Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence

Further Memorandum submitted by the Council for the Protection of Rural England

GREENING GOVERNMENT FROM RHETORIC TO REALITY

  The Government has " . . . put in place perhaps one of the most comprehensive machinery of government to manage the environment to be found anywhere in the world . . . "(Rt hon John Gummer MP, Secretary of State for the Environment Debate in the Commons on the Environment Bill [HC Hansard, 18 April 1995 col 35].

  "We are not content to rest on our laurels—we intend to consider how we can give added vigour to current arrangements" (Mr Robert Atkins MP, Minister for the Environment and Countryside Debate at the Commons Report Stage of the Environment Bill [HL Hansard 27 June 1995 col 722].

THE ISSUE

—  the need fully to integrate the environment into other areas of public policy making is now well understood by the OECD, the European Commission, and the UK Government;

—  although the UK Government is proud of its record in environmental integration, the mechanisms it has put in place are failing to deliver the necessary scrutiny systems which would facilitate changes in public policy;

—  a series of questions in the House of Commons has revealed the gap between what is said and what is done on this issue, with no Government department providing evidence that it is using the Department of the Environment's guidance designed for use by other Government Departments to assess the environmental impact of their policies;

—  the recent environmental indicators produced by the DOE illustrate how important it is to integrate environmental objectives across the policies and activities of all Government departments.

BACKGROUND

  1. The need fully to integrate the environment into policy decisions of other Government Departments is now well understood as being a key component of the pursuit of environmentally sustainable development. Too often in the past the environment has been marginalised and an after-thought in public policy making.

  2. The need for integration is referred to in Agenda 21 agreed at the Earth Summit (1992); is a central element of the European Commission's 5th Environmental Action Programme (1992); and an important aspect of the UK Government's Strategy for Sustainable Development (1994). Environmental ministers re-affirmed the need to see greater integration at the meeting of the OECD in Paris in February 1996.

  3. The UK Government is proud of its record in this area (see quote above), and has established a number of mechanisms to achieve better integration. An examination of the effectiveness of these measures in the UK, however, paints a less optimistic picture.

THE GOVERNMENT'S RECORD ON ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATION

  4. The 1990 White Paper, This Common Inheritance, identified the need for better integration of environmental concerns. The Government proposed four mechanisms to do this:

—  a Cabinet sub-committee for the environment;

—  Green Ministers for each Government Department;

—  reporting progress made on environmental issues in Departmental Annual Reports; and

—  producing guidance for Government departments on how they can incorporate environmental considerations into their policy appraisal processes (see Reference 1).

  5. The 1992 Earth Summit and the commitment by the Government to produce a Sustainable Development Strategy again focused attention on this issue. The 1994 UK Strategy for Sustainable Development established further mechanisms:

—  the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development;

—  the Government's Panel on Sustainable Development; and

—  "Going for Green"—an initiative designed to engage the wider public in pursuing sustainability.

A REVIEW OF THE UK SYSTEM OF INTEGRATION

  6. The Government's initiatives appear to be struggling to make progress. The Green Ministers meet infrequently with only one or possibly two meetings taking place in 1995 (ENDS 253 February 1996 page 30), behind closed doors, and do not appear to treat their role as a priority. They have decided not to make the minutes of their meetings available to the public (HC Hansard 1713, 14 February 1996 col 626). Examination of the environmental content of Departmental Annual Reports indicates that many concentrate on green "housekeeping" initiatives (such as reducing Departmental energy consumption) rather than integrating the environment into their mainstream policy work, and many hardly mention the environment at all. The Round Table has yet to prove its value.

THE FAILURE OF WHITEHALL TO ASSESS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF PUBLIC POLICIES

  7. The mechanisms set out in Policy Appraisal and the Environment have the potential to ensure that likely environmental effects are assessed during the process of development of departmental policies and programmes. The key question therefore is how and when it is used. A number of Parliamentary Questions have been asked in the House of Commons by the Labour Shadow Minister for Environmental Protection, Joan Ruddock MP, on the use of Policy Appraisal and the Environment in the formulation of key policy statements.

