Select Committee on Environmental Audit Fifth Report

THE GREENING GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE:

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE GREEN MINISTERS COMMITTEE

Greening operations

39. 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. We have called in our reports for greater efforts to be made. For water use, waste and renewable energy and CO₂ emissions from transport use, the Green Ministers Committee report establishes new commitments in respect of data collection, targets and reporting. However in many of these there is no target date for completing the necessary preparatory work nor a commitment by departments to set related targets.

(i) Energy

40. Energy efficiency is the only area where there is a long-standing target for departmental improvement. The indicator is weather-corrected energy consumption expressed at standard prices.[45] Performance reported in this report is for 1997-98. As in previous years it has been adjusted for changes in estate relative to the situation in 1990.

41. With regard to the performance reported by the Green Ministers on energy efficiency we share the concern reported in ENDS last year over the headline statement "All departments have improved their energy efficiency". This is misleading. On the report's own figures performance has been improving for the Government as a whole, by 18.1 per cent on costs between 1990/91 and 1997/98 (Civil departments contributing 9.1 per cent, and MOD 22.3 per cent). However, individual departments have had very varied results and on no basis given in the tables have "all" improved their energy efficiency on 1990 levels or since 1997.

42. We set out below (table 3), in order of magnitude of consumption, civil departments' energy expenditure, an estimate of specific investment in efficiency measures and performance including an estimate for absolute carbon emissions. Available figures for the MOD appear at the end of the table. In recording performance on CO₂ reductions we have used figures corrected for weather only because we regard this to be a better indicator of absolute levels of emissions per 'function of government'. What is immediately apparent is that the MOD contributes a major proportion of Government reductions in CO₂ emissions but less information is available on its performance in the Green Ministers' report. We were particularly concerned about this given the comments in the notes to Annex E on the standard MOD methodology.

43. In line with our comments above concerning giving priority to significant impacts we were interested to see to what extent departmental performance in improving efficiency aligned with the magnitude of their consumption. Figure 1 illustrates civil departmental efficiency performance with levels of energy consumption running from top to bottom. On these figures (adjusted for both weather and estate changes) one can see that the big consumers have achieved reasonably consistent reductions with DTI standing head and shoulders above the rest. Results are markedly more patchy as absolute consumption levels decrease.

44. Overall performance deteriorates however if estate-change adjustments are stripped out (so as to get as close to real emissions figures as possible). In this scenario (Figure 2) CO₂ emission reductions from the total civil estate amount to only 5.6 per cent in 1997/98 (compared to 1990 levels) with eight out of the top 14 spenders showing emission increases. Against this trend the performance of the DTI on this basis is even more impressive. It is worth noting that for the CO₂ figures adjusting for estate-changes more than doubles the percentage reduction presented—from 5.6 to 14.0 per cent. We would appreciate more information on the relevant methodology employed in any future Green Ministers report and when performance against the March 2000 target is finally reported.

45. As suggested above, this is one area where outside observers, including this Committee, could benefit enormously from a degree of independent verification of the methodologies employed, the presentation of the performance figures and of the robustness of data collection and reporting by civil departments and the MOD. We recommend that 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. Such an audit should assess, amongst other things, the effect on departmental performance of changes and variations in energy prices paid over the years in question.[46]

46. Efficiency gains are not to be sniffed at but the UK's greenhouse gas emissions targets are of course cast in terms of absolute reductions on a 1990 baseline: by 12.5 per cent (six gases) by 2008-12; and by 20 per cent (CO₂) by 2010. To this end we welcome the Government's new commitments set out in the draft UK Climate Change Programme:

- to a further 1 per cent per annum improvement in performance from March 2000 measured in terms of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings rather than energy[47]; and


- to the benchmarking of the energy performance of Government buildings to enable comparisons of the Government estate and the UK building stock as a whole.

These reflect recommendations made in our second Greening Government report. We regard the presentation of data on actual greenhouse gas emissions from the Government estate in the Green Ministers report to be regrettable and we have sought to remedy that deficiency as far as possible.

