightly different: “The Republic of Hungary acknowledges and enforces everyone’s right to a healthy environment.” The 2010 Summary Report is available here (accessed on 08/11/10): http://jno.hu/en/pdf/Comprehensive_Summary_2009.pdf Resolution 28/1994. (V.20.) of the Constitutional Court, quoted on e-page 5 of the 2010 Summary Report. Section 16. § (1) provides that “Anybody may apply to the ombudsman if in his judgement the proceedings of any authority (paragraph (1) of Section 29) or organ performing a public service (hereinafter together ‘authority’) caused impropriety relating to the fundamental rights of the petitioner, provided that he has exhausted the available possibilities of administrative legal remedies—except for the judicial review of administrative decisions—or that no legal remedy is ensured for him”. Section 29. §(4) provides that: “For the purposes of this Act an impropriety relating to fundamental rights is: the violation of a fundamental right or the direct danger thereof, irrespective of the fact that it is the result of an action or an omission”.

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Other duties and powers As well as his duties in relation to petitions, the Commissioner for Future Generations has the widest functions of comparable institutions considered in this report, at the national, EU and international law levels, and in respect of both public and private actors.19 Under section 27/B he has duties relating to law enforcement, legislation, international treaties and the EU, in particular to: — monitor, evaluate and control the enforcement of laws ensuring sustainability and environmental improvement;20 — investigate “improprieties” relating to such developments, and “initiate” measures for redress;21 — express an opinion on draft legislation and propose legislation;22 — express an opinion on motions about the mandatory effect of international environmental treaties, contribute to reports under international agreements and track the development of these agreements;23 and — participate in formulating Hungary’s position at the EU level on relevant issues;24 If he has concerns about whether a law conflicts with the constitution or with an international agreement, or wishes an unconstitutional omission to be brought to an end, he may take the matter to the Constitutional Court.25 The Commissioner also has discretions (powers) aimed at controlling the activities of individuals and companies that actually and potentially harm the environment; at moving the competent regulatory authorities to use their own powers to restrain environmentally-damaging activities; and at suspending the authorizations 19

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Although this characterisation and division of his main functions into duties and powers might be inappropriate under Hungarian law, or might be an incorrect understanding of the Act, it is adopted here as it is a familiar characterisation for UK lawyers and fits with the English translation of the Act posted on the Commissioner’s website. Unfortunately, that translation is not very elegant, sometimes not easy to understand and, in several instances, is different from other translations of the same provision by the Commissioner in the 2010 Summary Report. With one exception (in the case of the first bulleted duty, where the translations are significantly different and the latter translation seems to make more sense), the summaries of the duties are based on the translation on the website; the verbatim translated text from the website is footnoted after each summary of (what the website text suggests would in our law be) a duty or power, and, where the 2010 Summary Report has provided a different translation, that version is also included in the corresponding footnote. This summary (exceptionally) is based on the English translation of what appears to be the relevant provision (s.27/B. § (1), first sentence), set out on e-page 10 of the 2010 Summary Report: “Based on the Ombudsman Act, the Commissioner ‘monitors, evaluates and controls the enforcement of legal provisions ensuring the sustainability and improvement of the state of the environment and nature…’ “. Although this translation is expressed in descriptive rather than mandatory language (and so perhaps it might not be accurate to understand it as a duty), the translation of the provision posted on the Commissioner’s website is clearly expressed as a duty but seems to make less sense (especially when considered in the light of the associated duty in the next bullet): the Commissioner “shall follow with attention, estimate and control the emergence of the provisions of the law ensuring the sustainability and improvement of the situation of environment and nature”. (It is not clear, however, whether this provision applies only to legal provisions which are intended to ensure sustainability and environmental and natural improvement, or to any legal provisions in order, thereby, to ensure sustainability and such improvement.). The Commissioner “shall investigate or to have investigated any improprieties he has become aware of relating to these, and to initiate general or particular measures for the redress thereof”, s.27/B. § (1), second sentence. Cf. the Commissioner’s translation on e-page 10 of the 2010 Summary Report: his “task is to investigate or have investigated the abuses brought to [his] attention related to all this, and to initiate general or individual measures in order to redress them”. From the web translation, it seems that this duty is related to legislative developments (“relating to these”), though it might perhaps be a wider investigative duty in relation to any environmental or sustainability “impropriety”. In any event, it appears to be cast more widely than the test for submitting a petition, as it does not seem to be restricted to an actual or potential violation of the right to a healthy environment. The Commissioner “shall express an opinion on the drafts of statutory instruments and other governmental motions connected with his tasks, and may make a proposal for legislation in his sphere of tasks”, s.27/B. § (3)(e). The Commissioner “shall express an opinion on motions relating to the recognition of obligatory effect of international agreements with environmental protection or nature conservation subjects or affecting the common heritage and concerns of the mankind, shall contribute to the preparation of national reports drafted on the basis of these international agreements, furthermore, he shall follow with attention and estimate the emergence of these agreements under Hungarian jurisdiction”, s.27/B. § (3)(g). Cf. the translation on e-page 11 of the 2010 Summary Report: “the commissioner ‘expresses its opinion on propositions about the subjects of the environment and nature conservation, as well as ones concerning the acknowledgement of the binding effect of international conventions affecting the common heritage and common concerns of mankind; it is involved in the preparation of national reports based on these international contracts; furthermore it monitors and evaluates the enforcement of these conventions within the Hungarian jurisdiction”. The meaning of the first part of this provision is obscure on the basis of either translation. “shall participate in cases relating to his tasks in the elaboration of Hungarian standpoint represented in the institutions of the European Union operating with governmental participation”, s.27/B. § (3)(h). Cf. the translation on e-page 11 of the 2010 Summary Report: “in the cases related to [his] sphere of tasks, [he] takes part in the formulation of the Hungarian position represented in the institutions of the European Union operating with governmental participation.” “22. § The ombudsman may make a motion to the Constitutional Court for: (a) the ex post facts examination of the unconstitutionality of a statutory instrument or any other legal means of government control; (b) the examination of whether a statutory instrument or any other legal means of government control conflicts with an international agreement; (c) [text omitted from the translation on the Commissioner’s website, presumably repealed?][;] d) the termination of unconstitutionality manifesting itself in an omission; (e) the interpretation of the provisions of the Constitution.”

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of administrative bodies which permit activities that harm the environment. More specifically, the Commissioner may26: — request a person or organization (not a public authority) to terminate an illegally endangering, polluting or damaging activity;27 If the activity, be it an act or omission, is damaging the environment (as opposed, presumably, to simply endangering or polluting it), the person or organization damaging it can be requested to restore the environment as well. If the addressee does not respond, adequately or at all, the Commissioner can ask a court to issue injunctions to restrain the damaging conduct, to effect damage-prevention measures and to restore the environment.28 — request competent regulatory authorities to take environmental improvement measures;29 This seemingly unrestricted power is supplemented by a power in section 27/D under which the Commissioner “may initiate the competent authority to take measures to impede and forbid the activity damaging the environment, to prevent damages and to restore the environmental status preceding the environmental damaging conduct”, and the authority “shall immediately notify [him] on the measures taken”. The Commissioner’s request initiates a compulsory procedure, and the authority must respond. — request administrative bodies to suspend decisions they have made permitting environmentally harmful activities. The Commissioner’s request initiates a compulsory procedure, the bodies must respond and, depending on the nature of the administrative body, the Commissioner can seek a judicial review of the decision;30 — make general and case-specific recommendations, to which addressees must respond within 30 days;31 — track and express his opinion on long-term local development plans and concepts, resettlement (cf. compulsory purchase?) and other plans directly affecting the quality of life of future generations;32 and — participate in public hearings33. In performing his functions, the Commissioner also has important further powers, to: — request information “from anyone” in cases which may affect the condition and use of the environment, and he may inspect documents, including personal and other data (such as commercial data), subject to him being bound by secrecy laws and excluding specified information listed in an Annex to the Act which relates to the army, national security, customs and the public prosecutor’s office;34 — enter land and property where activities threatening irreversible environmental damage are going on, or if access to data, circumstances or facts necessary for conducting his proceedings cannot not be otherwise ensured;35 26

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Section 27/B. § (3)(d) provides that the Commissioner “may initiate the conduct of supervisory proceedings against administrative resolutions relating to the conditions of the environment, and the suspension of execution thereof, and may participate in the suit as intervening party during its judicial review”. This power is not included in this bullet list, because I do not understand it, and because I do not know how it relates to the seemingly connected powers in sections 27/E and 27/F. The Commissioner “may call on the person or organization illegally endangering, polluting or damaging the environment…to terminate this activity” s. 27/B. § (3)(a). Of these three categories of activity, it is not clear whether only the first, where the threatened impact has not yet occurred, needs also to be illegal. It is also not clear to me whether the illegality can be on the basis of a violation of the right to a healthy environment, or whether another illegal basis has to be established, and, if so, whether that other basis would need to be additional, or alternative. The power in relation to the third category is elaborated on further in section 27/C, and is discussed further below. These provisions are contained in section 27/C. Within thirty days (or immediately if requested by the Commissioner, and in any event within five days), the addressee of the request to terminate or restore must notify the Commissioner of the measures taken. If the Commissioner considers the notification unsatisfactory, he may ask a court for injunctions to restrain the damaging conduct, to effect damage-prevention measures and to restore the environment. The Commissioner “may call on the competent authority to take measures relating to the protection of environment” s. 27/B. § (3)(b). This seems to be an unrestricted power. This would seem to be the best understanding, in summary, based on sections 27/B. § 3(d), 27/E and 27/F, correspondence with the Commissioner and, of course, no knowledge of Hungarian administrative law. The Commissioner “may issue general recommendations in his sphere of tasks or recommendations for certain organs, institutions, authorities or persons in individual cases” s. 27/B. § (3)(c). “The addressee of the recommendation described in point c) paragraph (3) shall be obliged to respond in the merits within thirty days the recommendation issued for him (sic)” s. 27/B. § (4). This seems to be an additional, catch-all power. The Commissioner “may familiarize himself with and express an opinion on the long-term plans and concepts of local governments for development, area settlement or those otherwise directly affecting the life quality of future generations” s. 27/ B. § (3)(f). The Commissioner “may participate on obligatory public hearings held on the basis of the provisions of the law which are connected to his sphere of tasks” “ s. 27/B. § (3)(i). It does not seem that the Commissioner has the power to hold a public hearing (?), but he may request specified public authorities and administrative organs to hold one under s.27/G. § (2). Section 27/H. § (1) and (2). Section 27/H. § (3). Section 27/H. § (4) provides that “Private secrets, business secrets, state secrets, service secrets or other secrets defined by a separate Act may not impede the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations in exercising his powers regulated in paragraphs (1)-(3), but the provisions relating to secrecy shall be binding for him as well unless otherwise prescribed by a separate Act”, and, where “state secrets or service secrets” are concerned, the Commissioner must exercise his powers personally or through colleagues who have undergone “national security control” (s. 27/H. § (5)).

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— publicise the launch of his proceedings, and his recommendations, even if this involves disclosing commercial secrets or personal data36—i.e., the wider public interest to be informed of environmentally damaging activities is given precedence over private or personal interests. Experience and evaluation According to the 2010 Summary Report, up the end of 2009 the Commissioner: — had received 119 “government initiatives”; — participated in 81 consultation procedures concerning legislative proposals; — initiated one constitutional review; — initiated the adoption or amendment of 17 legislative proposals; — dealt with 422 complaints, mostly related to local spatial plans, noise and air pollution. Investigations were launched into 271 cases, 97 of which were completed. In 37 cases the “bureau issued a statement and encountered improprieties on 26 occasions”. The Commissioner has said that he performs three duties: “complaints investigation; parliamentary advocacy; and strategic development and research… The function of strategic development and research covers the duty of representing future generations’ interests. Within this field, the Commissioner has launched comprehensive six year strategic research projects on the issues of the availability of environmental information, the climate and energy policy, and the study and support of sustainable local communities.”37 It is too early to find any evaluation of the Commissioner’s work, and the 2010 Summary Report does not contain a systematic analysis of its outcome. Israel Summary: A Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, established by law in 2001 within the unicameral Knesset and appointed by the Speaker for a renewable five year term. No Commissioner has been in place since 2006, though the law remains in effect. The Commissioner’s powers are focused on supporting the Knesset in its consideration of proposed laws of particular relevance for future generations. Working across education, health and environment from 2001–2006, the Commissioner appears to have gained real influence across a wide policy spectrum. Legal basis and appointment In 2001, the Israeli Parliament passed a law establishing the Knesset Commissioner for Future Generations “which will present it with data and assessments of issues which have particular relevance for future generations”38 The Commissioner is appointed by the Knesset Speaker, with the authorization of the Knesset House Committee, from at least two candidates recommended by a committee which is appointed by the Speaker and consists of three Knesset Committee chairpersons and three faculty members from institutions of higher education with relevant expertise.39 The Commissioner’s term of office is for five years, and the Speaker has a right to appoint him or her for a further term. The former judge, Shlomo Shoham, was appointed as the first Commissioner, and his appointment ended in 2006 without renewal. There has been no Commissioner since, although the law remains in effect.40 Constitutional rights Israel does not have a written constitution, contained within a single document of particular sanctity or with specially protected legal status. According to the Knesset’s English language website, the Knesset has passed fourteen “Basic Laws”, as opposed to “ordinary laws”, and these Basic Laws are a part of the Israeli constitution, though there are differences of opinion over whether they take precedence over ordinary laws41. 36

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The Commissioner “may inform the public—by indicating the character and measure of the activity damaging the environment and the place of activity damaging the environment and its effect area, also including business secret—on the launching of his proceedings and the issue and contents of his recommendation also including personal data” s. 27/B. § (6). 2010 Summary Report, e-page 9. Knesset law (Amendment no.14), 5761–2001, Addition to Section 8 of Knesset Law 1994, clauses 30–48. The extract cited is from clause 31 (unofficial translation). Clause 30 defines the term “particular relevance for future generations” as referring “to an issue which may have significant consequences for future generations in the realms of the environment, natural resources, science, development, education, health, the economy, demography, planning and construction, quality of life, technology, justice and any matter that has been determined by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to have significant consequences for future generations”. The Bill which led to the enacted law proposed that the Commissioner would be elected by the majority of MPs in a secret vote (see the table on page 207 of Shoham, Future Intelligence and Sustainability (Bertelsmann, 2010)). This book, written by Shlomo Shoham, provides the source of information for almost all the information contained in this summary. It appears that if the Speaker does not exercise his right to re-appoint the Commissioner, he or she is obliged to appoint the sixperson committee to come forward with its recommendations for candidates. This has not been done. Accessed on 10/11/10: http://www.knesset.gov.il/description/eng/eng_mimshal_yesod.htm

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It does not appear that the fourteen listed Basic Laws contain a right to a healthy environment, and there is no reference to any such right, or indirectly associated right, in the law establishing the Commissioner. After the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, the Commissioner drew up a proposed government bill, as a basic law, to ensure that all economic, social and environmental development be conducted in a sustainable manner. This proposal was watered down for presentation to the Knesset, but even this weakened proposal did not become law. However, following this initiative Shoham reports that “the right to sustainability found its way into the map of rights contained in the proposed bill for the Israeli constitution”. Powers The Commissioner operates within the Knesset and its law-making processes, with four functions, namely to:42 — assess proposed primary and secondary legislation of particular relevance for future generations; — present reports to the Knesset from time to time, at his or her discretion, with recommendations on issues of particular relevance for future generations; — advise Knesset Members on such issues; and — present an annual report to the Knesset. In performing his or her duties, the Commissioner “will be guided purely by professional considerations”.43 All bills and proposed secondary legislation before the Knesset are to be sent to the Commissioner by the relevant Knesset authorities. The Commissioner will inform the Speaker periodically of those laws and bills that he or she considers have particular relevance for future generations, and the Speaker is to inform the chairpersons of the Knesset committees responsible for the areas covered by the laws or bills. The Commissioner is to be invited to debates on proposed primary and secondary legislation which he or she has declared are of particular relevance to future generations, and the timing of such debates are to be coordinated by the committee chairpersons and the Commissioner, allowing reasonable time for the Commissioner’s collection of data and preparation of an evaluation. A summary of the evaluation is to be included in the explanatory notes to the bill (if given before first reading) or in the appendix of the committee’s proposal to the full Knesset for the second and third readings (if given after the first reading). The Commissioner is permitted to participate in committee debates, at the Commissioner’s discretion (or with the committee chairperson’s authorization if the debate is “secret by law”).44 If an organization or body listed in relevant provisions of the State Comptroller Act is “being investigated”, the Commissioner may request any information, document or report from that organization or body if required for the implementation of his or her tasks, and the request must be complied with (with certain exceptions for national security, foreign relations and public safety.45 Experience and evaluation From 2001–2006, the Commissioner’s work focused on education, involving sustainable education, future education, child welfare and promotion of youth involvement in the democratic process; health, involving raising awareness of the relationship between public health and the environment, and strengthening preventive services, including membership of the national task force on obesity; and environment, involving the introduction of a law on air quality to replace an ineffective voluntary agreement between polluters and government, and new coastal protection legislation. There appears to be no independent evaluation of the Commissioner’s work. Here, though, are some statements from the Commissioner himself in his book, preceded by a statement from the author of the book’s preface: “Like any experiment, the success of this venture was mixed. Over time, Shoham and his coterie of expert staffers developed real influence across a wide policy spectrum, though they in some cases saw their proposals rejected. They brought an unusual and often controversial perspective—the claims of intergenerational justice—to debates ordinarily shaped by rival ideologies, conflicting data sets or competing political interest groups.” “As an interdisciplinary body, we were able to rise above immediate political pressures and the survival mentality of practical politics. In doing so we were able to be a significant catalyst in triggering interest in a subject with long-term impact, in creating public awareness and in bringing about a change in legislation”( p162) “by treating the obesity epidemic as an issue of sustainable health, we helped people understand the broader social significance of sustainability.” 42 43 44

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“our experience in the Israeli Commission for Future Generations taught us that a large part of our influence in fact lay behind the scenes, in personal meetings and in laying the groundwork for change, work that was for the most part hid from the public eye.” (p85) “Frequently, when the Commission turned to the public and explained the future consequences of decisions and legislation, it turned out that the public was not really asking for instant solutions. The public turned out to be willing to pay a present-day price in order to safeguard the future of its children. When decisionmakers came to appreciate the public’s deeper desires, they often accepted our opinion and changed their stands…..[The Commission] could help bridge this gap between policymakers’ beliefs and the public’s deeper, often unvoiced expectations” (p100) “parliamentarians started to appreciate the Commission as an institution with the power to cultivate public interest. p106 and the public started to show an interest in sustainable thinking.” (p105) “the terms sustainability, sustainable development, futures thinking and concern for future generations are now found in almost every public debate over decisions with long-term significance.” New Zealand Summary: A Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment with wide-ranging powers, established by statute in 1986, and appointed by and reporting to Parliament (not Ministers). She has wide powers of review, investigation and advice across public bodies, and also to obtain information and to be heard in legal proceedings, and can report on draft legislation if requested. In carrying out her functions, the list of matters to which she is to have regard does not include economic issues or the needs of future generations. Citizens do not have the right to petition her, but they can and do ask her to investigate matters, though these requests are declining. A high satisfaction rate amongst MPs is reported. Legal basis and appointment In 1986, the unicameral New Zealand Parliament enacted the Environment Act46, to establish the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment47 (and the Ministry for the Environment). Under section 4 of the Act, the Commissioner is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. The Commissioner is one of three officers of Parliament, the others being the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Office of the Controller and the Auditor-General48. The Commissioner is appointed for five years, and may be re-appointed. Constitutional rights The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 contains the usual kind of civil and political rights, and does not contain a substantive right to live in a clean or healthy environment (or similar formulation)49. Powers The Commissioner has wide-ranging functions, grouped into seven categories in section 16 of the Act: — review the system of agencies and processes set up by the Government to manage the country’s resources, and report to Parliament, with the objective of maintaining and improving the quality of the environment — investigate the effectiveness of environmental planning and management by public authorities, and advise them on remedial action — investigate any matter where, in the Commissioner’s opinion, the environment may be or has been adversely affected, advise on preventative measures or remedial action, and report to Parliament — if requested by Parliament or a select committee, report on any petition, Bill, or any other matter which may have a significant effect on the environment — on the direction of Parliament, to inquire into any matter that has had or may have a substantial and damaging effect on the environment, and to report the results of the inquiry to Parliament — undertake and encourage the collection and dissemination of information about the environment — encourage preventive measures and remedial actions to protect the environment. In the performance of her functions, under section 17 of the Act the Commissioner is to have regard to a wide range of environmental issues and effects on communities. Neither economic issues nor the needs of future generations appear in section 17. The Commissioner also: 46

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The Act is available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0127/latest/DLM98975.html?search=ts_act_environment_resel&sr=1 In Maori, ‘Te Kaitiaki Taiao a Te Whare PÁÁremata’. According to the Commissioner’s website, available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/about-us/ The Act is available here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/whole.html

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— has power under section 19 of the Act to require information, documents or things to be provided to her by any person in relation to any matter which she is investigating or inquiring into (subject to secrecy obligations imposed upon her). Failure to comply with the Commissioner’s requirement, or otherwise to hinder her, is a criminal (summary) offence; — is entitled to be heard under section 21 in any proceedings before courts, tribunals and other bodies in relation to any consent; — must report annually to Parliament, and her proceedings are privileged in a similar way to which the proceedings of Parliament are privileged. Although the Environment Act does not provide for petitions from members of the public, the Commissioner’s website includes a “Suggest an Investigation” page, which can act as a spur to exercise her function to investigate any matter where in her opinion the environment may be or has been adversely affected50. Experience and evaluation Three major investigations were conducted in 2008–09, into the clean-up of a contaminated land site, the impact of land use changes in the high country of the South Island, and smart electricity meters, as well as into mining, water quality and transport fuels, and advising on the Emissions Trading Scheme.51 According to her recent annual reports, the biannual survey of “all MPs indicated high satisfaction with the clarity, timeliness and usefulness of the Commissioner’s advice”;52 and 65% of recommendations were adopted.53 In her latest annual report, the Commissioner states that her: “‘Environmental Ombudsman’ role has decreased over the years, as other avenues for addressing environmental concerns have become available. However, it remains an important part of the office’s work and can often alert the Commissioner to new or persistent environmental issues. In 2008–09, the office received a total of 118 concerns and inquiries (Table 1). The majority (90) of these related to a variety of environmental issues. The remaining 28 inquiries were in relation to topics such as office functions, expenses and reports.”54 Finland Summary: A standing Parliamentary Committee (“the TVK”) set up in 1993 with a visionary, rather than a legislative or budgetary, role. Its main task is, apparently, to provide a report (during the second year of each government) to the Finnish Parliament in response to “future statements” from the Prime Minister’s office on its legislative programme. Once adopted, the report becomes the Parliament’s basis for appraising forthcoming decision and legislation (perhaps in conjunction with reports from other committees).In addition, it reports on wide-ranging issues, and undertakes specific technology assessments. The Committee’s work is carried out in the context of a relatively weak and seemingly unassociated constitutional State duty in relation to the right to a healthy environment. Legal basis In 1993 the Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) established a Committee for the Future55 (Tulevaisuusvaliokunta—TVK), as one of its standing committees under section 35 of the Finnish Constitution56. Constitutional rights Although there appears to be no express linking between the establishment or operation of the Committee and constitutional rights, section 20 of the Finnish Constitution provides as follows: 50