REFERENCE 1: POLICY APPRAISAL AND THE ENVIRONMENT

  Following a commitment in the first Environment White Paper, This Common Inheritance 1990, the Government agreed to produce guidance to other departments on how to better integrate the environment into decision making. This emerged as Policy Appraisal and the Environment in 1991. The guide was circulated widely within the Government. It was to be used by all Departments in their policy formulation and review. It states:

  "A government's policies can effect the environment from street-corner to stratosphere. Yet environmental costs and benefits have not always been well integrated into government policy assessments, and sometimes they have been forgotten entirely. Proper consideration of these effects will improve the quality of policy making . . . This guide shows how environmental effects can be taken into account, both in environmental policies and in policies in other areas which have significant environmental effects." (paragraph 1.1, 1.2 page 1)

  In 1992 the DOE published a second booklet entitled Environmental Appraisal in Government Departments. This was designed to show how Policy Appraisal and the Environment had been used in Whitehall. It included a number of case studies showing how environmental appraisal had been applied, allegedly using Policy Appraisal and the Environment. The booklet did not, however, review the effectiveness of the appraisal process.

  The Government has committed itself in the 1996 Environment White Paper to review the use of Policy Appraisal and the Environment (commitment 389 page 112).

  The answers given to the Parliamentary Questions have exposed a serious gap within Whitehall when it comes to examining the environmental impact of policies. The questions asked were:

—  Had an environmental appraisal been produced for policy statements which had already been published?

—  Would a selection of forthcoming policy statements which would have significant environmental effects be accompanied by the results of an environmental appraisal?

—  How many environmental appraisals had a Department produced in 1995?

  8. A summary of the answers to these questions is attached (Annexes 1 and 2) and a commentary provided below.

KEY FINDINGS OF PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

—  no Government Department can provide evidence that it has subjected its policy statements to an Environmental Appraisal, despite DOE advice to do so;

—  DOE is unable to provide evidence of environmental appraisals for those policy areas used as examples in Policy Appraisal and Government Departments (1994) which aimed to illustrate how Policy Appraisal and the Environment was being used;

—  the Treasury has stated that it did not conduct a single environmental appraisal during 1995, despite major White Papers being issued on Competitiveness and De-Regulation each of which have significant implications for the environment;

—  the Department of Health considers that the main environmental issues with which it is concerned are confined to its purchasing policy (see Annex 3);

—  the DOE itself will not be producing environmental appraisals for key documents such as its discussion paper on Housing (see Reference 2 and paragraph 11);

—  the case of the two recent reviews of the national roads programme illustrate how Policy Appraisal and the Environment is failing to ensure the systematic examination of environmental impacts from policy decisions (see Reference 3);

—  the promotion of environmentally sustainable development is a Government-wide objective as is the promotion of competitiveness, yet they carry significantly different levels of political support and different mechanisms for ensuring their implementation (see Reference 4 and Annex 2).

NO IMPROVEMENT IN FUTURE POLICY-MAKING YET IN SIGHT

  9. During the passage of the Environment Bill in 1995, CPRE proposed a general duty to promote and suggested improved processes for environmental integration. Amendments were tabled which would have required Strategic Environmental Assessment to be carried out on all Government policies, programmes and plans. The Government resisted such changes but suggested that improvements would be made to the mechanisms of achieving integration.

  10. The then Minister for the Environment and Countryside, Robert Atkins MP, stated at Commons Report Stage of the Environment Bill that "we are not content to rest on our laurels—we intend to consider how we can give added vigour to current arrangements" (HC Hansard 27 June, column 722). Despite this welcome statement, it is clear that even the guidance contained in Policy Appraisal and the Environment is not being followed.

  11. It is evident that this is the case within the DOE as well as other Government departments. While the DOE may argue that it is bound to take environmental implications into account, the purpose of Policy Appraisal and the Environment was to ensure an effective and systematic process for doing so. The DOE has stated that it will not be undertaking environmental appraisals for the White Paper Making Waste Work, or for the principal planning guidance for minerals—Minerals Planning Guidance Note 1 (MPG1).

