1. The Committee's key findings are summarised below
(in the order in which they appear in the report):
a) All in all we regard the first Green Ministers'
report as a helpful contribution to establishing a system for
accountability to underpin the Greening Government Initiative.
b) The Green Ministers Committee report should:
- be presented to the House as a Command
Paper;
- be subject to external validation by the National
Audit Office (in line with best practice encouraged by the Government
in the private sector); and
- contain the questionnaires sent out, and data
received, as an annex to the main report.
c) We recommend that future Green Ministers'
reports are based around the provision of comparable data presented
in clear tabular form against common standards.
d) The Green Ministers should set out a strategic
assessment which maps the environmental impacts of each department...to
identify priority areas for environmental gains and, equally,
for risks of adverse impacts.
e) We continue to believe, in line with the conclusions
of the Cabinet Office report 'Wiring it up', that leadership from
the very top in Government, and in each department, is crucial
for the success of cross-cutting initiatives such as greening
government and encouraging sustainable development.
f) The Green Ministers Committee should stop
prevaricating and adopt a firm target for the establishment of
environmental management systems throughout Government and an
equally firm target for the accreditation of such systems.
g) We were disappointed to see that only the
Department for Education and Employment is explicitly committed
to the systematic publication of the results of screening and
appraisal of all policy proposals for their environmental impacts.
We were particularly surprised that the Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions, in leading the initiative on environmental
appraisal, does not make a similar commitment.
h) We see indications in this report that the
Government is blurring the distinction between 'options appraisal'
and 'impact assessment' (which is likely to be much more about
defending decisions).
i) The seven appraisals, from four departments,
given as examples of published environmental appraisals are, with
the exception of countryside access, assessments of the impacts
of preferred options, or already announced decisions.
j) Green Ministers should, as a first step, agree
to follow the lead of the Department for Education and Employment
and include in policy documentation either confirmation that screening
found no significant impacts, or the appraisal of the policy being
announced.
k) At the very least Green Ministers must provide
transparency in publishing a full list of policies where environmental
appraisals have been undertaken by departments, whether fully
published or not.
l) We note the Green Ministers Committee's restatement
of its commitment to undertake a review of the Cabinet Office
requirement to set out significant costs and benefits of environmental
impacts in Cabinet papers, and reiterate our call for this review,
which should now be concluded, to be published.
m) According to the Green Ministers' report some
departments are clearly failing both the letter and the spirit
of the commitment on environmental policy appraisal, for example,
the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Cabinet Office.
n) The Greening Government indicator given in
the Quality of Life Counts document ... is inadequate and a meaningful
performance indicator for the conduct and impact of environmental
appraisal of policy needs to be developed.
o) We have found that departments are putting
greening housekeeping policies and procedures into place, but
that there are still gaps in departments' data collection, and
hence target-setting and reporting of performance.
p) When the Government comes to report on performance
against the target for a 20 per cent increase in energy efficiency
across its own estate, the National Audit Office should be invited
to validate the Government's methodology and audit its figures.
q) The Government must take a lead and become
a purchaser of renewable energy at least to the level it has set
for the economy at large — 10 per cent of electricity generated.
r) Green Ministers report that all departments
are aware that their procurement policies can have major environmental
impacts, but presents no performance data or independent assurance
that departmental procedures are being adhered to. We are particularly
concerned about the development of the Public Finance Initiative
(PFI) and Public Private Partnerships (PPP) initiatives and the
extent to which environmental criteria are being built in to those
processes.
s) We welcome the Green Ministers Committee commitment
to undertake a collective review of procurement systems across
departments by December 2000.
t) In our report on the Pre-Budget Report 1999
we recorded our disappointment not to see any reference to the
environment in the Government's proposals for the new procurement
arrangements, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and Partnerships
UK. This omission was particularly surprising in the light of
the Green Ministers' undertaking to consider the inclusion of
sustainable development aims and objectives in the remits of new
bodies and the stated importance of Government procurement in
promoting sustainable goods and services.
u) We welcome the fact that the Green Ministers
have now adopted our proposal that associate bodies should address
environmental issues in their annual reports.
v) The lack of Government target-setting gives
the impression that the Green Ministers Committee is settling
for progress at the pace of the slowest, and is not injecting
much drive into the pursuit of the greening government agenda.
w) In the Green Ministers' report there is reference
neither to the last spending review nor to the current one. We
regard this as a worrying sign given the Government's emphasis
on the role of Green Ministers in improving the account taken
of sustainable development within the process.