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The web page is here (accessed on 4/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/current-work/suggest-an-investigation/ See the Commissioner’s annual report to Parliament for 2009, available here (accessed on 5/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/annual-report-for-the-year-ended-30-june-2009 This evaluation appears to be based on 15 MPs of the 25 MPs (of about 120 MPs) who returned survey forms stating 100% satisfaction on these three criteria (see the annual report for 2008, page 26, available here (accessed on 5/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/annual-report-for-the-year-ended-30-june-2008 See the annual report for 2009, Table 5 on page 23, available here (accessed on 5/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/annual-report-for-the-year-ended-30-june-2009 As above, page 12. Although declining, this compares (for example) with 169 requests for investigation, information or another service in 2003/4, 83% of which were from citizens, according to the annual report for 2004, page 28, available here (accessed on 5/11/10): http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/annual-report-for-the-year-ended-30-june-2004 The Committee’s website is here (accessed 29/9/10): http://web.eduskunta.fi/Resource.phx/parliament/committees/future.htx An English translation of the Constitution is available from the Finnish Ministry of Justice’s website, here (accessed 29/9/10): http://www.om.fi/21910.htm

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“Section 20—Responsibility for the environment Nature and its biodiversity, the environment and the national heritage are the responsibility of everyone. The public authorities shall endeavour to guarantee for everyone the right to a healthy environment and for everyone the possibility to influence the decisions that concern their own living environment.” This formulation of the right to a healthy environment is clearly weaker than for other rights in the constitution57. From reading some of those of the Committee’s reports that have been translated into English, its work is not in any way expressed as being linked to this, or to any other, constitutional right. The subject-matter of its reports is very diverse, and rarely environmental in a traditional sense. Powers Presumably, the Committee has the powers of a standing committee under the Finnish constitution (whatever those may be). It does not seem to have any powers which are comparable to the functions of the Parliamentary Commissioners in Hungary, Israel or New Zealand, or the Canadian Commissioner. My understanding of the Committee’s work is contained in the following two extracts. First, the Counsel to the Committee, Paula Tiihonen, wrote the following in (about) 2008 (sent by the author to me): “In Finland 15 years ago, some of our Representatives had the insight that establishing a committee to deal with the future would be one means of revitalising the Eduskunta from within. Like the other special committees, it has 17 members, all Representatives, and it deliberates parliamentary documents that are referred to itä. The Committee studies development factors and development models relating to the future. It examines futures research, including its procedural questions. It assesses the societal impacts of technology and acts on the international level as a parliamentary body that evaluates the significance of technology. It is a kind of parliamentary “think tank”. “It has become established practice for the Government to make 1–2 reports on the future in the course of a four-year parliamentary term. The theme during the last term was demographic development. The new Government has announced that the next report on the future will deal with climate change. The Committee is free to choose other tasks and functions—beginning with definition of themes—itself. Working methods vary depending on the theme and project. Some themes demands a thorough, scientifically based study, others are best teased out on the political level by arranging a seminar. Sometimes the problem in question is so difficult, the theme so new that it demands the commissioning of a preliminary study from a university and only in the second stage the Committee’s report and statements of position. The Committee has drawn on the assistance of two background groups, one of which has represented the ‘experienced wise’ and the other the ‘challenging young’.” Second, (Emeritus Professor) Brian Groombridge described its main task in an interesting though undated (probably around 2006–07) article on the Scottish Futures Forum website: “The Committee for the Future’s main task is to conduct dialogues with the Prime Minister’s office and government on all the foreseeable long term issues affecting the policies and work of whatever government is in power (always a coalition). The agreed procedure is that after a general election, in its second year of office, the government has to produce at least one policy statement on the future. These second-year papers are not manifestos; they do not reiterate election pledges; nor do they pre-empt decisions by subsequent governments. They provide a view of the future as seen by the new government, proposing a long-range framework in which to judge its four-year programme, so that its specific legislative decisions may be assessed and debated in the light of how they affect and could be affected by longer term, interrelated issues; issues such as climate change, energy policy, demography and technological development. This Future report is examined by the Future Committee and the other select committees; the Future Committee then drafts a response which it submits to the Eduskunta itself. When approved and confirmed, the revised response provides the basis for the Eduskunta’s appraisal of forthcoming decisions and legislation.”58 Groombridge also states that technology assessment is a major responsibility of the Committee, in which role it takes up specific topical themes as well as the most wide-ranging ones—plant gene technology in food production, for example, quite different in scale from, say, the relevance of “the knowledge society” to “a caring, encouraging and creative Finland”. He says that “to some extent” the Committee resembles the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, with whom it is in contact. 57

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For example: “Everyone has the right to life, personal liberty, integrity and security” (section 7); “Everyone’s private life, honour and the sanctity of the home are guaranteed” (section 10); “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge” (section 16). A report by Professor Brain Groombridge, entitled Parliament and the Future: Learning from Finland (undated), available here (accessed on 16/11/10): http://www.scotlandfutureforum.org/assets/library/files/application/1214405098.doc

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Experience and evaluation It is very difficult to obtain an overview of the Committee’s work that goes beyond, simply, an impression. Fifteen publications from 2002–2010, and seven reports and statements from 2000–2004, are available in English on the Committee’s website. Their subject-matter is very diverse, and appears both generic (e.g., future democracy, information technology, Asia, health care) and of particular interest to Finland (two publications on Russia). More widely, in his article—in which he recommends a UK Select Committee for the Future— Groombridge writes: “Those directly involved with the TVK are cautious about its work so far. Dr Tiihonen says ‘it is too soon’ to know how valuable it is. Likewise, Seppo Tiitinen, in that 2004 Inter-Parliamentary Union address, was equally cautious: ‘The Committee has been working for only 10 years, so it is too early to say if it has been a success’. He added, however: The Committee has taken its place in the Finnish parliamentary system as an innovative political body and . . . created a new forum that works at the core of the parliamentary system and—still more important—it has demonstrated that parliamentary measures can still be used to take the initiative within democracy.” The Committee Counsel, Paula Tiihonen, has written that the Committee was created to strengthen the visionary, rather than the legislative or budgetary powers of the Parliament: “Over the years [the Committee] has created a new forum that works at the core of the parliamentary system and—even more important—has demonstrated that parliamentary measures can still be used to take the initiative within democracy….Politics in this context is about values, attitudes, atmosphere and opinion building, and, most important, opinion leading.”59 29 November 2010

Written evidence submitted by Dr John Turnpenny, Professor Andrew Jordan, and Dr Tim Rayner, University of East Anglia; and Dr Duncan Russel, University of Exeter Introduction We welcome the Committee’s investigation into how well sustainable development is embedded across government and the prospects for the future. The inquiry comes at a particularly important time following the government’s decision to withdraw funding from the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and scrap the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP), while proclaiming itself still committed to evidence-policy-making and sustainable development. It is important that the Committee fully investigates the barriers to embedding sustainable development across government, how mechanisms to achieve such embedding have performed, and draws lessons from this when proposing new mechanisms in response to the recent government decisions. This memorandum sets out our perspectives on these issues. The University of East Anglia has a strong research tradition in the field of sustainable development, hosting the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. It has led pioneering work on environmental policy integration (EPI), and on mechanisms such as policy appraisal, expert advisory bodies and parliamentary committees. The University of Exeter’s Climate Change and Sustainable Futures research strategy brings together leading experts from different disciplines across the University to understand the many factors that contribute to climate change, and to develop solutions. Its Department of Politics has core expertise in regulatory governance and impact assessment. The evidence we provide is based on ongoing research on EPI in UK central government and a number of other jurisdictions, and on recent research funded by the Nuffield Foundation (Social Science Small Grant SGS/37317) on the Environmental Audit Committee itself. Detailed Responses We have divided our response into two parts. The first addresses three of the inquiry’s questions by examining the integration of environment and sustainable development into policy-making generally. The second part of our submission focuses on the relationship between the SDC and the EAC. We make corresponding sets of recommendations. 59

Ethical Prospects 2009, Part 3, 239–241, DOI: 10.1007/978–1-4020–9821–5_13. The Right of Future Generations, available here (accessed on 29/11/10): http://www.springerlink.com/content/wl472161365u0469/

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Q1. How can mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of Government operations, procurement and policymaking be improved and further embedded and mainstreamed across Government departments? Q2. How can governance arrangements for sustainable development in Government be improved, and how can sustainability reporting by Government departments be made more transparent and accountable? Q4. In formulating a future architecture for sustainable development in Government, how can it take on board wider developments and initiatives (e.g. to develop “sustainability reporting” in departments’ accounts) and the contributions that other bodies might make (e.g. Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement)? What is “integration”? Ever since the United Nations-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development (aka “Brundtland Report”) called for more sustainable forms of development (WCED, 1987), governments worldwide have sought to adjust their governance systems to embed sustainability. A popular approach in many OECD countries—including the UK—is that of “environmental policy integration” (or EPI). The aim of EPI is to systematically integrate environmental factors into all stages of government policy making regardless of sector (WCED 1987: 314). While EPI does not in itself constitute sustainable development (the two are arguably rather different—see below) it is a vitally important part of the concept, as it gives environmental issues greater prominence alongside traditionally more dominant social and economic issues. In a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of EPI, it was described as a “first order principle to guide the transition to sustainability” (Jordan and Lenschow 2010: 147) EPI has been mainly conceived as a coordination challenge for public administrations—hence “greening government”. As a result, governments right across the OECD have responded by adapting their tried and tested means of policy coordination, such as: establishing environment cabinet committees to resolve interdepartmental conflicts; creating networks of green ministers to exchange information and ideas; locating integration units in all departments to monitor progress, provide expertise, produce guidance and share best practice; incorporating environmental assessment into central budgetary procedures; and using policy appraisal or impact assessment (IA) to uncover the potential environmental impact of new policies. Some have also utilised “softer” governance approaches such as altering their constitutions to highlight EPI, inaugurating reporting processes through which every department produces an integration strategy, and establishing bodies to offer guidance. Finally, others have established longer-term integration targets for different departments to aim at. How well have these efforts fared? Recent research on the implementation of these instruments and procedures has shown that they have had rather mixed results (Jordan and Lenschow, 2008). A comprehensive review of integration practices in 30 OECD states demonstrated that governments have tended to select different combinations of instruments and procedures (Jacob et al. 2008). In general, the softer, so-called “communicative” instruments (changing constitutions, initiating reporting exercises, establishing new committees etc.) have been far more commonly adopted than the harder “organizational” or “procedural” ones (appraisal, green budgeting, long-term target setting etc.). Moreover, while many governments have extended their existing repertoires of coordinating instruments, many have done so in a rather piecemeal fashion. Curiously, many of the EPI instruments that were supposed to deliver more integration have themselves been poorly coordinated with one another (Schout and Jordan, 2008). While it is important to have an array of different and innovative instruments to support and drive EPI, variety alone is not sufficient. They have to fit with and support one another. In summary, EPI-type exercises in the OECD countries have largely failed to systematically mainstream sustainable development in the manner advocated by Brundtland. Instead states have tended to adopt a “pick and mix” approach. Invariably, this pattern of deployment has left some of the most environmentally vital areas of state activity mostly unaffected. Indeed, across the OECD the core policy planning activities in “driving force” sectors such as industry, transport and agriculture have mostly remained immune to scrutiny from policy appraisal and reporting activities (Jordan and Lenschow 2010). That said, some states have undoubtedly tried harder than others. The UK, Sweden and Norway are among the front-running states in the comprehensiveness of their national frameworks—i.e. a new constitutional provision in Norway, integrated policy appraisal in the UK, and the specification of long-term integration targets in Sweden (Jordan and Lenschow 2008). The UK has undoubtedly been one of the most active adopters of EPI instruments in the OECD (Jacob et al. 2008), having made use of a Cabinet Committee on Environment and Energy, a network of Green Ministers from across Whitehall departments meeting as a Cabinet SubCommittee, a Sustainable Development Strategy, the Sustainable Development Unit in Defra, Environmentfocused Public Service Agreements linked to public spending, and a system of IA. As a result of our work, more is now known about the deployment of different EPI instruments, yet surprisingly little is known about their long-term effectiveness, i.e. their impact on sustainability “on the ground”. Jacob et al. (2008) discovered that most OECD states possess an “external and independent review of environmental performance”. But many of them have very general mandates, are too poorly resourced and

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politically weak to open up sectoral policy making to critical scrutiny. The majority simply do not have the time or the resources to dig into the everyday grind of policy making (Jordan and Lenschow, 2008). Even the more environmentally progressive jurisdictions, namely Norway and Sweden, lack strong, independent and focused scrutiny bodies (Lafferty et al., 2008; Nilsson and Persson, 2008). When our research was completed in 2007, the UK had the most sophisticated evaluation machinery—including the work of the SDC—amongst the 30 OECD states analysed (Russel and Jordan, 2008; Russel and Jordan, 2009). Why have sustainable development mechanisms yielded little progress? The UK’s efforts at governing for sustainable development appear to break down for a least three reasons, many of which are common across the OECD (see above). First, there is the rather ad hoc manner in which the instruments have been established; too little attention has been devoted to ensuring that they interact positively with one another. In many respects, the UK’s Environment and Energy Cabinet Committees were effectively redundant because many potentially environmentally damaging policies were not picked up early enough to be influenced. Improving the evidence-base—through the use of IA—is crucial to ensure that information is collected and shared amongst departments at a sufficiently early stage in the policy process. Strategies for improving the quality of IA have already been extensively covered in previous enquiries (e.g. HC 740, session 2006–2007). Similarly, more could have been done to link IA with the long-term departmental strategies and targeting exercises such as the PSAs or departmental carbon reduction targets. Second, the implementation of EPI has suffered from a lack of sustained high-level support particularly from ministers in “non” environmental ministries, central departments (e.g. HMT and the Cabinet Office), and senior civil servants. The inclusion of sustainability objectives in performance appraisals was a really innovative way to hold permanent secretaries to account, but too little is known about how seriously these were taken. Thus it has been left to Defra to push forward the sustainable development agenda within Whitehall, but without the power to compel other departments to appraise policy for potential environmental impacts (Russel and Jordan 2008). The lack of political support is reflected by the lack of resources dedicated to EPI across departments as previously documented by this Committee (HC 961, session 2002–2003). Third, there is generally a lack of ex-post evaluation work done to learn lessons and assess the effectiveness of individual instruments. It is clear that “integration” as a whole is not delivering as much as was originally promised, but we still remain remarkably ignorant about precisely which instruments are working and which are not. The UK is not alone in this respect (see above). But at least with independent bodies such as the Sustainable Development Commission, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, and the Environmental Audit Committee it was widely regarded as being in a more advanced position than almost all other OECD states. Our Recommendations We conclude that: — Until now the UK has always had a relatively sophisticated evaluation system compared to other OECD states. The SDC and the RCEP have played a vital role in holding the Government to account. Without them, the UK’s reputation for leadership in this particular aspect of EPI could be in jeopardy. Unless the Government is prepared to do a lot more to critically evaluate its own performance—which hitherto it has been reluctant to do—a lot more responsibility will fall on the EAC. We explore the implications of this in more detail in the second part of our submission. — In formulating a future architecture for sustainable development, the new Government should look afresh at the linkages and performance of existing instruments as many are simply not supporting one another to mainstream sustainable development. There is a crucial need for a system of IA that routinely accounts for environmental and other sustainability-relevant impacts. As currently practiced, IA tends to ignore them. There is plenty of relevant guidance (such as that recommended by the Government Economic Service’s Review of the Economics of Sustainable Development), but no effective system to ensure that it is followed by civil servants beyond Defra. This thinking will need to inform the UK’s position in the run up to the Rio + 20 environmental summit to be held in 2012. — It is not sufficient for the Secretary of State for Environment to provide leadership on sustainable development. Sustained political support and resources also need to be provided by the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and senior civil servants. — The UK should use its influence in Brussels to do more to connect national sustainability and EPI initiatives to those at EU level. The UK has a great deal of positive experience to share with other Member States. After all, sustainability and EPI are multi-level challenges (Lenschow & Jordan, 2000). This point also needs to be taken up by whomever or whatever takes up the SDC’s and the RCEP’s functions, as both have developed effective networks with their opposite numbers in other Member States.

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— Finally, in its forthcoming environmental White Paper the new government should issue a clear statement explaining how it thinks about, and wishes to advance, the relationship between EPI and sustainability. In the academic literature these are generally regarded as being rather different concepts with rather different implications for the conduct of government. EPI is arguably concerned with giving a clear and principled priority to environmental considerations, whereas sustainability is more about finding a more even balance between environmental, social and economic factors. Q3. Was the SDC successful in fulfilling its remit? Which aspects of its work have reached a natural end, or are otherwise of less importance, and which remain of particular continuing importance? Q5. How, without the assistance of the SDC, will the Government be able to demonstrate that it is “the greenest government ever”? It is clear from the preceding paragraphs that a strong, well-resourced, independent body which can hold government to account is a vital pre-requisite for progress towards sustainable development. In the following paragraphs we analyse the prospects for both putting government policy onto a more sustainable path, and evaluating government progress, in the light of the recent decisions on the RCEP and the SDC. 5. How will policy be made more sustainable? It is striking that in her explanation of the decision to abolish the SDC, the Secretary of State suggested that an approach consisting of personal leadership from her, as Secretary of State at Defra, together with her counterpart at Energy and Climate Change, will be capable of strengthen[ing] the Government’s performance ... and put[ting] processes in place to join up activity across Government much more effectively than has been the case. It suggests that such a model could actually be superior to delegating this function to external agencies. This would seem to imply giving more work to the Sustainable Development Unit within Defra or sharing it out amongst a much wider array of actors. However, there are at least four reasons why this approach is somewhat questionable. First, powerful departments such as the Treasury have tended to be sceptical of horizontal environmental integration/ sustainable development efforts (Russel and Jordan 2009). As a relatively weak department, Defra needs persuasive advocates for sustainable development that are seen to be independent of any one departmental view. Given the enormous effort required to bring the rest of government more into line with sustainable development principles, it is surprising that the Secretary of State wishes to dispense so easily with such a valuable and world-leading asset as the SDC. Second, while the EAC can press the case and confront departments with respect to specific policies, its remit and limited resources prevent it from offering the kind of detailed service that the SDC has provided. Thirdly, international experience suggests that when a dispersed set of actors are responsible for a complex and cross cutting issue like EPI or sustainable development, “in practice no-one is” (Jordan and Schout 2006: xi). This is precisely why most OECD states have created evaluation units and agencies (see above). Finally, both the SDC and RCEP have provided important venues in which novel ideas could be proposed, analysed and discussed without fear of being “politically unacceptable”. While the EAC hears evidence from many different perspectives, there appears to be a “damping” of evidence which is deemed to be too far from the mainstream, and thus unlikely to be even included in the Committee report (Turnpenny et al, in preparation). Unless changes are made, new and potentially challenging ideas will have less “safe space” in which to develop. How will policy performance be evaluated? The value of the SDC, particularly given a high profile Chair, was that evaluation and advice was seen to be independent; the Chair could report to the Prime Minister without fear or favour. Although Select Committees such as the EAC are also able to scrutinise, the SDC has often been able to probe in more detail. The danger is that a unit within Defra would be less able to probe for relevant evidence across Whitehall, and more likely to be caught up in inter-departmental politics. Recommendations — We strongly suggest that an external scrutiny and advisory role needs to be maintained. In the absence of the SDC, this role could fall to a strengthened EAC, in conjunction with a better resourced National Audit Office. Indeed, the original model envisaged for the EAC—that its audit function should be delivered by an enhanced and expanded NAO acting as an environmental auditor of government with rights of access and resources for analysis—could now be usefully revisited. In this way, the government’s performance in terms of the “greenest ever” commitment could be monitored and evaluated with authority and transparency. — We encourage the EAC to revitalise its cross-cutting role as well as focusing on particular departments and/or sectoral issues. A cross-cutting perspective can provide a distinctive take on problems, or help challenge established “world views” of departmental select Committees. Crucially, this type of synoptic sustainability-related work, which has been undertaken by the SDC and the RCEP, will be hard to replace.

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— EAC must take on the advocacy role and the in-depth study role which is left vacant by the abolition of the RCEP. It is also important to have an advocate of SD across government which is legitimate and credible, independent of government, and able to advocate creative ideas. — The EAC needs to maintain the credibility, salience and legitimacy of the evidence it presents. We believe it should focus on drawing in the latest evidence, rather than on hearing the perspectives of familiar actors. The EAC must continue to avoid any perception that it is a mouthpiece for any kind of special interest group. — The EAC also needs to be significantly better-resourced, specifically its secretariat and specialists, so it can in turn support its elected members. It is unlikely that MPs will have time to sit in more inquiries, but support for more in-depth analysis for each inquiry (for example, help with assistants such as MEPs have) would be welcome. Overall, a model rather similar to the German Enquete Commissions may allow EAC to both challenge substantive issues with in-depth analysis while retaining democratic legitimacy. Bibliography Jacob K. Volkery A. Lenschow A. 2008. Instruments for environmental policy integration in 30 OECD countries. In Innovation in Environmental Policy? Jordan A. Lenschow A. eds. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham. Jordan A. Lenschow A. 2008. Integrating the environment for sustainable development: an introduction. In Innovation in Environmental Policy?—Integrating the Environment for Sustainability Jordan A. Lenschow A. (eds.) Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 3–23. Jordan, A.J. Lenschow A. 2010. Environmental Policy Integration: A State of the Art Review. Environmental Policy and Governance, 20, 3, 147–158. Jordan A.J. Schout A. 2006. The Coordination of the European Union: Exploring the Capacities for Networked Governance. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Lafferty W. Larsen O.M. Ruud A. 2008. Norway. In Innovation in Environmental Policy? Jordan A.J. Lenschow A. eds. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham. Lenschow A. Jordan A.J. 2000 “Greening the European Union” What can be learned from the “leaders” of EU environmental policy? European Environment 10: 109–120. Nilsson M. Persson A. 2008. Sweden. In Innovation in Environmental Policy? Jordan A. Lenschow A. eds. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. Russel D. Jordan A.J. 2008. The United Kingdom. In Innovation in Environmental Policy? Jordan A. Lenschow A. eds. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham. Russel D. Jordan A. 2009. Joining up or pulling apart? The use of appraisal to coordinate policy making for sustainable development. Environment and Planning A 41 (5): 1201–1216. Schout, A. Jordan A.J. 2008 Administrative Instruments, In Innovation in Environmental Policy?— Integrating the Environment for Sustainability Jordan A. Lenschow A. (eds.) Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 49–69. Turnpenny J.R. Russel D.J. Rayner T.J. (in preparation) Institutionalising evidence-based policy-making? The UK Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee and the Drawing of Boundaries. In preparation for the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 13 October 2010

Written evidence submitted by the Department of Health Summary 1. This submission covers the Department of Health and its Executive Agency but does not include the Department’s Arms Length Bodies. It does not cover broad sustainable development issues in the NHS, except where the SDC had a specific support role. 2. There are a number of areas where we believe that the mechanisms for ensuring sustainability of operations are working well in our sector, notably: — the use of Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) reporting process and the Key Performance Indicators that are the output of this process; — the role of the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) part of the Efficiency and Reform Group of the Cabinet Office.) in liaising with Departments and monitoring progress; and