  12. The DTI did not conduct an environmental appraisal when formulating the Competitiveness White Paper. The Treasury did not conduct an environmental appraisal for its White Paper—Better Accounting for the Taxpayer's Money and has no plans to monitor the environmental impact of its implementation. The newly established Government Offices for the regions do not give environmental appraisal any higher priority. CPRE has been unable to find evidence to date of environmental appraisals being undertaken for Regional Planning Guidance (RPG), and no environmental appraisals were published with the recently released West Midlands RPG or Yorkshire and Humberside RPG.

  13. The Parliamentary Questions reveal that the Government appears to see the process of issuing consultation papers and draft documents for public debate as an adequate substitute for its own consideration of the environmental implications through environmental appraisal. Although an extremely important part of the decision making process, consultation is not equivalent to a systematic environmental appraisal. This is recognised in Policy Appraisal and the Environment. Moreover, under current arrangements there is no way of knowing what effect a consultation process is having on decision making or how systematically inputs have been reviewed, because the process apart from the final published document is a closed one.

REFERENCE 2: HOUSING AND THE COUNTRYSIDE

  The environmental implications of the DOE's most recent household projections are significant. If the projected demand for an additional 4.4 million households 1991-2016 were met by new housebuilding an area of rural land larger than Greater London would be urbanised by 2016. The Department of the Environment has promised a discussion paper which will outline the various options for responding to these household projections. Parliamentary Questions were asked to see if the DOE would be using its own guidance and conducting an environmental appraisal of the policy options raised in the discussion paper. The DOE responded by saying that environmental appraisal was not appropriate for a discussion or consultation paper.

  Since this represents the early stages of policy formulation, where options are being examined, one has to ask why an environmental appraisal is not carried out? This also begs the question of at what stage does the Government feel it appropriate to begin an environmental appraisal?

THE ENVIRONMENT WHITE PAPER 1996

  14. The Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Environment, Mr James Clappison MP, has stated that This Common Inheritance: UK Annual Report 1996 "will not itself set new policies" (Official Report 1710, 23 January 1996 column 201), and as such did not require an appraisal. The answer provided raises a number of important questions. The annual Environment White paper is promoted as the statement of the Government's environmental policy and is often quoted by Ministers as such. A possible conclusion to draw from the Minister's answer is that the strategy simply draws together existing commitments from a range of Government Departments. This underlines the importance of the integration mechanisms in ensuring that policies across Whitehall contribute towards the Government's objective of environmentally sustainable development.

REFERENCE 3: ROADS AND THE COUNTRYSIDE

  The environmental impact of the Government's Roads Programme has been widely discussed in recent years. The DOE, in publishing its environmental indicators, and the DOT in its recent Green Paper have identified traffic growth as a major obstacle to effective action on reducing air pollution and conserving energy. The growth in road traffic more generally and the impacts of the associated infrastructure pose major challenges to the achievement of environmentally sustainable development.

  The Roads Programme has been cut twice in two years following substantial reviews. Parliamentary Questions attempted to ascertain whether an environmental appraisal, of the type advocated by the DOE, had been used in these reviews. The answers which the DOT gave in reply are revealing. They indicate that in both reviews of the roads programme (March 1994 and November 1995) "a number of schemes were withdrawn because they could not achieve an acceptable environmental balance". Given that the two reviews took place within 20 months of each other, this begs the question why some schemes were still included in the Roads Programme following the initial review? The DOT has not published the results of its environmental scrutiny.

REFERENCE 4: THE DIFFERING TREATMENT OF GOVERNMENT-WIDE OBJECTIVES

  The Government is clearly capable of promoting strategic objectives. The effectiveness of the guidance Policy Appraisal and the Environment and other environmental integration mechanisms can be contrasted with the impact of the deregulation and competitiveness initiatives. While both competitiveness and the promotion of sustainable development are objectives of the Government which affect all Departments, the attention and importance attached to each is quite different. There is, for example, no environmental equivalent of the cost compliance assessment that accompanies each new piece of Government legislation. Parliamentary Questions have discovered that Government Departments produced 150 cost compliance assessments in 1995 (see Annex 2), all of which are publicly available, and checked for quality control by the Office of Public Service. This compares with the difficulty in finding any evidence of environmental appraisals having been conducted. Furthermore, it has not been possible for CPRE to obtain a copy of a single environmental appraisal.