47. We welcome consideration by Green Ministers of targets for the purchase of renewable energy. We believe that 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.

(ii) Water, paper and waste

48. Green Ministers report no formal Government-wide targets for water use reduction, paper use or conservation nor for waste minimisation. Work on these issues is reported.[48] There is, as we have noted above, a preliminary target for the recovery and recycling of office waste. This is less than ideal and we will be looking for progress in these areas this year.

(iii) Green Transport Plans

49. The first target for the production of Green Transport Plans was met by and large and we were pleased to see a target for extending coverage. The initiative also needs deepening and we hope that the work commissioned by the DETR will not only assess those plans that have been developed but also produce a template of best practice. We believe that something along the lines of the Model Improvement Programme may be helpful containing recommended targets in areas such as: encouraging the use of public transport and bicycles; reducing single-occupancy car journeys; changing fleets over to less harmful fuels and more efficient vehicles; flexible working practices to reduce the need to travel; and encouraging investment in more efficient vehicles through car mileage allowances. We welcome the commitment in the draft UK Climate Change Programme to consideration of a cross-Government target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from official travel but would suggest that departments should also adopt a target for reducing the environmental impact of the ways in which their staff travel to and from work.

(iv) Procurement

50. The GMC report states that "As a major purchaser Government has the opportunity to influence suppliers to provide sustainable goods and services and also to make the market for such goods and services more competitive". 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 into those processes. Under other headings on paper use and energy consumption however, we note moves to increase the relative consumption of recycled paper (with a high degree of post-consumer waste) and have mentioned renewable energy. We therefore welcome the Green Ministers Committee commitment to undertake a collective review of procurement systems across departments by December 2000. We would hope and expect such a review to push for a change the culture so that 'green' procurement becomes simply 'good' procurement.

51. 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. We await explanation of this apparent failing against a Government commitment in the reply to that report. But more importantly we wish to hear that remedial action is being taken and that these new arrangements are going to work to assist greener procurement by Government.

52. The operation of OGC may well be particularly important with respect to Government's purchase of renewable energy (see above). Peter Gershon's review of civil procurement recommended aggregation of purchases to increase buyer power, where appropriate, and looked specifically at energy purchases.[49] We have noted above welcome moves by a number of departments, and the Green Ministers Committee as a whole, to reflect the Government's 10 per cent target for the generation of UK electricity from renewable sources and have recommended that this be entrenched as a firm target. We would regard it as vital that any new arrangements for purchasing energy for departments took account of this innovation and, indeed, were designed to encourage it.

Spreading the commitment to the wider public sector

53. The Green Ministers Committee reports that all departments send their associated bodies advice on the Greening Government Initiative. It reports a variety of specific examples of other actions taken by departments to encourage their associated bodies to use environmental appraisal techniques and green their operations. In our reports on the Greening Government Initiative we have urged departments to do more to ensure that their associate bodies play a full part and our recommendations amount to a checklist of such best practices. We welcome the fact that the Committee has now adopted our proposal that associate bodies should address environmental issues in their annual reports. This should give immediate incentive to those bodies to adopt appropriate policies, measure performance and improve it. Nonetheless we are disappointed that Green Ministers have not made wider commitments to require their associated bodies to adopt better environmental practices and to monitor implementation. We regard this as an action point for the future.

Green Ministers Committee: future programme

54. The report usefully outlines the activities of the Green Ministers and sets out a future work programme as well as commitments to be pursued by Green Ministers within their departments.[50] This programme contains some concrete objectives and targets as we had recommended it should. These are set out in Figure 3 alongside comments from the Committee.