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— the role SDC has played in a Sustainable Development Programme in the NHS and in embedding sustainable development as part of DH policy making How can mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of Government operations, procurement and policymaking be improved and further embedded across Government Departments? 3. Whilst the current mechanisms are working effectively, we believe that the introduction of single reporting arrangements with associated monitoring and continuous review, which includes all aspects of property performance, would be more efficient. Reporting cycles should be consistent, with a single system for all building and operations related data collection for all purposes including Sustainable Development in Government (SDIG), High Performing Properties (HPP), carbon budgets, Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) and Her Majesty’s Treasury Financial Reporting Manual (HMT FReM) 4. In relation to target setting, there should be greater recognition of the improvements in sustainability already undertaken. If not this reduces the ability to meet a target set across the board. The recent exercise for assessing the percentage reduction each Department needed to make towards the Prime Minister’s 10% carbon emissions reduction exercise is a good example of where this took place. 5. The use of audits to assess the effectiveness of procedures could be beneficial in term of raising profile and awareness of sustainable practices as well as identifying specific issues. How can governance arrangements for sustainable development in Government be improved, and how can sustainability reporting by Government departments be made more transparent and accountable? 6. The requirement to meet the 10% reduction has already made Government Departments more accountable for delivering on sustainable development. The on-line reporting tool has increased transparency and the publication of Departments progress against the 10% target on the data.gov.uk website makes us more accountable. 7. There will come a point where the scope for delivering further savings will diminish. However, the remit is being widened to include Arms Length Bodies. This will mean that Government Departments will be accountable for sustainable development activities across more of their estate. 8. The requirement for all government bodies to make a statement about sustainable development costs and usage in their annual accounts should be extended. Sustainability should be included in the Government wide Permanent Secretary’s Annual Statement of Internal Control 9. Sustainability should also be included in the new governance arrangements for Department Boards and this needs to filter through and feature in Departments other governance arrangements. Was the SDC successful in fulfilling its remit? Which aspects of its work have reached a natural end, or are otherwise of less importance, and which remain of particular continuing importance? 10. From a Departmental perspective, the SDC was successful in fulfilling its remit. It provided the Department with invaluable help and advice during the development of the Department’s Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP). 11. We also feel that they fulfilled their role as a watchdog of government in terms of appraising the effectiveness of delivering sustainable development through the SOGE annual exercise and reporting. As this role is now provided by the CESP team, it is clear that this work has reached a natural end. 12. The Department does feel that it is important that there needs to provision of awareness of the concept of sustainable development with key sectors such as the NHS and increasing awareness of the issues it raises. There should also be a function that is able to encourage, stimulate and share good practise not just across government but also the wider community. 13. In relation to the NHS Sustainable Development Unit, the SDC played an important role in providing analysis and data to underpin the publication of its landmark Saving Carbon, Improving Health carbon reduction strategy for the NHS. This analysis built on their previous experience with the education sector. It revealed extensive carbon emissions arising through NHS supply chain and travel, as well as building energy. 14. Under contract to the Department, the SDC have embedded staff to work closely with our policy makers to promote the use of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a consideration in policy design and appraisal, with a view to avoiding “lock-in” to high-carbon policy, and helping the NHS begin stabilising and then reducing its overall GHG burden. 15. From autumn 2008, the SDC’s health team took a more active role in helping to integrate sustainable development in DH policy, assisting with general advice and awareness raising on sustainability, and also providing more targeted support for individual policy teams (eg healthy food, commissioning, policy support, health inequalities, pharmaceuticals and social care). Highlights include:

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— Systems review of how DH’s policy machinery lends itself to incorporation of sustainable development as a priority, leading to a report for the SD team and the appointment of an analyst to act as the central source of information and support for analysts with regard to GHGs and sustainable development. — Provision of evidence to the Marmot Review, leading to greater understanding of the interaction between health inequalities and sustainable development. — Reframing climate change and other environmental problems as critical to future public health, not solely issues of NHS estates management. — Policy pilots on World Class Commissioning and the Healthier Food Mark, raising the profile of sustainable development in these important policy initiatives. — Participation in committees and working groups such as the GES’s Social Impacts Working Group and the sustainable social care programme steering group. — Provision of research and support to the Public Health White Paper Team. 16. The provision of sustainable development input into policy decisions remains important and the Department will need to find alternative ways of delivering this, now that funding has been withdrawn from the SDC. In formulating a future architecture for sustainable development in Government, how can it take on board wider developments and initiatives (e.g. to develop “sustainability reporting” in departments’ accounts) and the contributions that other bodies might make (eg Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement)? 17. The key to taking on broader initiatives and development is to ensure that there is a common platform for data requirements and reporting and that definitions are understood across the government community. CESP have adopted a more proactive role in terms of data collection and verification. The key is to minimise the requests for data, i.e. data is collected once and then it can feed the many requests for data. This will free up resources to actually implement and drive new initiatives and developments forward. 18. From an NHS perspective it has been recognised that the NHS cannot achieve ambitious targets for carbon reductions in isolation, but rather in association with its partners, suppliers and contractors. The Department’s Procurement, Investment and Commercial Division is working with the CESP to identify appropriate mechanisms. 19. NHS organisations are legally autonomous and are therefore subject to legislative requirements such as the EU Energy Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) as a means of reducing energy and carbon by a cap and trade approach. What procedures specifically initiated in the department have been most successful in improving sustainable development? Why have these worked well? Which procedures have not worked and why? 20. The Department first published a Sustainable Development Action Plan in March 2006, focusing on the key contributions set out in Securing the Future, delivering UK Sustainable Development Strategy, March 2005: — the NHS as a corporate citizen; — food and health in the context of sustainable food and farming; — transport and health; — healthy, sustainable communities; and — health impact in partnership in the regions. 21. Good progress was made on these areas and others, including the establishment of a good governance structure and good performance in sustainable operations. These five key contributions continue to shape our response, but within a far more wide-reaching SDAP for 2007–08. Details of progress made was published in the Sustainable Development Action Plan 2007–08 Progress report. We are now taking delivery of SD into a new phase, guided by a new strategy and with an increased emphasis on policy, which is where we feel we can have the most significant impact. 22. The Department produced its Sustainable Development Strategy “Taking the Long Term View” in 2008. Within this document, DH’s overall aim is to improve health and well-being for all. We want our approach to this task to be consistent with the principles underpinning sustainable development. This means that we need to understand the decisions we are making today on the future: we need to explore how the future might be different so that we do what we can to influence it for the better and adapt to it. 23. This — — — —

document also referenced the five principles for sustainable development: Living within environmental limits. Ensuring a strong, healthy and just society. Achieving a sustainable economy. Promoting good governance.

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— Using sound science responsibly. 24. The Sustainable Development Action Plan process itself has helped to drive forward our SD agenda and enabled us to identify colleagues across the Department to take a leading role for each of the nine opportunities. The programme infrastructure we put in place to support and monitor delivery of the SDAP has been very helpful. This includes managing the SDAP as a programme of work; putting in place a programme board and a steering group; using the DH project management approach; monitoring and reporting progress quarterly. 25. The DH produced its Climate Change Plan in spring 2010. In this document, the Department set out its initial priorities and intentions, which articulate how they will contribute to reductions in carbon and how and where their efforts will be directed in terms of adapting to climate change. Through the actions set out in the Climate Change Plan the department is confident that the health and social care sector can play its part in reducing carbon and that we can make the transition to delivering health and well-being for all in a low carbon future. 26. The Department has established a Green Champions network, members of staff (currently about sixty strong), who have volunteered to help raise staff awareness and increase staff engagement of Sustainable and Efficiency issues. The network runs seasonal missions to highlight specific topics, for example Green travel and leisure and the forthcoming missions, which compliments the PM’s energy efficiency competition, will be on reducing your personal carbon at work and at home. 27. The move to a managed print service and the rollout of Dynamic Desktop (Ultra Thin Client) puts us in a good position. Facilities managers have been working to help meet the target since the PM set the challenge in May by making changes to cooling and lighting for example. 28. We have struggled to introduce an Energy Management System (EMS). This has been down to the lack of drive from our Facilities Management suppliers, as this didn’t form part of the contract. It also proved difficult to get sign up to some of the polices which are an integral part of the EMS. We have just awarded a new contract for provision of our Facilities Management and the contract includes the requirement to deliver an EMS system. To what extent are civil servants in your department made accountable for working more “sustainably”? 29. The department currently records details of its rail and taxi expenditure based on unit headcount, by directorate on a quarterly basis. As from Quarter 2, 2010–11 these statements will include an estimated CO2 equivalent. This data will be published on the DH intranet enabling staff to monitor what progress the department and individual directorates are making in reducing their carbon footprint. 30. The department also makes transparent its printing costs and these are now re-charged to individual directorates. Transport costs are also devolved down to the individual cost centres. Sustainable Development and DH’s Carbon footprint are both measures that are reported in the quarterly Corporate Scorecard. 31. DH staff have been made aware of the cross Government competition, which commenced on 30 September, with the display of the league table showing the performance of each Department’s headquarters energy consumption, being published on the DH intranet. All staff are being encouraged to make a personal contribution to saving energy and are encourage to make a pledge on our discussion database. What would help Department of Health engage more effectively with the bodies set up by Government to deliver sustainable development targets? 32. Engagement with bodies such as CESP and the Central Management Carbon Management Programme have been working effectively. We need to continue to work with these bodies to share good practices and learn from some of the more innovative ideas and how they can be implemented. While there are sustainable development workshops where good practice can be shared, it would also be helpful to have discussion forum or shared website where ideas and issues can be raised and help provided by the Government Sustainable Development community. 33. It is important that the bodies we deal with continue to have the expertise and experience to help us meet our targets and that they have knowledge of our business, which would help us to adapt initiatives accordingly. 34. Some appreciation that not all those involved with the sustainable development agenda are London based and consideration could therefore be given to more sustainable approaches to holding meetings and workshops so all can be involved. 35. We do receive numerous requests for data, from different parts of the organisation for similar data items, often with very tight timescales. It would be extremely helpful if requests for data could be streamlined and collected centrally and then made available more widely. Along with more realistic timescales, this would reduce the pressure on our limited resources and ensure consistency of data quality.

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How has the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) contributed towards improving the sustainability of your Department? How much money has Department of Health saved, over what period, by implementing measures recommended by the SDC? 36. The data collection and reporting process established by SDC has enabled us see a level of KPIs that is consistent across Government and the traffic light and five star rating proved invaluable. This was only used by the core Department and our Executive Agency. 37. With investment from DH, the SDC’s Good Corporate Citizenship Assessment Model (GCC) was launched in February 2006, followed up by a strong programme of advocacy via publications, events and working in depth with NHS organisations. It quickly established itself as the leading sustainability benchmarking and learning tool, and by September 2010 (in its second version) over 80% of all NHS Trusts were registered as users (exceeding the 2010–11 target after only six months). 38. The impact of the GCC was studied in 2010, with recommendations offered to DH and NHS. SDC have advised us that without more extensive research, it is impossible to quantify the impact of potentially thousands of actions inspired by the GCC in hundreds of NHS organisations nationally. However, based on feedback, case studies and levels of interest in the GCC, it is likely to have had significant impact. To what extent does the SDC’s Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) reporting process provide an effective means of monitoring the Department’s performance? 39. This is a very effective way of monitoring our performance and is the main vehicle by which we do so. How does the Department verify the data it submits on Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets? How might the submission and verification procedure be improved under the new SDiG process? 40. We work in tandem with CESP for both data collection and verification of the data, which is a continual process within a set timeframe. Verification is done using actual invoices and utilising our FM supplier for the data and feedback on the outputs from the CESP team. 41. We currently initiate an annual internal audit of our property benchmarking data. We could extend the audit remit to cover the SOGE data. This will provide us with an independent assessment that we are handling and reporting our data correctly and accurately. 13 October 2010

Supplementary written evidence submitted by the Department of Health Q How is senior and middle management in the Department of Health made responsible for achieving sustainable performance improvements? Do their objectives include references to sustainable development targets? We have robust governance arrangements in place for ensuring that the strategic outcomes set out in our DH SD Strategy are realised through monitoring delivery of the SDAP. Using the DH project management approach, delivery of the SDAP has been coordinated as a programme of work. Our SD Programme Board has been established under direction from the SD High Level Group and is chaired by our SD Programme Director and Senior Responsible Officer. We have appointed lead senior managers as owners of each of the nine areas within our sustainable Development Action Plan. As members of the SD Programme Board, they are responsible for reporting on and delivering agreed actions within their area. In addition, we have put in place a network of Green Champions to help with the improvement of sustainability in DH’s operations. This is a voluntary role, and Green Champions work locally with their colleagues to support staff to live and work more sustainably. We have grown the network to around 60 members. Sustainable development is not currently part of the Department’s performance management framework. As such, performance objectives do not routinely refer to sustainable development targets, unless they are of particular relevance to a job or team. The Department’s Sustainable Development Action Plan includes an action to include sustainability within the performance framework for Senior Civil Servants, but it is in competition with other objectives around staff management, volunteering, equality and diversity, financial management and leadership. The performance framework for SCS is largely set by the Cabinet Office.

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Q In July the Department of Health issued details of four tests that should be passed before service reconfigurations go ahead—clear clinical evidence, patient choice and so on.60 It might be argued that there is a more fundamental requirement that changes are coherent in sustainable development terms and that society’s longer term interests are properly taken into consideration. Did officials consider adding a reconfiguration “test” that any changes should represent sustainable development? If not why not? [Or—if this was considered why was it not included?] This Government is committed to devolving power to local communities—to the people, patients, GPs and councils who are best placed to determine the nature of their local NHS services. The objective of the four reconfiguration tests was therefore to ensure patients, local GPs and clinicians, and local councils have a much greater role in how services are shaped, and to ensure that these changes will lead to the best outcomes for patients. However, the tests were not intended to be a complete list of the only issues NHS bodies should take into account when planning and redesigning services. NHS bodies will continue to need to have due regard for their wider legal and public obligations in relation to the planning, operation and delivery of services. DH addresses sustainable development and climate change requirements for the NHS through its policy and strategy as identified in: — DH SD Strategy “Taking the Long Term View: the Department of Health’s strategy for delivering sustainable development 2008–2011” — DH SD Action Plan 2009–2011; — DH Climate Change Plan 2010–2012; Operationally, these policies are delivered to the NHS via DH’s “the operating framework for the NHS in England 2010–11” and by standards and best practice guidance, such as: — Sustainable Development in the NHS. — Total waste management—best practice advice. — Carbon/energy management in healthcare—best practice advice. Also an — — — — — — —

Environment and Sustainability suite of guidance: HTM 07–01 Safe management of healthcare waste. HTM 07–02 EnC02de—making energy work in healthcare. HTM 07–03 Transport management and car parking. HTM 07–04 Water management and water efficiency. HTM 07–05 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. HTM 07–06 Community pharmacy waste guide. HTM 07–07 Constructing Sustainable Healthcare Buildings.

The Sustainability agenda is supported by: — BREEAM Healthcare (Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method specially adapted for healthcare). — Good Corporate Citizen Model. There is no legislative requirement within the planning process to consider the environmental impact, but the BREEAM tool was initially developed to provide this requirement. However, it was never formally adopted by the building control and planning bodies although many authorities have taken up the requirement. It is DH policy within the capital procurement process to require an environmental impact assessment to support a business case. BREEAM Healthcare was specifically developed to meet the need to ensure a sustainably constructed, energy efficient healthcare estate and to allow the particular aspects of healthcare to be embraced in an assessment. DH also supported setting up the NHS Sustainable Development Unit to support, empower and galvanise the NHS to meet their obligations as a leading public sector body. A key document for the NHS is the NHS SDU’s “Saving carbon, improving health: NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy for England” 2009, updated 2010. Q The Initial Equality Impact Assessment, published alongside the Liberating the NHS White Paper, notes that the new “Health & Wellbeing Boards will allow local authorities to take a strategic approach and promote integration across health and adult social care, children’s services including safeguarding, and the wider local authority agenda”. Will this wider agenda, include “wellbeing” programmes, in the sustainable development sense of the term?61 — With the demise of the Audit Commission, how are you going to be able to assess how well local authorities deliver on their enhanced health and wellbeing obligations? 60 61

http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_118085.pdf http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/progress/national/68.htm

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Directors of Public Health in local authorities will have use of a public health ring-fenced budget. The ringfence will predominantly be for health improvement. Local authorities are best placed to make decisions about the services needed locally, within the framework of a set of national outcomes for public health. They will be able to use the ring-fenced budget widely to improve public health in the local area, including jointly with other Local Authority budgets such as those for children’s service, schools, housing, transport and environmental health. Progress in improved health and well-being in local communities will be assessed through a new public health outcomes framework and local areas will be rewarded for improvements in agreed health outcomes. Q The Care Quality Commission was heavily criticised in a report by the Sustainable Development Commission in August 2009. The SDC report said the Care Quality Commission “has yet to confirm that it accepts that sustainable development falls within its remit, has failed to pursue a sustainable development agenda, and has done little to inspire confidence that action will be taken in the future” . What have you done to improve the sustainable development credentials of the Care Quality Commission before it takes on its bigger responsibilities? The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of providers of regulated health and adult social care activities. Its statutory role is to provide assurance that the care delivered by providers meets essential levels of safety and quality. Providers of regulated activities must be registered with CQC, and meet requirements set in regulations covering these essential levels of safety and quality. CQC can take independent enforcement action (including potentially closing a provider down) where a provider is not meeting the registration requirements. The enforcement powers available to CQC, set out in primary and secondary legislation, apply where patients and people who use services are being exposed to unacceptable risks or poor-quality care. CQC’s role has been confirmed recently in the White Paper, Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS. The content of the registration requirements was widely consulted on, and then debated in both Houses as part of the affirmative procedure for making regulations. The registration requirements do not cover sustainable development because that would not relate to the essential levels safety or quality of care that patients or people who use services are entitled to expect. Further we would not expect CQC to use its enforcement powers in relation to registration to take action against a care provider based on its sustainable development record, unless this compromised the safety and quality of the care it delivers to patients and people who use services. While CQC does not have an agenda that directly addresses sustainable development, many of its areas of interest will result in improving the efficient use of resources. As an executive non-departmental public body, DH expects CQC to follow all appropriate guidance, including guidance on sustainable development, relating to how it carries on its business. 3 November 2010

Written evidence submitted by the Sustainable Development Commission Executive Summary In fulfilling its remit, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) has advised on and advocated for improvements across priority areas of Government’s business, and reported on its progress. Drawing on extensive experience gained over 10 years, the SDC has identified four criteria for any new sustainable development (SD) arrangements in Government; Governance Arrangements, Mechanisms, Capability Building and Engagement (see Figure A, Section 1.3 below for further detail). These must be addressed if Government is to mainstream SD in its business, demonstrate leadership by example, and live up to its laudable ambition of being the “Greenest Government Ever”: 1.

Governance arrangements must be put in place to drive SD through leadership, strategy, structures and scrutiny. They should also encourage innovation, long-term thinking and ensure effective crossdepartmental working. — Political Leadership -There is a need for political leadership from the very top of Government. Ideally, the lead for sustainable development should be the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or Cabinet Office Minister with support from a cabinet committee which has a clear remit on SD and access to impartial, expert advice. SD could feature prominently in the remit of an existing Cabinet Committee, with Government setting out how any such arrangement would ensure that SD becomes an organising principle for the development of Government policy, rather than a “bolt on” afterthought.

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2.

— Strategy and Vision—Government urgently needs to bring together departments, local authorities, civil society and business under a refreshed and inspiring vision of sustainability for the future that will retain and strengthen the UK’s position as a SD leader on the world stage. Any strategy must be explicit in how Government’s economic, social and environmental activities are mutually reinforcing, and set out how an improved quality of life within environmental limits can be achieved, both in the short and longer-terms. — Governance Structures—Governance structures should be reviewed to ensure that any bodies responsible for overseeing policy and operational performance are aligned and well co-ordinated to ensure effective and efficient delivery of agreed government goals for SD. Operational performance should explicitly help support and drive national policy ambitions. These bodies must also have clear remits and agendas covering the areas for which each is responsible, and be given appropriate levers and mechanisms to make effective change on cross-Government issues. — Scrutiny—Government must have an independent scrutiny/assurance function which is informed by robust evidence, developed in part through ongoing challenge which necessitates close and regular liaison with Government officials. Reporting on progress must be transparent and provide Parliament and the public with a comprehensible overview of progress. Independent, wellinformed scrutiny is essential, not only for Government’s credibility on the SD agenda, but also to challenge departments and drive improvements in priority areas. Mechanisms must be established that enable Government to deliver its commitments set out in the SD vision and strategy. — Performance Management Frameworks—Currently Government is lacking an agreed holistic set of standards, indicators, targets or explicit goals against which it, and others, can measure impacts, performance and progress towards agreed pan-Government outcomes. — Delivery Plans and Tools—All public bodies need agreed plans which demonstrate how they will contribute to mainstreaming and delivering SD. SD must be embedded in all decision-making tools and processes for both its policy and operations. Examples include the Green Book, Impact Assessments, SD indicators, Business and Structural Reform Plans and environmental management systems (EMS). To date progress has been inconsistent and there is a risk that ongoing work (e.g. understanding impacts through the Green Book) will not go far enough in SD terms. — Monitoring and Reporting—Government must ensure that there is a timely and transparent process for reporting progress against agreed performance management frameworks for all elements of public sector business—policy and operations—and that it provides easily understood information and progress reports for the public.

All the above mechanisms must be applied consistently across the three thematic areas of Operations and Procurement, People and Policy. Furthermore, SD mechanisms must be co-ordinated and driven centrally in order to make the most efficient use of Government–wide resources. 3. Capability building—Government will need a systematic approach to incorporating capability building into all aspects and levels of SD in Government—leadership, civil service skills, systems and procedures and tools to ensure the continuous improvement and efficiency of performance. This would need to be driven from a central focal point to ensure oversight, prioritisation and also the efficient use of Government-wide resources. Current practice, where each department largely pursues its own agenda with little sharing of resources, activities and benefits, is not as effective or efficient as possible. It is key to identify core competences for the various stages of decision-making and policy development; the civil service staffing hierarchy; and various business functions (e.g. HR and Procurement). The central focal point for Capability Building would need a means by which it can assess which departments’ learning needs might best be met through centralised initiatives. These could include a range of learning interventions making best use of available resources which might require bespoke support for particular departments, or identifying which learning needs could be dealt by the department itself. 4. Engagement of business, civil society, wider public sector and international bodies is vital to encourage dialogue, debate and decision-making to improve Government policies and provide independent, expert advice to decision-makers. Government must therefore ensure it has arrangements in place for ongoing engagement in order to: — Inform domestic policy as well as influence the European and international agenda. — Share best practice and learn from international examples. — Act as a focal point and sounding board for those organisations needing advice and guidance on specific areas of SD relevant to their organisation’s aims. This will become increasingly important as a means for supporting Big Society initiatives as they start to gather momentum. It is also a critical part of the preparations for the Earth Summit. To sum up, the previous Government made some progress on mainstreaming SD in a number of areas. However, given that the new Government has made a clear commitment to be the Greenest Government Ever, it not only needs to ramp up its ambition on operations and think beyond its estate boundaries and carbon; it should also ensure that SD permeates all aspects of its business, particularly its policy development. This

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document builds on the SDC’s experience and findings to date, highlights issues and risks and sets out a number of next steps for the consideration of the Coalition Government. 1. Introduction 1.1. The SDC The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) is the Government’s independent adviser on sustainable development (SD), reporting to the Prime Minister, the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Through advocacy, advice and appraisal, we help put sustainable development at the heart of Government policy. Following the statement by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 22 July 2010 stating that Government wants “to mainstream sustainability, strengthen the Government’s performance in this area and put processes in place to join-up activity across Government much more effectively”, the SDC’s funding has been withdrawn by Defra, effective from 31 March 2011. 1.2. Greenest Government Ever Government’s commitment to be the “Greenest Government Ever” is a very positive step. However, it is not clear to what exactly the Government is committing, and what aspects of Government business it encompasses. Government must offer a clear definition of the “Greenest Government” in order to be credible. In the view of the SDC, being a green Government and being a sustainable Government are one and the same. The SDC would recommend that Government defines its ambition to be the most sustainable Government ever. This will enable Government to be a leader in operations in the short term, without jeopardising long term performance. Government should seek to improve not only its operational impacts (e.g. carbon performance as well as water, waste, biodiversity and procurement), but also to optimise the sustainability of the social side of its operations (e.g. volunteering, diversity and local employment), the awareness and skills of its people and the impacts of all its policy. An initial step for the Government in achieving its goals to be the “greenest ever” and to “mainstream sustainability” will be to establish the right SD architecture. The key components of sustainable development architecture for Government are outlined in Section 1.3 below and discussed in greater depth in Section 2. 1.3. SD Architecture — For Government to put sustainable development into practice it must put in place a robust and systemic structure which sparks leadership from the top, enables delivery and provides accountability to the public. SD architecture of Government can be split into four criteria; “Governance Arrangements” and “Mechanisms” to ensure a sustainable development approach is taken in Government policy and operations. While “Capability Building” and “Engagement” are inherent activities throughout the SD architecture, they are vital functions in mainstreaming SD and as such must also be considered separately. — Governance arrangements provide the leadership and direction required to drive the sustainability agenda and also provide accountability for progress. They consist of: — Strategy and Vision. — Political Leadership and Governance Structures. — Scrutiny and Democratic Accountability. Mechanisms are approaches which, if followed, can help deliver the commitments set by Government on sustainable development. The following mechanisms are key to successful delivery and should be applied to the thematic areas of Operations & Procurement, People and Policy: — Performance Management Frameworks. — Delivery Plans and Tools. — Monitoring and Reporting. The component parts of the SD architecture are a practical application for any new SD arrangements and must be considered together. The governance arrangements establish the parameters for Government’s action on SD as a whole, leading to the set of mechanisms to be used across the public sector to deliver outcomes. A feedback loop of performance information to the governance level drives continuous improvement and democratic accountability. This is shown in Figure A which outlines the four criteria and component parts for SD architecture.