  A range of measures have been put in place to ensure that both the competitiveness and de-regulation initiatives impact on new proposals. Units exist within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to carry out this work. They have identified over 1,000 different measures which could be taken across Whitehall departments to further the objectives of the initiative, and Ministers recently suggested that 500 of those changes had been achieved. It would appear that environmental appraisal and scrutiny have been given nothing like the same degree of attention and political support.

  15. A number of projects are proposed by the Department of the Environment to examine the effectiveness of current arrangements. The 1995 Environment White Paper provided a commitment to review the use of Policy Appraisal and the Environment. This review has been substantially delayed and to date there has been no undertaking to publish the results of this analysis. The Green Ministers at their meeting in January 1996 also agreed to publish case studies to show what measures Government departments have taken to consider the environment in their policies. This is expected to be published later in the year.

CONCLUSIONS

  16. It is clear that Policy Appraisal and the Environment has not had the intended effect of providing an accepted and widely used mechanism for assessing the environmental impact of policies in the early stages of their development, even within the DOE. Apart from questions about its use, the current appraisal and decision making processes are closed to the public and therefore there is no means of telling whether the environment is being taken more seriously or not. The answers provided to the Parliamentary Questions indicate however, that there is a worryingly low level of awareness amongst Government departments about the process of environmental appraisal, and the need for integration; and little actual progress has been achieved. The Government has said that it wishes to pursue its integration mechanisms with "added vigour". The 1996 Environment White Paper provided little reassurance that environmental integration would improve in the coming year.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  17. In order to bring about the necessary improvements in environmental integration, CPRE recommends a number of changes to current policy and practice. These would build on existing systems. They are primarily the responsibility of the DOE (as the lead department) and are summarised below:

Policy Appraisal and the Environment

—  the guidance in Policy Appraisal and the Environment should be reviewed so that it better reflects and applies current methodology on strategic environmental assessment;

—  clear guidance (with Prime Ministerial backing) should be given on when environmental appraisal will be required which should be promoted vigorously across Whitehall;

—  all environmental appraisals should be made publicly available in line with the Government's drive towards greater openness.

Green Ministers

—  Green Ministers should be given additional guidance on their role and responsibilities, including the setting and monitoring of specific departmental targets.

—  the work of the Green Ministers should be made more open, and the Ministers more accountable for their activities, through publishing the attendance and minutes of their meetings and providing regular statements to Parliament.

—  Green Ministers should hold special responsibility for the production of Departmental annual reports and should account for progress made in reducing the environmental impact of Departmental policies and activities.

Procedures

—  environmental compliance assessments should be produced (taking forward the guidance contained in Policy Appraisal and the Environment) for all legislative proposals to examine the costs (both qualitative and quantitative) to society from the environmental impacts likely to result from a proposal;

—  Treasury mechanisms which seek to provide closer links between departmental objectives and their budgets (e.g., under the Resource Accounting White Paper) should make the promotion of environmentally sustainable development a central component;

—  the Annual Environment White paper should be debated in Parliament;

—  the remit of the Cabinet Committee on the Environment should be broadened to enable explicit consideration of the impact of Government policies as a whole on the environment, not just to review environmental policy;

—  Government Offices for the Regions should undertake environmental appraisals when developing Regional Planning Guidance and other regional plans, and ensure effective integration across the full range of their responsibilities;

—  the Government should respond to each recommendation of the Sustainable Development Round Table individually.

New Government Structures

—  an "Environmental Integration Unit" should be established within the DOE with responsibility for monitoring the use and quality of environmental appraisals produced on an on-going basis across Whitehall. In addition it should have the specific aim of identifying where changes to Government policy in other departments (as does the De-regulation Unit at present) might further the strategic objective of promoting environmentally sustainable development.

CPRE

May 1996

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Prepared 19 June 1998