Figure 3 Green Ministers future programme - concrete commitments
Commitment by Government	EAC comment
All departments to introduce at least one environmental management system (EMS) by the end of the Parliament (at the latest May 2002). In contrast with the target recommended by the Committee: 75% of departments to have one site accredited to ISO14001 by the 20001.	The criteria for what constitutes a satisfactory departmental EMS under this target is not given either in quantitative or qualitative terms.
All departments to have strategies in place to raise awareness on sustainable development and general environmental issues by March 2000.	These strategies should be hinged upon the provision of systematic Civil Service College training on sustainable development appraisal tools also mentioned in the Green Ministers programme at this point.
All departments will ensure that all their associate bodies are reporting on environmental matters in their annual reports or separately by 2001.	Our analysis of main departments' environmental reporting in annual reports suggests clear guidance will be necessary.
Government will set further targets for increasing its energy efficiency to follow on from the 20% improvement required by March 2000. Green Ministers will establish a common approach to measuring and reporting departments' greenhouse gas emissions (buildings and transport).	No date is given for the development of greenhouse gas emission measurement.
All departments will introduce Green Transport Plans for all buildings where they are major occupier with over 50 staff by March 2000.	We welcomed the DETR's use of independent consultants to assess a number of the plans produced under the previous target. We hope that the conclusions of that study will be published.
All departments will work towards the waste target which is 'to aim to recover 40% of total office waste, with at least 25% of that recovery coming from recycling or composting in 2000-01'.	We applaud the Green Ministers for agreeing even this tentative formula for Government action on its own waste and hope that work to implement it proceeds apace.
Green Ministers will collectively review departmental procurement policies for their environmental impacts by December 2000.	We urge the Green Ministers Committee to include in their review the opportunities offered by new arrangements for Government procurement.

Source: EAC, March 2000

55. These are specific targets. We also noted that many elements of the future work programme were couched in rather softer terms, for example the assessment by Green Ministers' of whether sustainable development should be included in the remit of all their departments' new public bodies (first announced in November 1998). We have noted that the Treasury did not assess the Financial Services Authority in this way nor yet the proposed Office of Government Commerce or Partnerships UK. We have previously recommended that ENV play a role in ensuring that this commitment on the objectives of new bodies is implemented and we believe that Green Ministers should maintain a register of new organisations created and record departmental decisions on the incorporation of environmental, or sustainable development, objectives in their remits.[51] Other examples of soft commitments include the consideration of a Government-wide target for the purchase of renewable energy; the target for reducing water consumption; and waste reduction. 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.

56. English Nature drew our attention to the fact that despite discussions in the Green Ministers Committee on the Government's contribution to the biodiversity strategy, the issue had not been addressed in the Committee's report, either as a specific example of an issue that should be addressed during appraisal of policies or as a matter for departments' own operations. We note the likelihood of further work on this issue by Green Ministers.

57. One further potential gap in the forward programme concerns the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) system for allocating public expenditure. We reported on the first such review and have recently followed this up with a further report in the light of the Government's response and subsequent announcements about the Spending Review 2000.[52] As we noted in the second of these reports the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, told us in January 1998 that Green Ministers should be ensuring that sustainable development was considered in departments' work on the CSR. The Government's response to our conclusions in May 1999, and the new Spending Review Guidance, revitalise this by now making Green Ministers' input a 'requirement' of the spending review process.[53] However, 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. We concur with the opinion of the Environment Minister, Mr Meacher, that the environment was treated as something of a 'bolt-on' extra in the first CSR.[54] In this light we expect to see evidence of Green Ministers' activity in the conclusions of the Spending Review 2000 and a full account and review of how they contributed to the process in the next Green Ministers report.

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45  GMCR, p58. Back

46  See Review of Civil Procurement etc., 1999, (the Gershon review), paragraph A3.  Back

47  This would not penalise departments paying a premium for renewable energy. Back

48  GMCR, p30ff. Back

49  Op. cit, paragraph A.3. Back

50  GMCR, p7ff. Back

51  GG II, rec (z). Back

52  HC 92 (1998-99) and HC 233 (1999-2000). Back

53  Ibid. Back

54  HC 175-i, Q149. Back

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Prepared 28 March 2000