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Figure A—Sustainable Development in Government—Architecture

Strategy and Vision Polical Leadership & Governance Structures

Policy

People

Performance management Pe aanagemen frameworks ks

Engagement

Governance Arrangements

Policy

Deliveryy Plans and d Tools

People

Operaons and Procurement

Capability Building

Scruny & Democrac Accountability

Monitoring ng and Rep n Reporng p

Mechanisms This document refers to Government as Central Government, which consists of Central Government Departments, Executive Agencies, Non-Departmental Public Bodies and Non-Ministerial Departments. However, in order to successfully achieve sustainable outcomes, SD must also be embedded into sub-national governance which has significant cumulative impacts; for example, Local Enterprise Partnerships, local authorities, Local Strategic Partnerships, parish councils, local community groups and Primary Care Trusts. The next section (Section 2) explores SD architecture in more detail and discusses key principles, achievements by the SDC and Government, any issues and risks and the way forward for each component. Annex A explores the benefits (including financial benefits) from sustainable operations. Annex B highlights the SDC’s key achievements. Annex C discusses the key priorities for Government in taking SD forward over the life of Parliament. 2. Criteria and Components of SD Architecture 2.1. Governance Arrangements 2.1.1. Strategy and Vision Definition: A pan-Government high level statement of principles and priorities for sustainable development. Key Principle(s) — A vision that sets out Government’s aims of freedom, fairness and responsibility for the long-term, sets out how it will achieve better and mutually reinforcing social, economic and environmental outcomes for the UK, and provides a central organising principle through which all policy and operational activities is viewed to limit adverse effects and maximise efficiency. — A clear set of principles and priorities that will enable an improved quality of life within environmental limits to be achieved, and which brings together statements of Government action with that of business, civil society and local Government to achieve combined action for the UK domestically and internationally. Achievements — The publication of Securing the Future, the UK Sustainable Development Strategy in 2005 led to a number of achievements: — A renewed Government commitment to SD was adopted by the whole of the UK and a strengthened for the SDC as Government’s watchdog on sustainable development. — The Strategy set out the five principles of sustainable development which would be the framework for all action and decision-making. The five principles are shown in Figure B.

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— The Strategy focused the efforts of departments in improving their performance and progress on sustainability via the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) Framework and the Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP) process. — Groups and networks formed to share best practice and innovative approaches to improving as a result of the Strategy’s existence. — The Welsh Assembly Government is one of only a few Governments in the world to have a statutory duty with regard to sustainability62 and in 2009 it made a commitment to make sustainable development the “central organising principle” of Government in Wales in its One Wales: One Planet Strategy.63 Figure B—The Five Principles of Sustainable Development Living within environmental limits

Ensuring a strong, healthy and just society

Respecting the limits of the planet’s environment, resources and biodiversity - to improve our environment and ensure that the natural resources needed for life are unimpaired and remain so for future generations.

Meeting the diverse needs of all people in existing and future communities, promoting personal well being, social cohesion and inclusion, and creating equal opportunity.

Achieving a sustainable economy

Using sound science responsibly

Promoting good governance

building a strong, stable and sustainable economy which provides prosperity and opportunities for all, and in which environmental and social costs fall on those who impose them (polluter pays), and efficient resource use is incentivised.

Ensuring policy is developed and implemented on the basis of strong scientific evidence, whilst taking into account scientific uncertainty (through the precautionary principle) as well as public attitudes and values.

Actively promoting effective, participative systems of governance in all levels of socieity - engaging people’s creativity, energy and diversity.

Issues and Risks — Without an up-to-date strategy or statement on SD the UK’s reputation internationally as a leader on SD could be called into question, particularly in light of the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 (following on from the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992), and other international developments (e.g. France’s new SD Strategy and the revision of the EU’s SD Strategy in 2011). — A vision or strategy on SD must be owned by Government as a whole with high-level leadership from the Prime Minister and all departments in order to put it into practice. Defra and DECC’s leadership on SD must reinforce this or run the risk of it being regarded as only the business of these two departments and potentially relegated to solely environmental concerns. — A “greening” agenda which focuses simply on carbon or the environment risks ignoring many other key challenges facing the world e.g. social cohesion and fairness, the transition to a more sustainable economy, enabling more sustainable lives and shaping sustainable places. Looking forward — In order to take the lead on SD and achieve its goal of being the “Greenest Government Ever” while meetings its ambitions on fairness, Government needs to bring together departments, local authorities, civil society and business under a refreshed and inspiring vision of sustainability for the future that will retain and strengthen the UK’s position as a leader on the world stage and will set out a narrative on how an improved quality of life within environmental limits can be obtained. The SDC believes that the five principles of SD are still valid and useful and these need to be confirmed or updated as part of a reinvigorated strategy that should prepare the UK for the UN Conference in 2012 and beyond, as well as to set out what mainstreaming SD means in practice. 2.1.2. Political Leadership and Governance Structures Definition: The structures, roles and responsibilities required to deliver a sustainable development strategy, to manage performance and make decisions. 62

63

The statutory duty is contained in Section 79 of the Government of Wales Act 2006. It states that “Welsh Ministers must make a scheme (“the sustainable development scheme”) setting out how they propose, in the exercise of their functions, to promote sustainable development.” http://wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/publications/onewalesoneplanet/?lang=en

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Key Principle(s) — A formal lead for SD, who is accountable for the delivery of SD, must be identified at the very top of Government. — A high level group of Ministers must be set up to oversee the delivery of a refreshed SD strategy. Any governance structures must have clear and transparent lines of responsibility which show exactly who is responsible for agreed commitments, how delivery will be carried out and how progress will be reported. — Appropriate levers for change must be identified and assigned to leaders to improve whole Government and cross-departmental working. — Senior leaders must provide support and guidance for those below to deliver more sustainable outcomes and enable any individual to take a leadership role in championing SD. Achievements — In response to the SDC’s recommendations from the Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) 2007 report, Government set up the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) to act as the delivery body for the sustainable operations and procurement agenda. CESP in turn improved the governance arrangements for SD in Government by creating additional groups to discuss sustainable operations and procurement issues. See Operations and Procurement section for further details. — As recommended by the SDC, all Permanent Secretaries have Government’s operations and procurement targets in their personal objectives. — During the last administration, a cabinet sub-committee was set up dedicated to SD; this was the cabinet committee for Energy and Environment, sub-committee Sustainable Development (EE(SD)). The terms of reference for the group were “to improve the Government’s contribution to SD through the conduct of its business, including through consideration of departmental sustainable development action plans; and to report as necessary to the Committee on Energy and the Environment.” Issues and Risks — There is a risk in not having appropriate governance structures and leadership to drive direction, decisions and accountability. Leadership for SD has been inconsistent and there has been a lack of authority to bring together disparate parts of Government and properly drive delivery of the SD strategy. In particular: — During the last administration, SD Ministers were nominated for every Department to act as the ministerial lead on SD for each department and a network was set up led by a Defra minister to enable this group to meet and discuss SD issues. Despite efforts by Defra the lack of a clear mandate for the group and mechanisms to enact change meant that it failed to meet regularly and never got off the ground. — In a cabinet reshuffle, EE(SD) was lost and SD become a part of the remit of the Cabinet committee for Economic Development, sub-committee Environment and Energy (EE(ED)). This created a risk of wider sustainability issues becoming secondary to economic interests by top-level decision-makers. — Government has had mixed success in embedding SD into policy and decision-making processes. This is partly due to weak governance arrangements. The Sustainable Development Programme Board (SDPB) and Sustainable Development Policy Working Group (SDPWG) have suffered from a lack of clear remit and have failed to organise coordinated initiatives to improve the tools and practices available to departments. Looking forward — Given the magnitude of the issues being dealt with, leadership for SD should be assigned to the level of Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister or, at a minimum, a minister in the Cabinet Office to ensure a pan-Government approach to SD. On the departmental level, the lead for SD should be expanded beyond Defra and DECC to include social policy departments such as DWP. — This high-level leadership should be supported by a cabinet committee and must have a clear agenda for SD and be given appropriate levers and mechanisms to make effective change on crossGovernment issues. This cabinet committee must have access to independent expert advice, must have clear links into Government decision-making processes and must have all major departments represented including HMT.

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— Governance structures should be reviewed to ensure that any bodies responsible for overseeing policy and operational performance are aligned and well co-ordinated to ensure effective and efficient delivery of agreed government goals for SD. In particular, the remits and membership of SDPB and SDPWG must be reviewed to improve focus on high priority subjects/initiatives by making clear what each group is trying to achieve and to make them fit for purpose in embedding SD principles into policy and decision-making. — To drive change as has happened on operations, Permanent Secretaries’ and Ministers’ appraisal objectives should include ones on SD policy (not just operations) as they relate to departmental Structural Reform Plans or Business Plans. 2.1.3. Scrutiny and Democratic Accountability Definition: Third party independent analysis, assessment and feedback to Government, business and civil society. Key Principle(s) — Government must be held to account for its performance on SD, the outcomes, the decisions it makes and the way it works. — Analysis and assessment must be carried out by an independent body in close liaison with Government officials, and must be based on previously agreed milestones and commitments to ensure there is consistency. — Scrutiny must be transparent and made available to the public. — Provide Government (in particular any new group of Ministers) with impartial expert policy advice to develop robust action plans that take long-term consequences into account. Achievements — The establishment of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) in 2000 to act as the Government’s independent advisor and “critical friend” was a major milestone. The SDC’s remit was strengthened to include the formal scrutiny “watchdog” function in 2005. — The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has provided parliamentary scrutiny on SD since 1997. — The NAO has undertaken specific audits on sustainability, particularly on operations and procurement. These three “SD Scrutineers” have worked together to provide effective scrutiny of Government and Departments. Each serves a different function, but worked together to complement each other’s work programmes while at the same time ensuring that an understanding evolves that reflects changing circumstances and changing departmental capability. For example, the SDC and the NAO (at the behest of the EAC) worked in partnership to develop the assessment framework for a Departmental Sustainability Assessment (DSA) of the Department for Works and Pensions. Whilst the NAO was not involved in the actual assessment, its expertise proved invaluable in driving this pilot project forward. Issues and Risks — Of the three SD Scrutineers, the SDC provides the broadest coverage of sustainability issues. When the SDC ceases, the quality of SD scrutiny—and therefore the level of democratic accountability— will diminish unless this is accounted for in any new arrangements. — Unique to SDC’s role was the function of capability building. This function is at risk of being lost when the SDC ceases, as neither the EAC nor NAO have these competences and are therefore not currently capable of providing this type of support and assistance. See Capability Building section for further details. — Scrutiny requires more than occasional analysis and reporting. Proper understanding of the ongoing challenges of SD is gained by daily interaction and liaison with practitioners and senior officials, by providing ad hoc advice and by responding to formal consultations. This enables change before final decisions are made, informs formal scrutiny and reporting and increases the ability to get Government to respond to findings. Without robust engagement, scrutiny is weakened. However, there is a risk that relationships with parts of Government can be strained by critical scrutiny. This can make the role of Government’s critical friend difficult, which is why ongoing interaction with practitioners and senior officials is such an important part of any scrutiny arrangements. Looking forward — Under the new arrangements for SD, it has been proposed that the EAC is given an enhanced role to provide scrutiny. It is not clear how this enhanced role would work or how it is to be supported. However, the SDC would recommend that it include:

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— Independent assessment of Government’s own operational activities and operational delivery plan. — Ongoing assessment of draft and final of organisational delivery plans for SD. — Scrutiny of Government’s arrangements for policy development and for assessing impacts. — Commentaries on the adequacy of governance arrangements. — Commentary on how well SD is being driven through the skill development of civil servants. — Access to independent expertise on SD. — A capability building function for SD either directly within the EAC or supported by a SD body for capability building elsewhere in Government. 2.2. Mechanisms 2.2.1. Performance Management Frameworks Definition: An agreed holistic set of standards, indicators, targets or explicit goals against which to measure impacts, performance and progress towards agreed high level outcomes. Key Principle(s) — A systems approach that considers all aspects of Government business and reflects the interplay of different impacts so as to effectively manage performance and achieve goals. — In designing a Performance Management Framework the indicators and measures of progress should: — Add up to the high level goal/statement/priority. — Be agreed with the relevant scrutineers. — Be meaningful to the public. — Any framework must be designed to improve the level of democratic accountability and transparency. Achievements — The Sustainable Development Indicators have been useful measures of progress against sustainability commitments to date. Government reports annually on the entire indicator set and a summary “basket” of indicators. These indicators have been very useful in terms of the promotion and awareness raising of sustainable development. For example, there has been considerable take up of the publications by education institutions as educational resources, and the indicators have helped to clarify the breadth of SD beyond simply the environment, and to home in on specific issues, e.g. poverty and life satisfaction. This set of indicators is now being revised by the SDC, Defra, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Cabinet Office. — The Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) Framework has driven significant progress on Government’s operations and procurement activity with progress reports made publically available through annual SDC reports. (See Operations and Procurement section for further details). — The Sustainable Procurement Task Force’s Flexible Framework provided Government with agreed measures for progressing on the sustainability of their procurement activity which has driven performance. (See Operations and Procurement section for further detail). — The SDC has acted as an advisor in the development of each of these Performance Management Frameworks. The introduction of Carbon Budgets in the Climate Change Act 2008 represents a significant step in assigning an environmental limit to government decisions and policy. The framework and process for carbon budgets has been set up to deliver carbon budgets targets and should be monitored for effectiveness. Issues and Risks — Some things are hard to measure, for example well-being. The measurement of well-being will be a key issue in a future performance management framework. On well-being (which the SDC views as being synonymous with quality of life), the SDC agrees with the assertion of the Stiglitz Commission that appropriate measures can provide a current status report, but have very limited use in understanding the potential for future well-being or sustainable development. Sustainable development is inherently forward-looking, requiring information about the future as well as the present. — Better measures of progress are needed to drive improvements in operational performance and policy development/implementation.

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Looking forward — The SDC recommends that any new indicator set to measure well-being must sit within a wider sustainable development measurement framework. — The SDC supports the idea of reporting through a “dashboard” of aggregated indicators which can effectively convey a high level measure of progress. However, a dashboard cannot tell the whole story, so the high-level indicators must also be disaggregated to an appropriate level to show, for example, the distributional effect across social grade, ethnicity, age, level of deprivation, gender, income, and whether the social and environmental footprint is positive or negative. — Government should seek to develop performance management frameworks for policy, operations and people as a package of measures that when combined drive improvements in Government’s sustainability performance.

2.2.2. Delivery Plans and Tools Definition: Statement of intent by an organisation explaining how it will contribute to achieving a panGovernment vision on SD through specific actions within a prescribed timeframe across Operations and Procurement, People and Policy and the tools it will use to achieve this.

Key Principle(s) A Delivery Plan should: — Set out clear objectives to be achieved in the time period that the Plan covers and which are supported by specific, measurable, accountable, realistic and time-related actions to allow effective measuring and reporting. — Have actions that cover the totality of an organisation’s business, i.e. its operations and procurement activity, its people (e.g. Human Resources, workforce management policies) and its policies and decision-making processes. — Be integrated into business planning processes and support longer-term goals. — Include clear governance arrangements and monitoring and reporting processes. — Be publically available and publicly reported on. Tools should: — Support all officials to make more sustainable choices in their everyday jobs, driving more sustainable outcomes. — Be integrated with SD.

Achievements The SDC has supported all Government departments over the past five years in developing Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs), and SDAP progress reports. SDAPs are delivery plans which enable departments to become more sustainable organisations across each and every area of their business. The SDC has done this through: developing and communicating the SDAP cycle (see Figure C), the production of guidance materials,64 delivering workshops, advising on the content and ambition of draft Plans, assessing final published Plans and scrutinising reported progress.65 The SDC has had a full-time dedicated resource to this process since 2006. There are currently ten Government departments with current SDAPs, four without current SDAPs, four SDAPs at a draft stage and one department which has discontinued the process. 64

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Driving Change, 2008, Sustainable Development Commission and Preparing your SDAP progress report, 2008, Sustainable Development Commission. In the financial year 2009/10 the SDC provided guidance, assessment and recommendations to 34 organisations on improving their Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs) as well as providing ongoing advice and responding to individual queries from departments, executive agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies about the SDAP process on a day-to-day basis.

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Figure C—The SDAP Cycle

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draft The quality and ambition levels of these plans have increased over the past five years, and they have helped to raised awareness and understanding of sustainable development across Government. There are two examples where organisations have begun to look beyond the SDAP process to more fully integrate sustainable development into their organisational business: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) which over the past year has focussed attention on integrating SD into its business planning processes through department-wide engagement processes; and the Driving Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) which took the decision not to produce a SDAP for 2009–10 but to produce a single Business Plan/SDAP i.e. a “sustainable” Business Plan. The existence of tools to support departments in the delivery of their SDAPs and thereby implementing the actions for SD has enabled significant progress to be made on SD. Specific tools for operations and procurement, people and policies can be found in the relevant sections of this evidence paper. In implementing Carbon Budgets, DECC has prepared guidance and provided support to other departments to enable departmental Carbon Reduction Delivery Plans which detail the actions a department will take towards fulfilling its carbon budget. Defra has also provided guidance and support to other departments for departmental Climate Change Adaptation Plans. The SDC provided advice and guidance to both DECC and Defra on their respective climate change planning processes. Issues and Risks — Delivery plans and tools should be designed to help practitioners carry out their work on policy, people and operations and procurement more effectively and more sustainably. SD should be mainstreamed into standard tools, which will require expertise and should be linked to Performance Management Frameworks. A dedicated source of advice and guidance for departments and agencies will be important in managing this transition, ideally via the Cabinet Office, to reinforce SD as a central issue for Government.

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Ev 80 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

— Ensuring that momentum is maintained on the process of mainstreaming SD into standard tools and processes, and that mainstreaming is not regarded as complete prematurely are key issues. The SDC has experienced this in its SDAP work in which a department produces one or two SDAPs, the process begins to come to a halt and SD is at risk of being dropped. The SDC’s work in the past five years has sought to ensure that momentum is maintained and that departments are held to account on the SDAP reporting requirements, i.e. to be covered by a SDAP at all times and to report progress annually. It is therefore important that systems and requirements are in place to ensure that this does not happen with any future SD planning and reporting processes. — SDAPs have necessarily been a separate plan of action for a department as Government began to get to grips with what SD meant for its business and activities. It has always been a requirement however, that a SDAP should align with a department’s Business Plan and pan-Government aims and objectives. With the progress that has been made on SDAPs over the last five years, the downside to the SDAP as a separate plan to a central business plan, and one increasingly cited by departments, is that sustainable development may be regarded as an add-on to existing business rather than the approach a department uses to deliver its activities. This now presents an opportunity for Government to define how sustainability may be more tightly integrated into a department’s business planning cycle. — The SDC’s SDAP guidance and assessment work has highlighted that a key area requiring attention is departmental progress on embedding sustainable development into policy-making. See the Policy section for further information. — While the forward-looking work carried out by the FCO and DVLA is not regarded as complete by either organisation, their experiences could provide useful evidence for where to take the SDAP work next. Looking forward All public bodies need agreed plans which demonstrate how they will contribute to mainstreaming and delivering SD. Ultimately the existing SDAP process should no longer be needed once an organisation has sufficiently embedded sustainability into all of its plans, processes, people and activities. A Government-wide transition from separate SDAPs and Business Plans to just one “sustainable” Business Plan would be a logical next step for the SDAP process. This approach reduces the burden on departments in that they produce one single plan that demonstrates the focus of their business in the years ahead and how they intend to make SD the organising principle for all future departmental strategies and plans. The SDC recommends the following for undertaking this transition: — The SD practitioners within the organisation work with the business planning divisions to create the sustainable Business Plan. — SD practitioners retain a separate list of sustainable development actions/activity to ensure a measured transition. — The quality and ambition levels of existing SDAPs are highly varied across Government. Where departments have not yet implemented the basic requirements of the SDAP process, it may be more appropriate for them to continue with the SDAP process, with a view to advancing to the “Sustainable Business Plan” in the near future. If so, the SDAP should set out a plan for that transition. The monitoring of this transition should be conducted by a central body, such as the Cabinet Office, and should provide assurance that the transition is progressing and that sustainability messages are not being lost in the process. 2.2.3. Monitoring and Reporting Definition: A streamlined and timely process of reporting progress against performance management frameworks for all elements of public sector business strategically and which provides transparency for the public. Key Principle(s) — Effective monitoring systems must be in place to gather information in a timely and efficient way. — Reporting of data must be transparent and accessible, allowing others to hold Government to account for its performance against policy and operations commitments/goals. — The ambition must be for better, more simplified reporting, integrating SD and focusing on outcomes while minimising the reporting burden on departments and other organisations.

