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We continue to support the Government's practice of reporting annually on progress against the headline indicators. We also support the practice of publishing the underlying data as it becomes available as this facilitates ongoing scrutiny. (Paragraph 8)
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| 2. | We recommend that the Government seek to strengthen the relationship between regular assessment of performance against headline and other indicators and progress-chasing against policies and programmes embodied in the national and departmental sustainable development strategies. (Paragraph 9)
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| 3. | We recommend that the Government re-examine how climate change indicators could be used more effectively to act as a strong progress-chaser against short-term and longer term objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (Paragraph 16)
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| 4. | The absence of an explicit statement of the nature of the subjective judgement made for each assessment remains a serious weakness. We recommend that such as statement become a requirement in the annual report. The outcome of the Government's consideration of this issue, promised in the response to our Report of a year ago, should form part of the current review of the indicators. (Paragraph 17)
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| 5. | The unavoidably subjective nature of the assessments, compounded by the absence of any independent validation and the absence of any published criteria for judgements made, continues to give us cause for concern. The assessments should be independently validated each year, prior to publication, and a statement of validation included in the annual report (Paragraph 18)
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| 6. | Changes in baseline data used for assessments 'since the strategy' make comparison between years difficult and therefore compromise the usefulness of the indicators. Such changes should only be made when absolutely necessary and each instance should be clearly highlighted in subsequent annual reports. (Paragraph 21)
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| 7. | We recommend that the Government consider how the headline information from the Environment Agency's survey of industrial and commercial waste might best be incorporated in the sustainable development headline indicators report for 2003 prior to the full reporting that is expected in 2004. (Paragraph 23)
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| 8. | We welcome the inclusion of the new sub-indicator on road traffic intensity which, together with the existing indicator on road traffic volumes, presents a clearer, more rounded picture of traffic levels and growth than has been the case in previous years. (Paragraph 24)
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| 9. | The co-ordinated effort to give the indicators a higher profile in 2002 represents a significant improvement on previous years, but further effort is required to ensure that the profile is sustained throughout the year. (Paragraph 26)
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