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Achievements — SDiG—Operations and procurement has arguably been the most successful part of the SD agenda in Government. Started as the Greening Government programme by the EAC, the Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report and process has been successful in turning panGovernment performance from “poor performance” to either being or nearly being “on track”. Key to this success has been the role of the SDC in undertaking independent assessment of performance and producing the SDiG report with recommendations, the majority of which have been accepted and implemented by Government. Responsibility for data collection has been a success in capability building terms to the extent that it has now been handed back to Government who recently began real time reporting on operational performance (e.g. energy consumption in buildings). For further details see Operations and Procurement section. — SDAPs Progress Reports—Securing the Future committed departments and executive agencies to produce Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs) and report progress against them regularly. To facilitate this, the SDC produced a progress reporting tool for organisations, and worked closely with practitioners to understand how to record and report progress on actions and impacts. The SDC scrutinised the first round of SDAP Progress Reports and provided detailed feedback to departments. The SDC also monitors and tracks departmental progress in the SDAP process to maintain public accountability. For further details see Delivery Plans and Tools section. — HMT Sustainability Reporting—This Treasury-led initiative is an excellent step towards integrated reporting. It will require all public sector organisations to report information relating to sustainability performance in annual reports, which should also lead to improved performance management in relation to sustainability. By using a format which covers both financial and nonfinancial performance, it is hoped that the cost benefits of embedding sustainability is more visible. A dry-run is currently underway with Central Government departments before expanding to all public bodies. Issues and Risks — There is risk of a proliferation of reporting mechanisms on sustainability which places an onerous burden on departments and ties up valuable resources which could otherwise be used to improve performance and deliver more sustainable outcomes. — The SDC—through advice to departments and membership on various governance and working groups—has worked across Government to identify synergies between reporting mechanisms, to avoid any unnecessary duplication of effort or conflicts. Without the SDC undertaking this function, there is a risk that the quality and efficiency of reporting on sustainability will decline. — Without effective monitoring and reporting systems in place it is impossible for Government to assess performance against targets and policy goals, to plan strategically, and stake its leadership on sustainability claims (e.g. the Greenest Government). — To date, monitoring of the sustainability impacts of a department’s policies has been conducted through the Public Service Agreement/Departmental Strategic Objectives process, the SD Indicators and to a lesser degree through the Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP) process—all of these are currently in doubt. Clarity on how these impacts will be monitored in the future is required. Looking forward — The historic role of the SDC in identifying overlaps and synergies between reporting mechanisms must be replicated to ensure integrated sustainability reporting, to reduce the reporting burden on departments and to embed sustainability in core reporting. — With the removal of the last administration’s Public Service Agreement framework, a better system for reporting on the impact of public policy is required. The revised set of SD indicators could form the basis of such a performance management system. See Performance Management Framework section for further details. 2.2.4. Operations and Procurement Definition: Ensuring that all aspects of Government operations and procurement are carried out in the most cost effective way with minimal impact on the environment and in support of our common social needs for a prosperous, healthy and just society, both on and off the Government estate. Key Principle(s) — Increasing the sustainability of Government operations and procurement increases Government’s authority on SD by demonstrating that it is “getting its own house in order” in terms of how it functions and how it spends public money. — Leadership—demonstrating and refining the tools that Government is promoting in its policy to reduce adverse sustainability impacts.

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Ev 82 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

— Given the scale of public sector impact and its purchasing power, Government has role to play in making progress towards policy goals by changing its operational and procurement practices. — Impacts can be both direct and indirect. They include but are not limited to the management of carbon emissions (including energy efficiency & travel), natural resource protection (including water, waste, recycling & biodiversity), health & safety, resource/supply demand, and all associated policies. Achievements — By 2008–09, the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) framework of targets had helped Government improve its energy efficiency by 7.9%; to reduce carbon emissions from offices by 10% and from administrative vehicles by 17%; to reduce waste by 13.7% and water use by 19.9%; and to increase recycling by 48.4% against their respective baselines66. — While exact figures do not exist, and with some heavy caveats in place, the value of the benefits from better management of carbon, energy, travel, waste and water in 2008–09 can be estimated to lie somewhere between £62.3 million and £66.1 million (see Annex A)67. — Based on these figures, over the course of the current Parliament, it is possible that these savings will add up to between £300 million and £330 million in savings, assuming no new initiatives are undertaken, and that Government does not lose ground on the savings already made due to the unexpected consequences of new Government policies and initiatives. Issues and Risks — As the new target framework for operations and procurement (formerly SOGE) has not been formally adopted, Government has made no commitment to a targeted reduction of the impacts of its operations and procurement beyond the 12 month 10% carbon reduction target. — This risks Government losing momentum towards increased sustainability, potentially losing ground on the savings already made and losing credibility with non-Government stakeholders it is trying to influence to act in more sustainable ways. — Currently operations and procurement are largely seen as separate issues from each other, which can result in the impacts of Government operations being shifted off the estate without taking action to reduce them in real terms. — The SD impacts of operations and procurement can only be effectively managed if embedded in performance management frameworks, tools and monitoring/reporting. — The best two tools for achieving improved operations and procurement are behaviour change programmes and adopting more sustainable procurement practices which take into account the impacts of the supply chain and which include the often more significant indirect impacts of Government operations. — Sustainable procurement programmes begin with resource demand management, and go on to include supplier engagement on supply chain and life cycle issues, encouraging use of best-inclass pre-approved suppliers, and, where appropriate, rationalising procurement contracts across departments to gain better value for money. — Currently there is no coherent system in place, so it is important to focus attention to driving and incentivising effective demand management and to building on previous initiatives. Looking forward — To support transparency and direction of travel, Government must provide clear direction to all public sector organisations on how and what they should be reporting against, where appropriate targets should be set, and how to avoid letting the focus on one area such as climate change, cause perverse incentives that damage efforts to make other areas of Government operations and procurement more sustainable. — Given Government’s aim to reduce the national deficit over a number of years, Government should formally acknowledge that payback periods for many resource management projects, such as energy, water and waste, make financial sense (although this should not divert attention from the wider social and environmental SD benefits that are often harder to quantify financially). — Government should ensure that there is more cross-departmental coordination of operations and procurement to obtain better value for money, more efficient use of shared resources and increased capability through shared learning. 66

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As reported in the SDC’s 2009 Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report Becoming the ‘Greenest Government Ever’ located on the SDC’s website: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/presslist.php/115/moves-towards-greening-Government-already-saving-a60–70-million-everyyear This does not take into account the initial investment costs required to achieve these savings.

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— Supplier engagement should be better monitored, and therefore optimised, by using a crossGovernment management system such as CAESER (www.caeser.org) which is currently being trialled by the Home Office, HMRC and the Welsh Assembly Government (with discussions underway with DWP, MoD & Defra). — Government needs to continue to build a clear understanding of the state of its estate in order to identify the real potential for improved efficiencies through operations and procurement. 2.2.5. People Definition: Ensuring that all aspects of Government’s staffing and human resources policies are carried out in the most cost effective way with minimal impact on the environment and in support of our common social needs for a prosperous, healthy and just society, both on and off the Government estate. Specifically, the development of departmental tools and processes to ensure that all staff have the awareness, understanding, training and skills to be able to apply SD principles in all aspects of their work, and in the wider community. Key Principle(s) — Government (through departments) must embed SD principles into competency frameworks, tools and processes, including recruitment procedures, in order to: — Establish a working culture that recognises diversity and equality, supports a flexible working environment where appropriate, and promotes learning and development opportunities. — Develop an understanding and awareness which generates more sustainable outputs from each department, so that Government as a whole, via for example, policy-makers, uses its understanding of SD to generate more sustainable policy that avoids trade-offs between economic, social and environmental issues. Achievements — Awards for Individual Activity on Sustainability within Departments Some key examples include the Sustainability in DWP (SID) awards which encourage staff to use their initiative and challenge themselves and others to act more sustainably, and the MOD’s Sanctuary Awards in recognition of both individual and group efforts for projects on MOD land in the UK & overseas. — HMRC Outreach Programme HMRC began this particular outreach activity to ensure that the public fully understood their potential entitlement to tax credits following research that identified low take up in certain areas. Internal advertisements were placed for volunteers (called Outreach Support workers) from the business to go out to supermarkets, children’s centres and community groups to speak to people in the course of their daily lives. Issues and Risks — Whilst there are certainly elements of good practice, there is currently no central push to embed an SD approach in relation to staff (i.e. the integration of SD into staff awareness, understanding, training and skills and their contribution to the wider community as individuals, for example, through volunteering). Some key examples include failure to embed SD principles in, for example, the Professional Skills for Government (PSfG) framework. — There is currently a lack of general understanding on how Government is performing on the “People” side of sustainability, as well as even a general understanding of the importance of this area. — A potential risk in is that the balance between progress on the “formal” elements (i.e. processes and frameworks) and the less structured side of this area (i.e. encouragement of debate on SD, and general awareness raising, etc.) fails to be sufficiently achieved. Looking forward — Cabinet Office must coordinate a centralised initiative to build on information contained within departmental Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs) and the existing knowledge and awareness of SD practitioners within departments in order to generate a clear picture of progress in this area. This should be bought together with existing and well developed progress on the way in which sustainable operations and procurement are measured to ensure parts of the SD architecture are not considered in isolation. — While centralised coordination is vital, departments must also continue to tailor measures to their own departmental circumstance and to act themselves. — The principles of SD should be incorporated into training and development courses, e.g. on how to make effective policy. Furthermore National School for Government (NSG) could take the lead on helping departments prepare training courses to embed SD into all generic training courses delivered to civil servants.

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2.2.6. Policy Definition: The development and implementation of policy through using the sustainable development principles in order to enhance the quality and value for money (VfM) of Government policy and achieve better outcomes for society, the economy and the environment. This includes analysis, tools and guidance to help officials take a longer-term, broader-based approach to policy-making that identifies significant impacts, unintended consequences, and tackles underlying causes rather than moderating symptoms. Key Principle(s) — Policy and programmes that are developed and implemented through: — A systems approach (broad-based, long-term) in order to understand the risks and impacts across a number of areas by identifying the linkages between them. — Determining the most efficient way of delivering priority outcomes by identifying actions which can deliver multiple outcomes. — Investing to reduce the need for future spending by finding innovative, cross-disciplinary solutions to cross-cutting issues and to build resilience to future environmental and economic shocks. — A comprehensive evidence base that examines significant impacts and clearly informs final decision-making. Achievements — There has been increasing recognition within Government that sustainable development offers a helpful framework within which to evaluate and manage the costs and benefits of different policy options, for example: — The Government Economics Service (GES) review on the Economics of Sustainable Development that seeks to operationalise the definition of SD as well as conduct further research into the measurement of social impacts. — The establishment of a cross-Government Social Impacts Task Force to develop a coherent and consistent approach to the understanding of social impacts and social capital for use in advising on policy decisions. — The SDC has conducted a small review on Impact Assessments (IA) and used the findings to advise Government (the GES, the Better Regulation Executive (BRE)) on how to improve the process, as well as Defra on how to improve the SD Specific Impact Test (SD SIT), as part of the IA process. In addition, a number of individual departments have developed their own approach to ensuring sustainable development is both an input and an outcome of their policy-making. These have been intended to complement existing processes including the Green Book and departmental specific policy cycle processes. For example: — Department for Transport—The New Approach to Appraisal (NATA) is a framework used to appraise transport projects and proposals that builds on already well established cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact assessment techniques. — Department of Health—a centrally located economist has been given the remit of supporting colleagues across the department with carbon and sustainability appraisal. — Food Standards Agency—has developed its own tool for measuring the sustainability of policies and programmes developed through the Impact Assessment process, as well as establishing mechanisms for monitoring progress. Issues and Risks — There is a risk that future costs will be incurred as a result of a short term focus, which will result in achievements which cannot be sustained and policies which clash in delivery due to silo working. — Co-ordinated activity to embed SD into policy-making is beginning to occur via the GES review, the Social Impacts Task Force (SITF) and the SDC’s work on environmental limits. Specific issues and risks are: — GES—work is ongoing and needs to be continued to resolve the issues that the group itself has identified. — SITF—The aim of the SITF is to produce supplementary guidance to the Green Book on how to measure and report on social impacts. However, as this guidance is supplementary, it will be at risk of simply being ignored. — Natural Environment—Defra are in the process of producing a White Paper on the Natural Environment. While this is a positive step, it may jeopardise a wider sustainable development approach if this is to replace the most recent SD Strategy (Securing the Future), as it may not encompass the entirety of the sustainable development agenda.

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— Adequate guidance does not exist to explain how tools for embedding SD into policy-making should fit together as a package to create better policies; individually these tools do not sufficiently enable policy-makers to address sustainable development. — The primary focus of processes such as the Green Book and IAs is on achieving better economic outcomes. While the Green Book states the importance of considering social and environmental impacts, including those impacts which cannot be monetised, there is: — Not currently a clear idea of how to measure social capital and how to measure environmental limits. — A clear priority given to economic outcomes over social and environmental outcomes. — A lack of guidance (and expertise) on how to weigh up monetised alongside non-monetised impacts and recognition that non-monetised impacts are equally as important. This results in monetised impacts taking precedence in final decision-making. — The SD SIT has been revised as part of the BRE’s Review of the entire IA process. It is acknowledged that this Test is a work in progress and that the work of the GES review and the SITF will improve the Test in time. However, there is no mandate for a policy-maker to employ the SD SIT as it currently stands, and sufficient importance is not placed on the test in the IA guidance, nor how it should be used in relations to the other SITs. For example, the SD SIT should be both the initial test that identifies which SITs should be completed, as well as the final test which draws together the evidence base and highlights any significant impacts. — The individual departmental tools outlined in the “achievements” section have taken departments so far but no one tool demonstrates that the totality of a department’s policy-making has fully integrated the principles of SD. — Defra have committed to “Revise guidance on Impact Assessments, the Green Book and other policy appraisal guidance to take account of sustainability and the value of nature” in their Structural Reform Plan. But as yet, Defra have not taken any solid steps in advancing this work. — The SDC has traditionally used its convening role to help Government work through difficult and cross-cutting issues which transcend departmental boundaries. With the abolition of the SDC there is a risk that no such a body will exist with the expertise to help Government in this way in the future. — In developing different policies to reduce emissions in the wider economy in line with carbon budgets, there is a risk that departments may pursue initiatives which have adverse sustainability impacts in other areas beyond carbon. Effective scrutiny by a body not focussed solely on climate change is required to SD-proof carbon budget actions. Looking forward — Further work is required on the Green Book to ensure social and environmental outcomes are recognised as being just as important as economic outcomes, and with clear pointers for policymakers on the how. The work of the SITF and the GES will be vital in seeking to embed principles of sustainable development in the Green Book to maintain momentum on these areas of work and ensure the findings result in practical methods and tools that can be used by policy-makers to develop better, more sustainable, policies. — Government should agree a cross-Whitehall approach to policy-making that maps out how the various tools outlined above should fit together to achieve more sustainable policy outcomes. In practice this will only succeed if the governance arrangements for sustainable development are effective at both ministerial and official levels, with progress properly supported and scrutinised. — This cross-Government approach should be supported by individual departmental tools and guidance appropriate to their individual policy areas. — The National Audit Office currently undertakes an annual economic analysis of a sample of IAs. The SDC recommends that this should be widened to be a sustainability analysis of IAs building on the SDC’s own work in this area. — Review policy appraisal tools and processes to enhance the integration of SD. — Government must prioritise the pressing SD issues it is seeking to tackle over the life of the current Parliament. Annex C explores the SDC’s 5 areas for priority action. These areas are Economy, Places, Fairness, Lives and Government. 2.3. Capability Building and Engagement 2.3.1. Capability Building Definition: How advice, scrutiny and influence are used to enable civil servants, MPs and Ministers to contribute to SD in Government, for example, by supporting good governance, providing analysis, developing skills and co-developing policy solutions.

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Key Principle(s) — Successful capability building looks for long-term, broad-based solutions that tackle causes rather than treating symptoms. — Working with public servants and ministers to develop their understanding of SD and how they can use it to increase the impact and value for money (VfM) of their work. — Government will need a centrally-coordinated, systematic approach to incorporating capability building into all aspects and levels of SD in Government—leadership, civil service skills, systems & procedures and tools to ensure the continuous improvement and efficiency of performance. Achievements — The SDC has built understanding on, as well as tools and skills for, SD including: — Defra—working to develop a newer and more robust SOGE Framework of SD targets. — DH—the SDC has taken an active role, through embedded SDC staff, in helping to integrate sustainability in DH policy, assisting with general projects, and also providing more targeted support for individual policy teams (e.g. health food, commissioning, policy support unit, health inequalities, pharmaceuticals, social care). — NHS—the SDC has also played a significant role in furthering SD within the NHS, including contributing to the inception of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit. With investment from DH, the SDC’s Good Corporate Citizenship Assessment Model (GCC) was launched in February 2006, followed up by a strong programme of advocacy via publications, events and in-depth working with NHS organisations. It quickly established itself as the leading sustainability benchmarking and learning tool, and by September 2010 (in its second version) over 80% of all NHS Trusts had registered as users (exceeding the 2010–11 target after only six months). — DfE—Over the period 2004–2010 the UK Department for Education (responsible for children, young people and schools in England) entered into a partnership with the SDC, the Government’s advisory body on sustainability issues. SDC advisers were embedded in the Department to produce ideas that were ambitious for SD and which also improved the lives of children and young people—and hence were supportable politically by an education department. The partnership was highly successful, gaining recognition on two occasions from the Government as a whole, through its Civil Service Awards programme. — The SDC has built the capability of departments and many executive agencies in designing, delivering and reporting on SD Action Plans (SDAPs) (see Delivery Plans and Tools section for further details). Issues and Risks — Capability building covers skills, tools, and cultural change, all of which require constant work to achieve alongside embedding SD in the architecture of Government. — The SDC’s very successful capability building support on operations, procurement and policy making for Government will cease when it is wound down, leaving no body or team to encourage departments to work together on their social, environmental and economic impacts in a cohesive and joined up way. — The Centre for Expertise in Sustainable Development (CESP) has historically done some work on capability building for sustainable operations and procurement, but there is no mandate for CESP to continue doing this in a broad, cross-cutting way or to influence policy-making. Looking forward — The challenge is to ensure that the gap left by the closure of the SDC is filled to ensure that departments are able to grow their knowledge, skills, attitude, behaviour, culture and leadership to apply SD principles in their core functions, and to learn from one another (and from outside stakeholders and other countries) as their practice develops. — A central Government body such as the Cabinet Office should be identified to formally incorporate SD into its capability reviews of Government, and be charged with identifying where capability building programmes need to be introduced to fill identified gaps. 2.3.2. Engagement Definition: Engagement is how Government involves others in key SD decisions. It encompasses a whole spectrum of activities, from communications and consultation, through to empowering people to make their own decisions.

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Key Principle(s) — Engagement on SD is important as it helps brings together the necessary stakeholders to improve resource efficiencies, minimise environmental impacts and support of common social needs for a prosperous, healthy and just society. — Government is a key potential influencer on SD across the UK and internationally. It is therefore crucial that Government engages fully with a wide variety of interest groups on a wide variety of SD issues in order to improve awareness, understanding and practice, and to improve the transparency of Government’s activities. — Therefore, it is important that these stakeholder (partner/interest) groups are identified and a Government programme of engagement established. — Engaging with interest groups will arm Government with crucial information to feed into its SD decision-making processes, garnering support while identifying risk and opportunities, and building transparency around Government efforts. — Engagement is closely linked to capability building across the public sector and will help to address the inefficiencies created by the miscommunication of SD across the sector. — Done properly, engagement can deepen the understanding and commitment of both decisionmakers and participants (stakeholders, citizens and consumers) to deliver more sustainable outcomes and facilitate cost and time savings across the public sector. Achievements — Breaking the holding pattern: a new approach to aviation policy-making in the UK—brought together key stakeholders in the aviation and environment sector to reveal widespread controversy over the basic data on air travel in the UK. — Tidal Power —in advising the Government on the use of tidal power the SDC used a comprehensive engagement process that included a national opinion poll, and a series of regional and local deliberative workshops. The stakeholder engagement consisted of two workshops, which were held in Aberdeen and Cardiff. — The Breakthroughs for the 21st Century—convened 400 high-level delegates from Government, business, academia, think tanks and community organisations to promote and examine 19 ideas for breakthroughs in sustainability. — Building realistic and workable SD objectives by drawing in Government and external reference groups throughout all major projects (e.g. Setting the Table, The Future is Local, the Big Energy Shift, Sustainable Travel Engaging the Public Sector (STEPS)). — The SDC gives advice to departments and executive agencies on engaging with stakeholders on drafting Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAPs) and on how to use the SDAP to communicate the SD objectives of these organisations (please see Delivery Plans and Tools section for further details). — The SDC has set up an SD Forum, and participates in expert advisory panels on procurement and SD across Government. Issues and Risks — Without coordination of these engagement efforts combined with a programme of capacity building, Government will not be able to maximise the significant opportunities to meet environmental targets, improve wellbeing and save money, which an SD perspective brings. — Inefficient or insufficient engagement risks stakeholder backlash, uncoordinated messaging, less effective policy delivery, disparate approaches with conflicting goals, and ultimately a waste of public funds and central Government’s time. — Good co-ordination of engagement requires thorough analysis to ensure a watertight approach: accessing expertise, building support for policies, informing/improving policies, accessing/ assessing feedback, horizon scanning for future SD risks and proactively addressing these where appropriate. Looking forward — With the next UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit) coming up in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, world attention will again turn to SD, and the UK Government will need to be able to demonstrate how it is engaging with key interest groups both nationally and internationally. — Government should devise an engagement and capability building programme for SD.

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Annex A—Benefits of Sustainable Operations Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) Inquiry—October 2010 Embedding sustainable development across Government Introduction This note seeks to roughly illustrate some of the reported benefits of more sustainable operations across Government operations and its estate. The Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets provide the basis for this illustration. Please note that these benefits may not be directly attributed to the SOGE framework as other overlapping drivers also apply. Also note that investment costs to achieve these savings have not been assessed. The following caveats are also applied to the assumptions made in this document: Data quality — There has been a slow improvement in Government’s data quality, but there is a lack of transparency over the full impacts of Government operations and procurement. — Due to changes in baselines caused by better quality data and machinery of Government changes, it is not always possible to discern trends from the data provided across all three years. — There is still significant room for improvement in the scope and quality of reporting. Pricing Carbon The SDC refers throughout this note to the cost savings associated with reductions in carbon. To do this we needed to apply a price per tonne. The approach to carbon valuation in government has undergone a major review which concluded in July 2009.68 The review recommended a move away from valuation based on the damages associated with the impacts, and instead using as its basis, the cost of mitigation; the approach used in this report. This approach splits emissions into traded and non traded components. For appraising policies that affect emissions in sectors covered by the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) “the traded price of carbon” is recommended whereas for policies that affect emissions in sectors not covered by the EU ETS (the non traded sector) a “non-traded price of carbon” is used. For example reductions in energy consumption is split into electricity savings which fall under the traded emissions sector and gas and fuel consumption which would fall under the non-traded.69 Carbon from Offices The 2008–09 SOGE data shows a reduction from the baseline of 288,986 tonnes of CO2 from Government offices. Applying the carbon pricing methodology to these carbon savings we can consider the 2008–09 cost savings of Government’s progression towards achieving the SOGE targets. To do this, the percentage split of energy fuel use has been calculated based on 2008–09 data received from BRE and the baseline data (as per 2007–08). Table 2.1 details the percentage split of kWh between electricity and other fossil fuels. Table 2.1—Energy use kWh (% split) Year 2008–09 Performance 2007–08 Performance Baseline 70

Electricity %

kWh

Other Fossil Fuels %

kWh

37% 36% 32%

3,123,026,974 3,568,471,167 2,951,478,763

63% 64% 68%

5,279,697,095 6,240,670,039 6,310,581,871

From this split we can assume that any reductions in carbon are a result of the reduction in energy use from fossil fuels rather than electricity which has steadily increased year on year. The 2008–09 non-traded prices (£/tCO2e) were then applied to non-traded emissions reductions in order to calculate the estimated value of savings. Table 2.2 details the estimated value of the carbon savings and the numbers used in the calculation: Table 2.2—Savings in terms of £/t associated with reductions in carbon from offices Item

Non traded sector emissions

Emissions reductions (2006–07 performance compared to baseline), tCO2 Emissions reductions (2007–08 performance compared to baseline), tCO2 Emissions reductions (2008–09 performance compared to baseline), tCO2

97,148 t CO2

68 69

70

Reduced by a further 82,030tCO2 to 179,178tCO2 Reduced by a further 109,808tCO2 to 288,986tCO2

Carbon Valuation in UK Policy Appraisal: A Revised Approach (July 2009) available www.decc.gov.uk For further information on the approach to carbon valuation a brief guide on carbon values and their use in economic appraisals is available online at: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/lc_uk/valuation/valuation.aspx As reported in 2007–08 as 08–09 split by fuel not received.

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Assuming a 2009 non-traded carbon price of between £50/tCO2e and £51/tCO2e, the estimated cost saving from reduced carbon from offices is set out in Table 2.3 below: Table 2.3—Financial savings in estimated based on the carbon from offices reductions in Table 2.2. Year

Value of Savings

2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 Total Value of savings to 200971

£4.86 million £8.96 million £14.5 million £28.32 million

This is likely to be an underestimation as the reduction in fossil fuels and therefore the reduction in carbon is offset by the increase in electricity which has a lower carbon price.72 Please note that carbon reductions are achieved through technological, behavioural and strategic changes. These reductions and the associated monetary savings should last more than 1 year and therefore the there will be year on year carbon efficiencies and therefore mitigation savings. Energy Efficiency Compared to the total baseline energy consumption, the 2008–09 annual energy consumption (kWh) reduced by 899,972,647kWh. From the fuel splits detailed in BRE data sources it is possible to apply an indicative average cost (p/kWh) to estimate monetary savings from the reduced fuel bills. BERR energy statistics include average prices by quarter for 2008 of fuels purchased by non-domestic consumers in the United Kingdom.73 This includes the climate change levy and prices of fuels purchased by manufacturing industry in Great Britain excluding the climate change levy (the gas and electricity averages calculated using the non domestic statistics, and oil/solid fuel from the manufacturing industry statistics). These are averaged over the four 2008 quarters for an average sized consumer and given in Table 3.1 below: Table 3.1—Estimated cost in pence per kilo Watt hour74 Fuel Type

Average Cost (p/kWh)

electricity gas fuel oil coal

8.14 2.44 3.56 1.29

The total estimated savings based on a 2008 average p/kWh of fuel types are presented in table 3.2 below: Table 3.2—Estimated savings on fuel bill Fuel Gas76 Oil77 Solid Fuel78 Electricity Total79

Reduction/ Increase in kWh (2008–09) since baseline75

Average p/kWh

Estimated Saving/Rise from fuel bill (£)

(-) 738,342,624 kWh (-) 153,075,492 kWh (-) 8,554,531 kWh (+) 171,548,210 kWh 728,424,437kWh

2.44 3.56 1.29 8.14 -

£18,015,560 £5,449,488 £110,353 (£13,964,024) £9,611,377

The total saving in terms of fuel will be highly dependent upon where the kWh reductions have occurred due to the range of estimated savings by fuel type, so the figures presented above are only indicative. As these numbers are based on averages they should be taken as an illustrative high level indication of the monetary savings and not as absolute. 71

72

73

74

75 76 77 78 79

Applying non traded price of carbon of £50/ t as 75% of the emissions in 2008 assuming that the reduction in carbon is purely from reduction in fossil fuels. The non traded price of carbon for 2008 has been applied to the years 06–07 and 07–08 as this is the first year of non traded prices provided. Note that this is a high level assessment and therefore does not take into account the cost of carbon associated with the increased electricity use (which would range between £12-£27/t) or the total reduction in fossil fuel use. Rather it simply looks at the aggregated overall reduction in carbon (which is a factor of the increase in electricity and the reduction in fossil fuel). BERR energy statistics, Table 3.4.2 Prices of fuels purchased by non domestic consumers in the United Kingdom (including climate change levy) http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/statistics/publications/prices/tables/page18125.html The SDC recognises that government departments may get a reduced energy price through OGCbs framework. The figures used are for illustrative purposes. Derived as equivalent to the % split of energy use as derived from BRE’s data. Average size consumer. Average size consumer. Taken as coal, small consumer. Reductions since baseline minus the additional electricity kWh.

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Carbon From Travel The reduction in CO2 emissions from administrative road travel in 2008–09, when compared to the baseline data was 30,601 tonnes of CO2, with a prior savings of 17,023 tonnes of CO2 in 2007–08. However, in the 2006–07 CO2 emissions from travel had increased by 1.5% (2,123 tonnes) above the baseline. These savings and costs are part of the non-traded emission sector. Applying the non-traded price for carbon of £50/tCO2e to 2008 (the first year valuation is provided) and £51/tCO2e in 2009, the total saving in mitigation costs is equivalent to £2.3 million. Key assumptions There are some key assumptions required to make this calculation: — The reduction in carbon is achieved through a reduction in miles80. — All administrative travel was by an average car with unknown fuel. — All miles were travelled at 59.9 mph (the DfT average speed for the UK Network)81. — 75% of travel occurred in 2008 and 25% in 2009. — The price of carbon in 2006 and 2007 is the same as 2008. Assumed cost savings We can therefore deduce that in the 2008–09 performance year the estimated total saved mileage of 93,749,544 miles. At an average speed of 59.9 mph this equates to: — approximately 1,677,094 fewer hours driving; — 223,613 x 7.5 hr working days; — 1,016 full time staff time (working 220 days of the year). Assumed wider financial benefits — If the road transport fuel saved is petrol this would be equivalent to approximately 19.7 million litres saved over the three years. At an average petrol price of 103.2p/litre82 this equates to approximately £20.4 million saved. — Reduced operating costs—tyres, fewer vehicle repairs, replacements, tolls and parking. The running costs for a vehicle per mile in 2008 ranged from 7.19p/mile (not including petrol) to 10.33p/mile. Applying this to the mileage saved is equivalent to between £10 million and £14.4 million over the three years. — Government can use the time saved to deliver better public services more efficiently. Assumed wider social benefits — Less time spent travelling for work can provide a better work life balance, and may be spent in the community, caring for elderly friends and relatives or undertaking charity work. Wider sustainability benefits may be realised if the time is spent on exercise. — Also when compared to the DfT statistics of road fatalities of 1 per 85 million miles driven it would be expected that the reduction would save at least one road fatality per year.83 Waste and Recycling In 2008–09 total Government waste arisings reduced by 49,382 tonnes compared to the baseline. Prior to this, Government waste arisings reduced by 68,498 tonnes in 2007–08 and 8,482 tonnes in the 2006–07 against their respective baselines. Key assumptions — Between 50% and 100% of this would have been sent to landfill84. — Landfill tax rates are applied as follows for waste going to landfill: — 2006–07 £16/tonne. — 2007–08 £24/tonne. — 2008–09 £32/tonne. 80

81

82

83 84

It will also be due to more efficient vehicles and therefore we recognise that this would lead to an overestimation of miles saved for this illustration. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/roadstraffic/speedscongestion/roadstatstsc/roadstats08tsc (The SDC recognises that the average speed for all travel including urban travel will be slower and therefore that the estimate of hours will be an underestimation for this illustration). Based on monthly averages averaged from Apr 2008 to March 2009 taken from: http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuel/fuel-price-archive.html Based on 7.3 fatalities per 1 billion km, reported at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/managingspeedonourroads In 2008/09 pan government recycling represented 48.2% of total waste arisings.

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— The cost of disposal either by recycling or landfill is around £36/t and has been applied to each of the years. — The 2006–07 and 2007–08 year reductions in waste arisings did not include the MOD as reliable data was not available. Assumed cost savings Avoided landfill tax — 2006–07: Between £67,856.00 (50% not sent to landfill savings of landfill tax of £16/tonne); and £135,712.00 (100% not sent to landfill at landfill tax of £16/tonne). — 2007–08: Between £821,976.00 (50% not sent to landfill savings of landfill tax of £24/tonne); and £1,643,952 (100% not sent to landfill at landfill tax of £24/tonne). — 2008–09: Between £790,112.00 (50% not sent to landfill savings of landfill tax of £32/tonne); and £1,580,224 (100% not sent to landfill at landfill tax of £32/tonne). Avoided disposal costs — 2006–2007: £305,352 (100% disposal avoided). — 2007–2008: £2,465,928 (100% disposal avoided). — 2008–2009: £1,777,752 (100% disposal avoided). Assumed wider benefits85 — It has not been possible to monetise other related savings from use of consumables e.g. paper and toners, and therefore the wider benefits of waste reductions are not captured. — In 2008–09 a further 150,022 tonnes of waste has been recycled and not been sent to landfill. — In 2007–08 157,943 (including MOD) tonnes was recycled and in 2006–07 118,923 (including MOD). This is equivalent to savings in landfill tax of approximately £10.5 million (£4.8 million in 08–09, £3.8 million in 07–08 and 1.9 million in 06–07). — The wider benefits of recycling: — Provide raw material for resource re-use. — Supports recycling and re-use industry. — Methane generation—notional carbon impact. Water Consumption The benefits of reducing water consumption are the saving in water bill costs along with indirect carbon emission reductions. An average price of £1.43/m3 of water has been derived based on the average charges from five water companies as detailed in Table 6.1. Table 6.1—Water supply charge & sewerage standing charge (£/m3) Water Supplier

Water supply charge & sewerage standing charge (£/ m3)

Thames Water Anglian water Wessex water Dwrcymru Severn Trent AVERAGE

1.59 1.42 1.66 1.39 1.07 1.43

Estimated savings — Assuming a reduction in water consumption in 2008–09 of 9,285,261m3 compared to the baseline, this would equate to an estimated saving of £13,277,924, based on a cost of £1.43/m3 for the associated water bill charges. — The reductions in 2007–08 would save £12,255,981 based on a reduction of 8,570,616m3 — The reductions in 2006–07 would total £71,602 based on a reduction of 50,071m3 — This totals approximately £25.5 million over the three performance years. The SDC recognises that most of the water reduction is due to leakage reduction by MOD through Project Aquatrine, that the cost savings will not be standard rates and will not necessarily be realised entirely by government, but may be shared with the contractor. 85

Please note that reduced landfill tax also results in reduced income for the Treasury—which itself may have been spent on sustainable development initiatives.

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Ev 92 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

Associated carbon emission savings The provision of fresh potable water requires a significant amount of energy to treat and pump the water resulting in additional carbon emissions. Using the Defra carbon conversion factor we can establish that in 2008–09 the difference in water consumed to that of the baseline is equivalent to 8,977tCO2e.86 Applying the 2009 Defra emission factor to both the 2006–07 and 2007–08 difference in water consumed gives an equivalent of 8,354tCO2e (49 tonnes of CO2e and 8,305 tonnes of CO2e respectively). Which if we assume that this is related to energy use which is likely to be predominately electricity therefore (a conservative approach) applying the 2008 traded carbon price of £12-£26/tCO2e the value of mitigation savings would be between for the three years approximately £208,210 to £451,122, or at the central traded price of £21/t, £364,368. Summary The figures summarised in Table 7.1 below and provided elsewhere within this note are illustrative. They are based on a number of generic assumptions at a pan-Government level and average factors. Please note that this is not presented as a cost benefit analysis as the costs of any measures to facilitate reductions have not been factored into any of the calculations. Also it is not suggested that these saving would be achieved by sustainability initiatives alone. This note seeks to highlight the benefits of more sustainable operations and to highlight the importance of the continued improvements in performance that can be achieved by adopting more sustainable development approach. Table 7.1—Illustrative monetary savings

Element

Savings Type

Carbon

Mitigation value of reduced carbon from offices Annual Energy efficiency—avoided billing costs Fuel—avoided full costs Vehicle operating/ running costs Avoided landfill tax Avoided disposal costs Water bills Mitigation value of reduced carbon Mitigation value of reduced carbon — associated Carbon reduction (non traded price applied)

Energy Travel Travel Waste Waste Water Travel Water Total £ per year87

Illustrative Potential Savings in 2008–9 compared to baseline

Approximation of three year savings

£14.5 M

£28.3 M

£9.6 M £13.7 M £6.7- £9.7 M £0.8—£1.6 M £1.8 M £13.2 M £ 1.5 M

£20.4 M £10 M—£14 M £1.7—£4.5 M £4.6 M £25.5 M £2.3 M

£0.2 M £62.3M- £65.8M

£0.45 M £93.3 M -£100.05 M

Based on these figures, over the course of the current Parliament, it is possible that these savings will add up to between £300 million and £330 million in savings, assuming no new initiatives are undertaken, and that Government does not lose ground on the savings already made due to the unexpected consequences of new Government policies and initiatives. Annex B—SDC Key Achievements Holding Government to Account on its Sustainability Record The SDC advises on and assesses departmental Sustainable Development Action Plans annually in order to scrutinise planning and encourage performance improvement, and scrutinises Government’s progress towards embedding sustainable development (SD) into their operations and procurement. As of May 2010, the SDC had provided guidance, support, assessment or a combination of these functions to 16 departments, 11 executive agencies, 5 NDPBs and 1 NHS Trust. Integrating sustainable development (SD) in policy was a key aspect of the SDC’s advice and guidance. In addition the SDC have continued to raise the bar on SDAP’s: — We have achieved far greater engagement with departments. There are already many instances where our assessments and suggestions for improvement have resulted in far higher quality new SDAPs being produced, including those of DfT, MOD, and Defra. There has also been a significant change in the way we work with FCO who, as a result of our SDAP assessment, reinvigorated their entire approach to SD. 86

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Defra 2009 2009 Guidelines to Defra/DECC’s GHG Conversion factors for Company Reporting, Annex 9- Other Conversion factor Tables, Table 9a. Including non-traded cost of carbon estimates if performance is maintained.

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— The SDC also responded to requests for help on Impact Assessments from HMRC, DCSF, FCO and the FSA, and provided advice to DECC and Defra on the links between SDAPs and departmental Carbon Reduction Delivery Plans and Climate Change Adaptation Plans. In these latter cases the SDC fed text directly into the draft guidance drawn up by DECC and Defra for Government departments. — We have developed a new approach to the entire SDAP process. This involves both scrutiny and guidance, and is designed to make it more tailored and meaningful to departments. We are now working with the FCO and DfT using this new approach. From the SDAP Reviews it can be seen that the value of the process continues to be seen by both departments and agencies and there is now a greater understanding of the purpose of the SDAP as a tool to ensure departmental decision-making and all other departmental activities are more sustainable. The SDC has also worked with Government departments to improve the environmental performance of their operations and procurement through the Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) process. The SDiG report on Government’s progress towards achieving the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets has been one of the most influential from a public perspective. Most departments also appreciate the ranking system, especially when they perform well. It inspires most departments to work harder each year knowing that their performance will be scrutinised publicly by the SDC. The analysis also highlights which departments are doing well, indicating where other departments should begin their search for finding new innovative solutions to meeting the targets. The SDC has also advised Defra on the future development of the SOGE framework of targets to ensure performance is continually challenged and innovation is encouraged. Whilst no one organisation can claim to be wholly responsible for operational improvements across Government, it is fair to say that Government was not doing at all well against its own targets before the SDC started measuring performance and advising on necessary changes. Through a combination of guidance, support and assessment, the SDC has helped departments deliver better operations and helped Government demonstrate their leadership in SD—“showing by doing”. This scrutiny and support has encouraged and supported departments to achieve benefits from a more sustainable approach: — Administrative Road Travel—In 2008–09 Government reported a reduction in emissions from administrative road vehicles of 17% compared to 2005–06 levels, which equates to an estimated reduction of 93.7 million miles, resulting in an estimated economic savings of £13.7 million in terms of fuel costs, and time wasted equating to the saving of the annual staff hours of 1,016 Full Time Equivalent people. In terms of staff wellbeing, this frees up approximately 1.68 million hours to complete work which will contribute to reductions in stress, sickness and allow staff to spend more time with their families. — CO2 emissions (offices and vehicles)—Between 2006–07 and 2008–09, Government reduced its SOGE carbon emissions by over 610,000 tonnes. This is the equivalent of the CO2 emissions of London’s entire bus fleet in 1 year. Whilst the environmental impact is clear, the economic impact in terms of less operational spend on heat, fuel and power is large and socially this helps to make the case for how there can be prosperity without energy growth. — Waste Arisings and Recycling—In 2008–09 Government reported a decrease in waste arisings of 13.7% compared to 2004–05 and an increase in the rate of recycling to 48.4%. This resulted in almost 200,000 tonnes of waste not going to landfill; equivalent to more than all waste sent to inert landfills for the Forth Valley in Scotland. It has also resulted in an estimated saving of between £2.6 million and £3.4 million from avoided landfill tax and disposal costs. — Water usage—Between 2006–07 and 2008–09, Government reported using 17,905,948m3 less water than in 2004–05. Economically this saved an estimated £25.5 million in water bills. Environmentally it reduces the stress on the UK water network when parts of the South East, where the majority of Government departments are sited, are water stressed. Note the costs are indicative and make no allowance for investment costs, maintenance and management. They are included as an example of how an SD approach can deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to Government. (See Annex A for more details). In addition a number of other key achievements were made: — The eighth annual SDiG report for was published on the 18th of December 2009 followed by a 3 year retrospective report on the SOGE targets in June 2010, based on the SOGE data collected by the SDC and the Office for Government Commerce providing independent analysis and commentary. — At the end of October 2009, the Watchdog team provided a formal response to the consultation in Defra for the development of the new SOGE Framework in 2010–11. — The first Welsh SDiG report was published in December 2009, assessing the Welsh Assembly Government’s performance against its Environmental Management System targets, and demonstrating the SDC’s growing role in holding the Devolved Administrations to account on SD.

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— The SDC produced this Third Annual Assessment of SD in the Scottish Government in December 2009. The assessment concluded that while the Scottish Government had good frameworks in place—for example the Climate Change Act (Scotland) 2009—more action is needed to rethink the structure of our communities and our economy if we are serious about a low-carbon sustainable lifestyle. — The SDC has also been working with the Scottish Government to develop a Public Sector Duty on climate change and on the corporate sustainability performance of the wider public sector. — As a result of the SDC’s Review of Public Service Regulators, Ofsted has appointed a Head of Sustainable Development and is producing a “Stimulus document” on sustainable development, designed to embed SD within their diverse remits. The SDC has been providing support and comments throughout. A review by the Audit Commission of the application of SD principles in CAA judgements took place in December 2009, also as recommended in our report.

2.2 Policy analysis/advocacy of sustainable development The SDC publishes evidence-based reports to feed into Government policy making. The SDC also works alongside Government departments to co-develop policy and has carried out thematic reviews in this role. The SDC has been useful for Government to support the development of policy and programmes in controversial areas. Examples of key research which has influenced Government policy include: — Lost in Transmission—the Role of Ofgem (2007). A major recommendation by the SDC was that that the government align Ofgem’s primary duty with the four goals of energy policy: to cut carbon emissions; maintain the reliability of energy supplies; promote competitive markets; and ensure that every home is adequately and affordably heated. OFGEM’s primary duty was restructured in 2009 to give greater balance to these SD issues and the needs of both existing and future consumers. Responses to other recommendations in this report include: — SDC recommended the roll out of smart meters to enable people to monitor and act on their energy use. Mandatory smart meter roll out has now been agreed and will be completed for all homes by 2020. — Transmission access has been reformed to enable smaller, low-carbon generators and suppliers to connect to the grid more easily. — A Renewable Heat Incentive is planned to come into force in April 2011 as part of DECC’s heat and Energy Saving Strategy. — Energy and climate change have been aligned under one Secretary of State since 2008. — Sustainable Development: the key to tackling health inequalities (2010). This report collated detailed evidence of sustainable solutions to health inequalities, providing environmental and health co-benefits in four sectors: food, transport, green space and the built environment. This evidence was a key element of the Marmot Review of Health Inequalities and a key argument for a prevention driven health system in the future. — I Will if you Will (2005). This set out a number of recommendations on a major challenge facing Government in how to enable people to lead more sustainable lives: — All government buildings and transport to be carbon neutral by 2012. Government departments now all have a CO2 target against which they are monitored (though the target is under review by DECC mainly because of cost considerations). — The SDC’s groundbreaking work on “roadmapping” the impacts of the goods we buy has led to successful Defra initiatives aimed at reducing the life-cycle impacts of consumer products including clothing, milk, household appliances and constructions supplies. — Turning the Tide—Tidal Power in the UK (2007). The SDC’s expert advice on tidal energy in the UK paved the way for Government to begin a full investigation into the potential for generating 4% of the UK’s electricity needs from the Severn Estuary, while setting tough conditions for the social and environmental sustainability of the project. Subsequently the SDC was commissioned by DECC to provide advice to Ministers on how the project might compensate for lost habitats by creating new ones of equal value, in accordance with the EU Habitats Directive. — Setting the Table: Advice to Government on Priority Elements of Sustainable Diets (2009). This SDC research was commissioned by Defra to provide advice to Government on the priority elements for a sustainable diet and recommendations for action to take this forward. The SDC’s advice was a key input to the Government’s new Food 2030 strategy in which sustainable diets was a key theme and highlighted the need for integrated advice to consumers on food and a greater emphasis on sustainable procurement.

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— Stock take: Delivering Improvements in Existing Housing (2006). The SDC recommended that Government develop a holistic policy framework across the 4 E’s (Encourage, Enable, Engage and Exemplify) to drive carbon reduction in homes. This was followed up by ongoing advocacy with officials in CLG and DECC, and further pieces of work (Building Houses or Creating Communities? (2007)), comprehensive oral and written evidence to the CLG Select Committee Inquiry (2007) and a staff secondment to DECC (2009–10). The Household Energy Management Strategy (published by DECC and CLG in 2010) responds to many of the SDC’s proposals and ideas, including: — Taking a whole house approach to upgrading energy efficiency of existing homes, in the context of national carbon targets. — A strong energy company obligation and new finance mechanisms enabling and encouraging action. — Minimum standards for private and social rented properties to exemplify change. — Universal smart metering and improved energy performance certificates to engage householders. — Advice for consumers and accreditation frameworks for installers, enabling householders to take action. — The Future is Local (2010)—The SDC was one of the first voices advocating a whole-house approach to home energy efficiency and the upgrading of existing homes, paving the way for the Government’s 2009 Great British Refurb programme. The SDC followed this up by launching its report The Future is Local which provided evidence that delivering an area-based approach to infrastructure upgrades will provide a number of benefits including galvanising community engagement and encouraging sustainable behaviour change; increasing the uptake of retrofitting works; reducing costs; building capacity in local firms and creating local jobs; making the benefits of retrofit visible by improving quality of place; overcoming barriers to householders; improving the viability and effectiveness of some technologies; and providing the opportunity to integrate delivery of different infrastructure upgrades. — Prosperity without Growth?: the Transition to a Sustainable Economy (2009)—SDC Commissioner Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth?, first published as the landmark SDC report, was selected by the Financial Times as one of its Books of the Year in November 2009. — Low Carbon Wales: Regional Priorities for Action (2009)—and has delivered workshops at to each of the six ministerial Wales Spatial Plan area steering group meetings. The SDC has advised Wales Spatial Plan teams on how they might adopt a common methodology to create individual low carbon work programmes. As a result of work in 2009–10 the SDC has secured funding for a second phase of this work. Not all of the SDC’s analysis and advice has resulted in reports, but has instead focused on engagement which has also influenced Government policy. The SDC has attended the meetings of, and provided advice and input to, over 40 working and/or advisory groups within Government, including Defra’s Sustainable Development Programme Board, the Sustainable Scotland Board, the Severn Tidal Board, the Sustainable Construction Strategy Working Group, CABE’s Young Space Shaper Steering Group, the Healthier Food Mark Steering Group and the review of the Government Economic Service’s Green Book. Other examples of successful engagement include: — The SDC influenced the development and implementation of the 2008 DTI/BERR/BIS Sustainable Construction Strategy when DTI announced a review of the previous Sustainable Construction Strategy. Through engaging with officials, responding to consultations and capacity building (two staff were seconded to the Department to help write the strategy) the SDC influenced the resulting strategy. As a result of SDC advice, the UK Government’s Sustainable Construction strategy set a target for departments and industry to cut construction waste to landfill by 50% by 2012 and achieved buy-in from across Government and industry. — The SDC has provided a response to the Government’s Guidance for Regional Strategies and Leaders’ Boards consultation and a bilateral meeting was held with officials. — The SDC provided research into the issue of coal as a fuel for power generation, which has been completed, and the SDC has met with DECC officials to highlight our recommendations on how coal and the the Carbon capture and Storage policy must take into account SD considerations. The SDC will also be using this research as part of its response to the UK Government’s National Policy Statements consultation. — The SDC was commissioned to provide advice on specific policy issues by 13 departments/ organisations in 2009–10: the Scottish Government, Defra, BIS, DECC, Audit Commission, DCSF, CLG, HCA, UK Parliament and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) in Northern Ireland, the Department for Public Service Delivery in Wales, Climate Change Commission for Wales and the Private Office of the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in Wales.

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2.3 Capacity Building The SDC has a key role in enabling Government departments to increase their SD capability to affect an improvement in the implementation of policy. A particularly successful approach has been to “embed” staff in departments. We have worked with the Department of Health and the Department of Children, Schools and Families to deliver the following: — The SDC’s Good Corporate Citizenship tool (2010)—This tool supports sustainability practice in the NHS. Over 75% of NHS Trusts have now registered. The tool enables Trusts to self-assess across a range of social, environmental and economic performance areas, and take action to reduce waste and cut carbon and so making efficiency savings which could be used to improve patient care. In addition refocusing activities can help support local economies and communities which will help improve the health of the local population. For example, Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust reduced CO2 levels by 9% and saved £600,000 in a single year. — Every Child’s Future Matters (2007) – With support from DCSF the SDC commissioned research and analysed the impact of the environment on children’s wellbeing, and how Government and children’s services can influence the quality of places on behalf of children. The report focused on three major priorities: road traffic; green space; and climate change. The timing of ECFM was good; in that it was published as the DCSF was drawing up crucial policy in its Children’s Plan and Play Strategy and formed a key input to their thinking. — Schools Carbon Management—The SDC worked with DCSF from 2008 to encourage a holistic analysis of carbon emissions from the schools estate and the development of a carbon management strategy. Through use of evidence, engaging with officials and ministers, and capacity building with an embedded SDC member of staff in DCSF throughout, the SDC influenced a new approach to and understanding of carbon emissions from the schools estate, and initiated a new strategy. Key points of influence were: — To achieve a strategy for carbon management for the schools estate. — To include a holistic definition of greenhouse gas emissions including building energy, transport, procurement and waste. — To agree stretching targets for the carbon management strategy. — To get the Department of Health to initiate a similar process for the NHS, in response to DCSF, and commissioning SDC advice. Other capacity building achievements include: — The SDC has delivered seminars, presentations and workshops to a total of over 35 departments and public sector organisations, including Defra, the Scottish Government, WAG, DH, DfT, HMT, Environment Agency, DECC and the Infrastructure Planning Commission. — The SDC was commissioned by DCSF to undertake a new study into the links between SD and positive outcomes for young people. — The SDC has also been providing intensive support to the DCSF as it prepares to launch its Carbon Management Strategy for schools in England. — A policy maker’s checklist for children and families policy was completed in 2010 by the SDC, as has preliminary work on a “Good Places to Grow Up” basket of national indicators for use by policy makers and local commissioners of children’s services. — Two DH “policy pilots” are underway on the Healthier Food Mark and commissioning policy respectively, and preliminary engagement on pharmaceutical production has begun. — Review of the overall process by which policy is made in DH, working closely with DH’s Policy and Strategy Unit. — SDAPs of both DH and DCSF have been green-rated by SDC’s Watchdog team. Two executive agencies within DCSF had 100% green or amber ratings (from a total of 57 and 16 commitments respectively. DH had 86% of its actions “on target” or “completed”, with a further 6 “recoverable” and none behind target. — Signed agreements were made with both DCSF and DH for further programmes of work in 2010–11. As an extension of this capacity building programme the SDC has: — Chosen to develop and deliver this network in partnership with Defra, so that the SDC’s work and that of the department can be coordinated, and engagement with other departments and individuals across Whitehall improved. — Presented to the Welsh Assembly Government’s advocated network to share best practice and worked alongside Defra to deliver a joint “sustainable development in policy” network event in February 2009.

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— Met regularly with the National School of Government (NSG) to discuss SD issues, and from these discussions a pan-Government capability building group has been set up. The SDC is now working with the NSG and Government Skills to explore how to embed sustainable development into core government competencies. — Presented to the Heads of Inspectorates Forum at the Welsh Assembly and a further presentation is planned at the Better Regulation Executive. — Met with a total of 73 Senior Civil Servants (Grade 5 and above) through a total of 177 face-toface meetings. Our strongest relationships have been with Defra, DECC, DCSF, DH, DfT and OFMDFM in Northern Ireland. 49 Government officials, amongst many other stakeholders, responded to our “Big Issues” survey, conducted as part of the work planning process for 2010–11.

2.4 International Reach of the SDC An analysis of the first seven months’ worth of site visits and downloads in 2010 reveals 231,536 unique visitors to the SDC website—averaging over 233,000 hits a month—from more than 110 different countries. The most popularly downloaded document was Prosperity Without Growth? which says that the current global recession should be the occasion to forge a new economic system equipped to avoid the shocks and negative impacts associated with our reliance on growth. This shows the international relevance and resonance of the messages that the SDC produces and positions the SDC as an international thought-leader on SD. The top 20 international downloads in order of magnitude were from United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany, India, France, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, China, Portugal, Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines and Japan.

Annex C—Key Priorities for Government Government must make clear its priorities for SD going forward over the life of the parliament if it hopes to successfully tackle key policy issues such as Big Society, Localism, Greenest Government Ever, Fairness, building a new economy and unlocking social mobility. A thematic approach to these issues could find crosscutting solutions and help assess how well departments are contributing to overarching sustainability issues. For example: 1. Economy—How can Government support a transition to a sustainable economy? Whilst action is taken to reduce the deficit and strengthen the economy in the short term, what action has been taken to move to a more resilient and more inclusive economy that takes a long-term view and respects environmental limits? (The focus on moving to a long-term and more inclusive economy would differentiate the EAC’s remit from that of the Economic Affairs Committee). 2. Places—How can Government ensure that our society stays within environmental limits, while creating sustainable places? Have environmental limits, in particular, cumulative environmental impacts, been considered in the decision making for delivering the sustainable security of supply of energy, water, natural resources, biodiversity and food and the development of essential infrastructure? 3. Fairness—How can Government ensure that policies reduce disadvantage in certain sections of our society rather than having a disproportionate impact? Have the co-benefits from policies to help us live within environmental limits and policies on fairness and improving wellbeing been assessed and understood? (This approach would differentiate the EAC’s remit from that of the Social Justice and Home Affairs Committees or Public Health Sub Committee). 4. Lives - What can Government do to support action in communities and business that encourages changes to people’s behaviour, and which enables more sustainable lives? Our current consumption patterns are unsustainable given the environmental limits within which we have to live. Is there a shared understanding and agreement across Government on what the desired behavioural goals are; and have departments considered in their policy proposals how they might assist in bringing about desired changes in society through their own policy agendas and through synergy with other departments? 5. Government—How can Government better organise itself to deliver more sustainable outcomes? Is an SD approach being taken consistently across Government? Are departments working together to properly assess the risks and impacts across policy areas to achieve better policy outcomes? This process would usefully identify any conflicts, and means of bringing the right people together to resolve these conflicts (e.g. around the messages of eating less meat). If their capability is lacking then what further structural changes or changes to the machinery of Government are needed? 15 October 2010

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Further written evidence submitted by the Sustainable Development Commission Comparison of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) — CESP focuses on supporting improvements in Government operations and procurement, advising departments how to meet the environmentally-focussed SOGE targets and the 10% carbon reduction commitment. It does not oversee Government’s sustainable development (SD) agenda, and does not advise on the sustainability of operations, and how these could help drive Government’s broader policy aims on sustainable development. — CESP’s work does not cover departmental public policy. CESP does not scrutinise or advise on policies and their impacts, and has no in-house experience or expertise to do so adequately. CESP does not and cannot advise on cross-cutting policy issues in its current form and cannot provide department-specific commentaries or an overview of the adequacy of government’s policies. All this will be lost when the SDC closes. — CESP does not provide independent challenge and scrutiny of Government operations. CESP’s work is entirely “inside track” and when the SDC closes, independent challenge and scrutiny will be lost. The SDC also advises on improvements outside the narrow scope of the SOGE targets. CESP and other Government departments have commissioned the SDC to undertake research and advice on specific areas such as sustainable travel and sustainable energy in the public sector. The SDC has also advised on how greater innovation can maximise government’s influence beyond its estate. — Scrutinising operations includes having a reliable and trusted system for measuring progress. At the moment, for example, the SDC sits on the Government’s SOGE Baseline Panel which makes judgements about the baselines against which departments’ progress is measured. Without the SDC, an independent scrutineer would need to ensure that these judgements are sound and trusted by the public. Gaps and Risks When SDC Closes With the SDC closing, it has been asked whether CESP could fulfil all the functions of the SDC in regards to Government operations and procurement. The SDC has identified the following gaps that CESP is not currently in a position to fill, and some risks going forward: — The independent scrutiny and challenge offered by the SDC cannot be fulfilled by CESP given their “inside track” management and reporting structure which would result in a conflict of interests if it were to act as both the delivery body and the reporting body. — CESP does not benefit from the direct access to a panel of SD experts which the SDC has in the form of its board of commissioners. — CESP does not comment on departments’ policies and does not provide any capability building support to help departments improve them. — As CESP is the delivery body for the sustainable operations and procurement agenda, the link between Government operations and policy has never formed part of CESP’s remit. The SDC has been responsible for providing this mechanism to directly influence departmental policies and their alignment with operational and procurement objectives. It is unclear who will take on this role. — CESP’s operational remit is limited to narrow environmental and financial issues, and not the wider social benefits that can be gained from an SD approach. It does not focus on how environmental, social and economic operational objectives can be mutually reinforcing. — CESP has recently disbanded the “CESP Board” which is responsible for bringing together key stakeholders across government to better coordinate the improvement of Government operations and procurement. This should be reinstated or replaced with urgency to ensure Government is able to properly co-ordinate its operational activities. Based on discussion between the SDC and CESP, it should be noted that CESP’s remit appears to have narrowed since the 2010 national elections, with its focus narrowing almost entirely to carbon reporting; although it has committed to make the data for the final two years of the current SOGE Framework (2009–10 & 2010–11) publicly available. Government established a series of targets in 2002 to manage the sustainability of its own operations, which have come to be known as the Sustainable Development on the Government Estate (SDGE) targets, replaced in 2005 by the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets. Initially, responsibility for collecting and reporting data relating to these targets lay with Defra. In 2004, the SDC agreed to take on this function as part of its Watchdog role. In response to the SDC’s 2007 annual Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report, the establishment of CESP was announced in the 2008 Budget to take the data collection process back into Government. 2009 was the first year that CESP managed the data gathering, cleansing and reporting process for the financial year 2008–09. As the day-to-day management of data collection was taken over by CESP from the SDC, it was important to avoid any unnecessary overlaps between

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the different roles of the two organisations, which was achieved through a Memorandum of Understanding (available upon request). The SDC clarified that the main differences are: SDC

CESP

The SDC is Government’s official independent adviser on sustainable development, working closely with Government while maintaining an “outside track”. The SDC reports to the Prime Minister, the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. The SDC focuses on all aspects of sustainability across Government operations, procurement and policy; using advocacy, advice, capability building and appraisal, to help put sustainable development at the heart of Government by working with key stakeholders to drive through the changes needed.

CESP is wholly within Government, positioned within the Cabinet Office, which allows the potential for greater influence over Government Departments in-line with Cabinet Office ministerial guidance. CESP reports only on activities taking place in Whitehall Departments, reporting primarily to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord President of the Council). CESP focuses only on limited environmental targets across central Government operations and procurement, working with key stakeholders to share information and experience to drive through the changes needed to meet Government’s existing SOGE and Sustainable Procurement Action Plan (SPAP) commitments. This has recently narrowed almost exclusively to carbon management. The SDC scrutinises the SOGE data, develops & CESP manages the day-to-day collection, applies a scoring methodology to establish league management and storage of the SOGE data, including tables, querys gaps in the data, requests contextual building capability in data capture and reporting, information for significant shifts in performance, focusing on improving quality, establishing comments on the data management and rebaselining trajectories, developing a clearer picture of process, and ultimately provides expert public performance and taking account of all the recommendations and commentary (including, but not recommendations of the SDiG report when working limited to the SOGE targets) to Government through with departments to develop delivery plans and lay the annual SDiG report. The SDC’s work on out timescales for their delivery. operations includes innovative and ambitious research and recommendations for maximising government’s influence beyond its estate—through supply chains and across communities, for example the broader behaviours of staff and public service customers. The SDC’s work goes well beyond the SOGE targets, In addition to managing the reporting data for all with staff working closely with Government officials Government operations and procurement targets, across the UK on embedding SD into policies, CESP is charged with producing six monthly updates building capability, and offering advice through our on the delivery of sustainability initiatives made in scrutiny work on Sustainable Development Action Government’s Sustainable Procurement and Plans (SDAPs), public policy, and departmental Operations on the Government Estate Delivery Plan management systems. and it operates the CESP Board (which has recently been disbanded). 28 October 2010

Further written evidence submitted by the Sustainable Development Commission Preparation for Secretary of State for Environment session This 1. 2. 3. 4.

note covers four topics: The policy risks due to the cuts. Statutory obligations for SD. Performance Management Frameworks. Bureaucratic vs. democratic accountability.

Section 1—Policy Risks EAC Question: What evidence is there that new policy decisions and government cuts are being made with consideration given to sustainable development? In its announcement of its Comprehensive Spending Review88 the Government states it has been “guided by the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility” and has “prioritised: — spending that promotes long-term growth, and creating the conditions for a private sector-led recovery and 88

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— fairness, with all sections of society contributing to tacking the deficit, whilst protecting the most vulnerable and providing opportunity for the poorest. This is underpinned by a radical programme of public service reform, improving transparency and accountability, giving more power and responsibility to citizens and enabling sustainable long term improvements in services”. In the Spending Review Framework 89 the Treasury states that it will” look beyond near-term pressures to support reforms that better position the UK for meeting long-term demographic, economic, environmental and social challenges, any of which could imperil long-term fiscal stability if left unaddressed”. The Government has said in developing the CSR it has consulted widely with experts and the wider public, to get their ideas and has been supported by an Independent Challenge Group of Civil Service leaders and external experts, to bring independent challenge to the Spending Review process. Their remit was to “think innovatively about the options for reducing public expenditure and balancing priorities to minimise the impact on public services”. There is one member with sustainable procurement expertise. With a focus on the long-term and on fairness and with an approach that looks at economic, environmental and social challenges, the Government has appears to have taken some SD principles into account in its overall approach to the CSR. However, we have not seen any evidence that the new policy decisions or proposals or the overall package set out in the Comprehensive Spending Review have taken a systematic approach respecting all five principles of SD, in particular environmental limits. Similarly whilst many, if not all, of the Government’s policy aims might contribute to sustainable development, these aims need to be tackled with respect to each other, as a package of measures, to ensure there is not conflict between goals. Furthermore, it is how they are to be implemented and how they are monitored to ensure effectiveness which also requires an SD approach. It is not clear if all of the policy and CSR announcements have undergone a Sustainability Impact Test for example. For the first time, the CSR sets out an analysis of the distributional impact on households of its tax, welfare and spending proposals. The methodology it uses is new and looks at understanding the impact of spending decisions on households, combined with existing and long standing analysis of the impacts of taxes, benefits and tax credits on households together with forecasting and combining impacts across the entire four year period of the Spending Review. However it caveats the analysis saying it is a “static analysis” that “can paint an incomplete picture of the actual outcomes of spending allocations on people’s lives”.90 The CSR does set out broad environmental impacts but states that “the Spending Review sets spending totals, the exact environmental impact will depend on the decisions of individual departments”.91 However, these individual impact analyses do not help clarify where there are wider effects and the tensions and conflicts between policies. Nor does it help to identify where trade-offs have been made and why. With an SD approach some policies, whilst underpinned by all five principles, will place more emphasis on certain principles than others. Trade-offs should be explicit and transparent. All new proposals with significant public or private sector impacts must publish an Impact Assessments which should set out environmental, social and economic costs and benefits. It is the role of the NAO to report annually on the quality of the economic analysis of IAs. There is currently no body that reports on how well sustainability has been integrated into IAs. In the past, the SDC undertook a review of eight IAs to help inform its thinking on how well IAs seek to deliver SD. Finally, in previous CSRs under the previous Government, the CSR announcements would have included agreed Public Service Agreements (PSA) setting out key outcomes and related SD indicators to be achieved. This enabled progress against key objectives to be monitored. While Government has now put into place Structural Reform Plans for each department, for this CSR there is no equivalent, over-arching performance management system to PSAs which gives a systemic view of performance, and it is unclear how the Government intends progress to be measured. EAC Question: Are there particular policies or cuts that worry you from a sustainability perspective? — Lack of clarity on what the Government means by “Greenest Government ever”? How does Government intend to measure its success when the only stated commitment has been to reduce carbon on the government estate by 10% by 2010. — Reforms to the NHS. The reforms will give GPs power to commission patient care and will abolish Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities by 2013. Much good work has been done to promote SD within the NHS at trust level. For example, there is a very high uptake of its Good Corporate Citizenship (GCC) tool (over 83% of trusts registered) but it is not clear whether DH will commit to continue investing in GCC from April next year. This is additionally important now that GCC has been mandated in Scotland. 89 90 91

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/spending_review_framework_080610.pdf) http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_annexb.pdf http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_chapter2.pdf

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— Given the importance of a sustainable future to young people, and the DfE’s stated intention not to have a separate Sustainable Schools strategy, how will efforts of the hundreds of charities and community organisations across the country wanting to support sustainable schools be directed towards consistent long-term aims? Government is committing in the CSR to providing “capital funding for new schools, rebuilding or refurbishing over 600 schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme and investing in new school provision in areas of demographic pressure”. Compared to the ambitions in the previous Government’s BSF programme and given the importance of cutting energy waste and saving money in public services, how will the difference in emissions reduction be met? — The abolition of the regional tier of governance means there is a lack of strategic planning at a “larger than local level” which would take an SD view. Leaders Boards (and their previous structure as Regional Assemblies) had SD embedded within their strategic planning function and the Regional Development Agencies have a statutory duty on sustainable development. However, the emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships will focus on driving private sector job growth which could be prioritised over environmental and social issues. How will Government ensure that any cross border / cumulative impacts of decision making, especially on respecting environmental limits, be addressed? — Local Governance and SD -The CSR “provides a settlement for local government that radically increases local authorities’ freedom to manage their budgets, but will require tough choices on how services are delivered within reduced allocations”. There is also a proposal to give councils a general power of competence. How will Government ensure local government plays its part in contributing to SD at a time when resources are under pressure? And given that a key regulator which helped drive local government improve SD performance, the Audit Commission, is to be abolished how does Government intend to assure itself that SD improvements will occur? One way could be to require local authorities to contribute to the delivery of SD (as the Greater London Authority is required to do and RDAs did do) or to adopt SD as an organising principle (as the Welsh Assembly Government has). — Reforms to environment regulators such as Natural England, Forestry Commission and Environment Agency. How will their role continue given their importance to delivery of SD and how will policies such as the mooted proposal to sell off forests include safeguards to ensure sustainable development continues under new ownership? — The fairness of the proposed welfare policies. Government differ from independent commentators such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies on whether the proposals in the CSR affect those on low incomes or not. — Social policy reforms such as the abolition of the Warm Front grants with respect to fuel poverty; social housing programme changes with respect to social cohesion and ensuring a strong, healthy and just society; or the social care proposals — Energy and Climate Change. The work by DECC in the 2050 Pathway Analysis is optimistic that the 80% cut in emissions by 2050 is “ambitious but achievable” and the Annual Energy Statement sets out actions to accelerate the transformation of the energy system and wider economy. As we switch away from fossil fuel sources, even maximising energy efficiency, the demands on the decarbonised electricity grid from energy use will be enormous. There is a recognition by DECC that even if overall demand for energy is reduced we face a “near doubling in demand for electricity, as we shift industry, transport and heating onto the grid”. Consideration must be given to moving beyond energy efficiency measures to fundamentally reducing the demand for energy. — Green Economy. Despite Government’s initial statement that there was a need for a more “responsible economy” the announcements have all focused more on greening our economy. Increasingly, across the world, there is recognition, including by many business leaders, that there is a need for fundamental change to the way business is done and the way the world consumes, requiring rethinking of business models, supply chains and how society values goods and services. This is a key issue for the forthcoming G20 and Rio+20 Earth Summit meetings. — Transport. Recent announcements such as the abolition of Cycling England and the go ahead for a new high speed rail line appear to be contradictory in SD terms let alone in terms of VfM. It is unclear what analysis has Government made on overall transport policy in the CSR process. Section 2—Statutory obligations for SD EAC Question: Would putting targets for sustainable development on a statutory footing (as under the Climate Change Act for example) make any useful difference to Government performance on sustainable development? Targets should not be the focus of any statutory obligation for sustainable development. It is unlikely that any set of targets could capture the breadth of sustainable development well enough to make such a statute meaningful. Instead the focus should be on outlining what a government’s duty to sustainable development is, define roles and responsibility, provide a method of enforcement and a framework for developing a future SD

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strategy which aims to make government decision-making more transparent and accountable to Parliament, private sector and civil society. Underpinning any SD statute or act and a refreshed SD Strategy should be a performance management framework for understanding the impacts of public policy. This framework could be comprised of key indicators and targets. For further details on performance management frameworks, please see Section 3. Any organisation or structure that is charged with delivering policy that has environmental and social impacts needs to operate within a single overarching statutory sustainable development duty. Evidence suggests that where organisations are given a general sustainable development duty in addition to other duties (e.g. a duty to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development and to economic growth) they struggle to interpret the additional requirements of the sustainable development duty.92 The SDC believes it is important that this duty is not broken down into the separate elements of SD, as has been the case with the Local Government power i.e. to promote economic, social and environmental wellbeing. These elements need to be integrated rather than progressed independently as interpretation of the Local Government duty allows, without this environmental issues will always be the poor relation. The Welsh Example A statutory duty to contribute to or to promote SD does have the potential to make a meaningful difference to Government performance. The Welsh Assembly Government has a duty with regard to sustainability. Section 79 of the Government of Wales Act (2006) requires ministers to publish a scheme “setting out how they propose, in the exercise of their functions, to promote sustainable development.” The most recent scheme, One Wales, One Planet, was published by the Cabinet in May 2009. This establishes Welsh ministers’ commitment to the centrality of sustainable development in Wales: “Sustainable development will be the central organising principle of the Welsh Assembly Government”. SDC Wales has produced a commentary on the Assembly Government’s progress on sustainable development for 2009–10. It concludes that there are clear signs that the Assembly Government is beginning to back up its commitment to sustainable development with some real action. It has made some improvements to the machinery of government and that there have been “tangible improvements in policy”. The Canadian Example Canada’s Federal Sustainable Development Act (FSDA) received royal assent on June 26, 2008. The FSDA requires the development of a Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS), which aims to make environmental decision-making more transparent and accountable to Parliament. Environment Canada is implementing the FSDA and has published the FSDS in Autumn 2010. However, the Canadian FSDA does not fully embrace sustainable development as it considers only environmental issues. Specifically, the FSDS will focuses on key existing environmental initiatives/priorities: — climate change and air quality; — biodiversity; — water quality; — greening government operations. This limitation is a serious risk to sustainable development and must be avoided in the UK. Section 3—Performance Management Frameworks An announcement made on ministerial government arrangements for SD (e.g. the Home Affairs Committee) is welcome. However, the follow-up question to such an announcement would be how will the body understand trends and enact change? Specifically, what mechanisms, levers and resources could be used for oversight and change by any cabinet committee? The current set of SD Indicators is under revision and the revised set will be much more robust, more able to measure progress and deliver wellbeing for individuals and society within environmental limits. To convert the SD Indicator set into a proper performance management framework, ownership for actual performance describe by each indicator should be given to a discrete part of government which the Cabinet Committee could then work with, and put pressure on, to improve performance in a particular policy area. Ownership for the indicator set itself and for monitoring performance across all policy areas should still sit with the Cabinet Committee. Such a performance management framework for policy provides a systems approach that considers all aspects of Government business and reflects the interplay of different impacts so as to effectively manage performance and achieve goals. In designing a Performance Management Framework the indicators and measures of progress should: 92

IHPC (2006) Review of Statutory Sustainable Development Duties

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— Add up to the high level goal/statement/priority. — Be agreed with the relevant scrutineers. — Be meaningful to the public. Government should seek to develop performance management frameworks for policy, operations and people as a package of measures that when combined drive improvements in Government’s sustainability performance. Lastly, any framework must be designed to improve and effectiveness the level of both democratic accountability and bureaucratic accountability. The differences between these types of accountability and how they relate to transparency is discussed further in Section 4 below.

Section 4—Bureaucratic vs. democratic accountability The drive by Government to improve democratic accountability and transparency is laudable. This is key to improving performance and delivering more sustainable outcomes. However, Government’s approach to increasing transparency through increasing the amount of information and data available to the public is not the solution in itself. Generally speaking, government and SD-specific information is fairly esoteric and inaccessible to the layperson. Real transparency necessitates understanding the context of government performance, as well as the potential for driving performance improvements. The current focus on publishing so-called performance data will satisfy neither criteria, and in any case policy performance cannot be adequately summarised with data. Further, once data is published it is already too late to address performance deficiencies. It is surely far better to get things right first time. Therefore, Government needs a system which: — Helps departments understand and develop the context for performance, and makes this accessible to the public. — Develops this context to provide an honest understanding of the real potential for improvement (the “Greenest Government”—against what standard and aspiration?). — Provides honest advice and rigorous challenge to the formation of individual policy and operational delivery plans. All three feed off each other, and necessitate close working with departments and, where possible, a “no surprises” approach to advice, challenge and performance assessment. One of the SDC’s informal remits has been an interpreter of this information by providing analysis, reports and recommendations in an easily understood and accessible format. The SDC’s reports have given academics, NGOs, individuals and other government bodies (particularly the EAC itself) an effective and efficient way of accessing this information, and in turn accessing independant expertise. The SDC has effectively been acting as an interlocutor between Government and other parts of society on SD issues. Governmental bodies can provide some interpretation and analysis of SD-specific information, for example Defra’s SD Indicators in your Pocket or CESPs reporting on the SDiG data. However, it is important that there is independent analysis and commentary from an expert body that the public can fully trust. The SDC does not feel that adequate arrangements have been considered by Government to date on scrutiny and accountability after the 31 March, 2010. The EAC is not resourced to offer the type of accountability formally provided by the SDC. This point is clearly made in the University of East Anglia’s research on the effectiveness of the EAC. Therefore, the abolition of what Government perceives as an unnecessary and bureaucratic part of this scrutiny model is likely to provide less transparency to the public unless suitable alternative arrangements are put in place. For example, it is unlikely and impractical to assume that a private citizen will examine operational data or look at how well an Impact Assessment incorporates principles of sustainable development into policy and then hold Government to account. A certain degree of bureaucratic accountability is necessary to enable effective democratic accountability. Indeed, one person’s bureaucracy may be another’s good governance. 8 November 2010

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Written evidence submitted by the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP), Cabinet Office 1. Introduction 1.1 The Environmental Audit Committee have launched a new inquiry on how sustainable development can be further embedded in Government policy decision-making and operations, in the light of the Government’s decision to withdraw funding for the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC). 1.2 The Committee is interested in receiving written evidence that looks at the following themes of the inquiry: — How can mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of Government operations, procurement and policy-making be improved and further embedded and mainstreamed across Government departments? — How can governance arrangements for sustainable development in Government be improved, and how can sustainability reporting by Government departments be made more transparent and accountable? — Was the SDC successful in fulfilling its remit? Which aspects of its work have reached a natural end, or are otherwise of less importance, and which remain of particular continuing importance? — In formulating a future architecture for sustainable development in Government, how can it take on board wider developments and initiatives (eg to develop “sustainability reporting” in departments’ accounts) and the contributions that other bodies might make (e.g. Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement)? — How, without the assistance of the SDC, will the Government be able to demonstrate that it is “the greenest government ever”? 1.3 In support of these themes, the Committee has asked the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement in the Cabinet Office to provide written evidence on the reporting process for the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets and its experiences in working with government departments to support best practice in sustainable operations and procurement. 2. Summary — The role of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) and the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) is to provide challenge and support to departments in delivery of their sustainability commitments. — CSO and CESP are based in the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group to drive departmental delivery of resource efficiency savings, provide transparency in performance, and demonstrate government leadership on sustainable operations and procurement. — Performance management of government’s own sustainability and engagement with its supply chain are key aspects of a sustainable development in government work programme. — Government departments have made considerable progress towards meeting their targets for Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate and there are a range of examples of departments demonstrating best practice in sustainability. — The current priority for departments is delivery of the Prime Ministers’ commitment to reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% by May 2011 and there is a comprehensive programme of work underway across government. 3. The Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement 3.1 In its response to the Sustainable Development Commission’s report on Sustainable Development in Government 2008, the previous government established the post of Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) and a Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP), to provide leadership and support on sustainable operations and procurement in government. 3.2 In April 2008, William Jordan was appointed in the role of CSO with a small team (CESP) within the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) (an Independent Office of the Treasury). 3.3 The role of the CSO and CESP is to provide challenge and support to departments in delivery of their sustainability commitments by: — Driving improved performance across central Government, providing targeted support and information to assist departments in delivering their SOGE commitments and improving the timeliness, accuracy and transparency of performance data. — Facilitating greater co-ordination across Whitehall, to encourage dissemination of leading practice, reduce duplication and share lessons learned by holding regular practitioner forums and master classes and developing case studies and guidance across the community of sustainability practitioners in departments.

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3.4 In their last report, published 22 July 2010, the SDC stated: “The SDC are encouraged by the work carried out by CESP on the SOGE assessment thus far. The SDC is confident that CESP’s work will continue to improve the quality of information provided by departments on all operations and procurement activities, both on and off the formal estate. This is vital if Government is to make the necessary, ambitious and urgent improvements needed to lead by example on sustainability”. 4. The role of the Cabinet Office 4.1 In June 2010, CESP, along with the rest of OGC, was moved to the Efficiency and Reform Group in the Cabinet Office under a machinery of government change. The Cabinet Office under Francis Maude, now has responsibility for driving efficiency and reform, tackling waste, improving accountability and raising professionalism across government. 4.2 The Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan includes two key objectives on sustainability: 4.7: Work with DECC and government departments to improve energy efficiency. Develop a programme of action and performance management regime to deliver 10% energy efficiency improvements in Whitehall in 12 months; and 5.5: Work with DECC to introduce transparency in energy use by government headquarter buildings. Mandate release of data and publish online. 4.3 Sustainability provides opportunities to deliver financial and resource efficiency savings, demonstrate transparency and government leadership, and drive change in other sectors. The role of the Cabinet Office is: — Leading the operational delivery of the PM’s commitment for the Coalition Government to be the “greenest government ever”. — Driving the agenda on transparency in the environmental performance of government by facilitating the release of departmental and supplier data. — Improving the sustainability of the supply base so that government builds stronger relationships with its suppliers and manages risk and cost effectively. — Ensuring integration of efficiency and reform with sustainability in government operations and procurement. 5. Reporting Sustainability Performance 5.1 Performance management of government’s own sustainability and engagement with its supply chain are key aspects of a sustainable development in government work programme (alongside the broader challenge of embedding sustainability in policy development which is led by Defra). 5.2 The current framework of SOGE targets and commitments was set by the previous administration in 2006 and is due to come to an end in 2010–11. It includes targets on reducing carbon emissions, reducing water consumption, improving waste and recycling rates The Government has confirmed that departments should continue to work towards these targets. Defra is currently considering proposals for defining and implementing the Government’s sustainable development objectives beyond 2010–11, and Cabinet Office is working with Defra to develop an action plan to take these forward. 5.3 In 2009, CESP took over the responsibility for collecting and reviewing departments’ performance data from the SDC. CESP works with departments to enhance the quality and timeliness of this data and provides a vehicle for delivering departmental performance improvements. This includes driving improved performance management by moving departments from an annual reporting cycle to quarterly reporting for carbon, waste and water and monthly reporting for the Prime Minister’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 10% in 12 months. 5.4 The current SOGE reporting process: — Departments report data on an annual basis through the Electronic Property Information Mapping Service (e-PIMS). Additionally departments submit reduction plans across all targets. — CESP review this data and challenge departments on its quality, accuracy, scope and validity. Individual departmental plans are compiled into forecast trajectories for each target area. — This information is compiled into an annual report detailing each department’s performance against target as well as the pan-government performance which is then published online. 5.5 Key initiatives that CESP has implemented to improve departmental reporting and delivery include: — Reviewing and challenging departments’ data to ensure they are continuously improving its quality and applying similar data standards across government. — Enhancing e-PIMS so departments can report monthly on the carbon, and quarterly on water and waste targets. — Developing a performance “dashboard” to provide departments with a mechanism for CESP and departments to track in-year delivery and bring about improvements to departmental performance management.

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— Working with departments to challenge the robustness of their plans and sharing information across departments to identify new projects that can improve performance. — Improving the performance validation process through our data standards work with the National Audit Office and HM Treasury. 5.6 CESP is continuing to work with departments on validating their performance data for 2009–10 (to be published in December 2010). CESP will also work with departments over the coming months to ensure they submit full performance data for 2010–11. 6. Delivery and Best Practice in Departments 6.1 The most recent performance data (published in December 2009), shows that government departments are on track to meet their headline targets: www.ogc.gov.uk/sustainability_programme_progress.asp. 6.2 The targets of the new administration represent a step change in ambition and it is the responsibility of the CSO and CESP to ensure departments respond. The current priorities for departments are delivery of the Prime Minister’s commitment to reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% by May 2011 and to publish online the energy consumptions of their headquarter buildings. Working with the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Cabinet Office reports on the energy efficiency agenda to a Ministerial Working Group (chaired by the Energy and Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker). 6.3 The 10% commitment will be delivered through a combination of staff behaviour change (such as switching off computer monitors), estate management (decreasing space occupancy per FTE), installation of new technology (such as voltage optimisation equipment), greening ICT (such as moving to “thin client” devices), and more active facilities management (reducing energy consumption overnight and at weekends). 6.4 Cabinet Office and DECC are leading a joint programme of work to deliver the Government’s commitments on energy efficiency. Key elements of this include: — Each department has submitted plans to CESP setting out the initiatives they will implement to meet their share of the 10%. These plans indicate that Government should achieve the commitment and reduce emissions by up to 13%. — The CSO and CESP have challenged departments’ plans to ensure they are robust and comprehensive. We are now monitoring progress on a monthly basis and challenging departments to ensure they are on track with delivery. — Real time energy displays have been installed in 17 department HQ buildings and Number 10 under a programme led by CESP. The data is being published online on departments’ websites to ensure transparency in the Government’s energy consumption. — The Prime Minister launched an energy saving competition on 30 September to run throughout the month of October, catalysing departments to compete with each other to reduce energy use in their HQ buildings. The CSO, CESP and DECC are supporting delivery. — CESP is sharing information on departments’ plans and key initiatives to ensure departments are achieving best practice through practitioners and maximising the carbon reduction opportunities available. — CESP is working with departments to reform their facilities management contracts to ensure they getting better value for money and capitalising on the opportunities to make carbon and financial savings. — CESP, working in partnership with the Carbon Trust and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), has issued guidance to departments on best practice in heating, cooling and lighting of their buildings. Note: the scope of the 10% commitment covers the office estate reported by the main departments under SOGE, with the baseline defined as departments’ emissions from their office estate for the period May 2009— May 2010. 15 October 2010

Written evidence submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Summary: The decision to remove funding from the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) was made to enable government to lead on sustainable development from within central Government, strengthening accountability and ensuring government is scrutinised by both parliament and the wider public. Defra is working closely with the SDC to ensure relevant aspects of the organisations work are mainstreamed into core government business. The Coalition Agreement states that, “that we need to protect the environment for future generations, make our economy more environmentally sustainable, and improve our quality of life and well-being.” The principles

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of sustainable development are embedded throughout Defra’s own Structural Reform Plan, with priorities on the natural environment, a sustainable food and farming sector and the green economy. Furthermore, Defra is committed, through its Structural Reform Plan, to improve the sustainability of government as a whole, ensuring effective ministerial governance to oversee performance and putting mechanisms in place to embed sustainable development in operations, procurement and policy making. Response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s questions: 1. What is the rationale behind the Government’s decision to remove funding from the SDC? 1.1. The Secretary of State for Defra, along with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, is committed to mainstreaming sustainable development across the whole of Government, and to lead on this from within departments. Government believes this will strengthen accountability and lead to the embedding of sustainable development more effectively in policy development and operations. Ministers are accountable to Parliament for carrying their duties, and there are already many organisations and commentators who will continue to hold the Government to account, including the EAC. 1.2. The Government is committed to transparency and will continue to publish the necessary data for such scrutiny. The change will also contribute to financial and efficiency savings, in line with this government’s overall priority of reducing the deficit. 2. To what extent, and how, does the government plan to relocate the four main aspects of the SDC’s work? 2.1. The extent of relocation is still to be decided in discussion with the SDC and others. However, the Secretary of State for Defra has already signalled her overall approach to the four main aspects of the SDC’s work: 2.2. Advocacy: “Promoting awareness of the concept of sustainable development”: Defra will continue to champion sustainable development internally in policymaking and operations across Government. Government will continue to communicate the concept of sustainable development externally through our existing communication channels and through our work with businesses, individuals and the many external organisations already working within this field who can support us in this task. 2.3. Capability building: “Establishing good working practices within government”: Much of the capability building by the SDC has been focused on embedding members of staff within key departments such as the Department for Education and Department for Health. In line with the Secretary of State’s commitment to mainstream sustainable development across Government, Defra will concentrate its efforts in two main areas. First, through stronger political leadership we will ensure that good decision making is driven from the top, and Defra is currently in discussion with the Cabinet Office and DECC to ensure that better working practices are established at ministerial, as well as official, level. Secondly, through ensuring that decision making processes, such as impact assessments and business plans take into account the value of long term environmental, social and economic impacts. 2.4. Policy advisory: “Advising key ministers and others across Government”: This function is already performed within government. Where the expertise does not exist internally, Defra and other Departments commission additional expert advice from a range of organisations, of which the SDC has been one. In the future, the nature of any sustainable development work we might commission will determine which organisations will have the capability to deliver—but we would expect these to include, amongst others, research councils, academic institutions and NGOs. 2.5. Watchdog: “Monitoring performance against sustainable development targets and reporting on these”: Ministers are already held to account through Parliament, and Defra welcomes the commitment of the Environmental Audit Committee to carry out this scrutiny role, as demonstrated by this inquiry. In addition, there are a range of other organisations and commentators with experience and expertise in sustainable development who will scrutinise and comment on government’s performance. These include national level non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academic institutions and business groups, as well as international organisations such as the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. 2.6. Government will facilitate effective scrutiny through open and transparent reporting of policy commitments and delivery against them. Government has already demonstrated this through the publication of Departmental Structural Reform Plans and monthly updates on their delivery. Defra is also looking at how to use existing macro level sustainable development indicators to measure government progress against the long term objectives on safeguarding the environment, wellbeing and economic growth. 2.7. On operations, government is already publishing real time energy data from departmental headquarters and is reviewing other sustainability commitments. We are committed to sharing Government’s sustainability performance so that Parliament and the public can hold us to account. 2.8. Ministers in the Devolved Administrations are responsible for deciding which of the SDC’s functions should continue in relation to their own Governments’ work.

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3. What is the proposed timetable for making these changes and when will key decision be made? At what stage is work currently? 3.1. Defra will fund the SDC for the remainder of the 2010–11 financial year. We intend to have resolved which functions and staff will transfer and have transferred the relevant staff to Defra to meet this deadline. To achieve this the very latest date for finalising a decision of which functions and staff will transfer is the end of December, though it would be desirable to decide this before then. However this process and timescale will also require appropriate consultation with the unions. Defra is working with the Devolved Administrations, who are making their own decisions. 4. How successful was the SDC in fulfilling its remit? Which aspects of the SDC’s work have reached a natural end, or are otherwise of less importance, and which remain of particular continuing importance? 4.1. The decision to remove funding from the SDC was not a judgement of success against its remit, but a decision on the remit itself. As outlined in question one, this government does not believe an arm’s length body is best placed to give policy advice on sustainable development and we do not believe that Government should fund an additional body to scrutinise its own performance. 4.2. As mentioned in the ministerial statement announcing the decision to remove funding, Government recognises that the SDC has made a positive contribution to sustainable development across Government and society over the past ten years, and acknowledges the hard work of both their current and previous Chairs, Will Day and Jonathon Porritt. Although all of the SDC’s work remains relevant, the decision to champion sustainable development from the centre and at a ministerial level is a symptom of the success of the SDC in moving the agenda forward over this time. This will ensure that policy-making is focused within central government and not diluted across different bodies, avoiding duplication and making efficiencies, essential in the current economic climate. It will also ensure that leadership is driven from the top, whilst still enabling external bodies and parliament to challenge from outside. 5. In which areas of the 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy has most progress been made? In which areas should action for future progress be targeted? 5.1. An internal Defra review of “Securing the Future” was conducted in 2008. This found that although the 250 commitments had largely been met, more progress was needed particularly in the area of policy making. Further evidence has indicated that work is required to mainstream sustainable development into existing governance, reporting and policy-making processes to move the agenda from an “add on” to something integral to core government business. The Government Economic Service review of the Economics of Sustainable Development found that further evidence was needed to both identify and value social and environmental impacts. 5.2. As a result, Defra, in conjunction with other Departments, is currently developing proposals around the following areas: — Ensuring leadership for sustainable development comes from the highest level through senior ministerial-level governance. — Improving accountability and transparency so that sustainability is included within government’s measures of progress and core departmental reporting. — Building capability of decision makers to ensure that environmental, social and economic impacts are both understood and valued in decision making processes. — Enhancing cross-government collaboration on key cross cutting policies. — Ensuring that government’s operations and procurement are the greenest ever. 6. What role do other departments have in developing sustainable development policy? How are departments working together across government to do this? 6.1. Sustainable development cannot be delivered by one department alone and Defra is working at a number of levels across government to set the policy framework and delivery plans to achieve this. 6.2. At a ministerial level, the Secretaries of State for Defra and DECC are working with the Minister of Government Policy in the Cabinet Office to ensure that government can deliver on its commitment to mainstream sustainable development, including through appropriate cabinet level working. 6.3. Defra is working in partnership with Cabinet Office, DECC and DfT, as well as other departments to review Government’s existing sustainability targets, and to set milestones going forward to ensure that Government operations and procurement are the greenest ever. An action plan will published in October, with the final policy announcements made in December. Performance management of government’s own sustainability and engagement with its supply chain will be key aspects of a sustainable development in government work programme. This will provide opportunities to deliver financial and resource efficiency savings, demonstrate transparency and government leadership, and drive change in other sectors.

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6.4. Defra will also be working with Cabinet Office, along with the Office for National Statistics to develop a set of indicators to measure national progress on societal wellbeing and sustainable development. 6.5. Defra chairs an official level cross government sustainable development programme board and a supporting sustainable development policy working group. These bodies provide oversight of the development and delivery of sustainable development policy. Their role is being considered as part of the review of the governance arrangement for sustainable development. 7. To what extent are civil servants in your department made accountable for working more “sustainably”? 7.1. Government action on sustainable development focuses on the areas of policy making, operations and procurement. 7.2. Permanent Secretaries are accountable for their department’s overall progress against the existing Sustainable Operations of the Government Estate (SOGE) targets and for ensuring, key staff in their departments have related performance objectives. Behaviour change is central to our efforts to cut our carbon emissions by 10%. In a recent staff survey virtually everyone who responded said they did at least one environmentally friendly thing in the office and staff are being asked to sign up online to a pledge to take this further and help Defra reach its target. 7.3. On policy making, civil servants in Defra are given training on sustainable development within the core policy cycle training and are expected to address the environmental, social and economic impacts of their policies or projects in both Impact Assessments and Business Plans. However, recent reviews showed that although awareness of sustainability is high within the department, uptake and enforcement of formal reporting is low. Improvements are needed to build capability of both policy makers and decision makers within the department, and work is being done to improve guidance and analysis. 8. To what extent has Defra been involved in assisting other departments to address sustainable development issues in formulating their draft Structural Reform Plans? 8.1. The Coalition Agreement states that “The government believes that we need to protect the environment for future generations, make our economy more environmentally sustainable, and improve our quality of life and well-being.” A number of department’s Structural Reform Plans (SRPs) include strong elements of sustainable development. The principles of sustainable development are embedded throughout Defra’s SRP, including the three priorities to: — Support and develop British farming and encourage sustainable food production. — Help to enhance the environment and biodiversity to improve quality of life. — Support a strong and sustainable green economy, resilient to climate change. 8.2. Defra has a particular role in enhancing the sustainability of its remit on areas such as the natural environment, adaptation to climate change, and food and farming. In addition, there are a number of commitments in Defra’s SRP that will drive improvements in sustainability of government as a whole, such as plans to establish ministerial governance arrangements to oversee government performance on sustainable development, publish an action plan on greenest government ever operations and procurement and to produce guidance on sustainability and natural value in policy appraisal. Furthermore, Defra’s SRP commits us to working with other departments on key policy areas such as the Green Economy Roadmap and the Natural Environment White Paper. 8.3. In the future, Defra, in line with the commitment to mainstream sustainable development, is looking to replace the existing Sustainable Development Action Plans with a different approach to ensure the inclusion of sustainable development within core departmental business plans. Sustainable Development Indicators will also play a key part of new cross-government work on measuring government progress. 21 October 2010

Further written evidence submitted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Before I give evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee tomorrow I wanted to update you in writing on the decisions I have made in relation to which of the Sustainable Development Commission’s existing functions should transfer into Defra. I have already indicated that I do not consider that it is for Government to carry out all of the activities currently undertaken by the SDC and that we will in future be working directly with a broader range of individuals and organisations. Some of the SDC’s functions do need to continue. In particular we need to work with the SDC’s partners to ensure that we continue to engage with a broad audience to take forward the sustainable development agenda. I am therefore proposing that we take on the function of communicating with, and seeking views from, those stakeholders with whom the SDC has built up relations.

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Ev 110 Environmental Audit Committee: Evidence

Likewise I do not wish to lose the important work that the SDC has done to support Government through building capability on sustainable development. In line with my commitment to mainstream sustainable development, I wish to continue the work the SDC has done, on its own or in partnership, to influence policy-making processes across Government. This includes development of the sustainable development impact assessment process, working with the National School for Government on training for policy officials and developing guidance in the HMT Green Book. Over the next few weeks we will work with the SDC to identify which of the SDC’s current staff should transfer to Defra with these functions. We aim to have completed this process by the end of the year. We have previously spoken about the potential role for your Committee in scrutinising Government’s performance on sustainable development and you were pursuing what NAO resource and expertise might be available to you to do this. Of course there is existing SDC resource—a team of seven—carrying out some specific scrutiny activities and once you have established what the Committee might do in this area I would encourage you to consider whether any of them similarly have the right to transfer. I would be happy to discuss these decisions with the Committee. Finally please find attached a copy of Defra’s Business plan which was launched on Monday. 9 November 2010

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