Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Annex B

HOME OFFICE WEBSITE STATEMENT ON FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ON THE GOVERNMENT ESTATE

TARGET A2:

  All Departments should, within 4 months of the announcement of each suite of targets in the Framework, make public a strategy showing how they plan to deliver the targets. If a Department concludes that its impact is insignificant in a particular area (in comparison to its other impacts identified under target A1) and that pursuit of the relevant targets would not be an effective use of resources, the Department must publish a statement on the same timescale.

  The first suite of targets cover Environmental Management Systems, Public Reporting, Travel and Water.

Lines of responsibility

  Fiona Mactaggart—Home Office Green Minister

  Charles Everett—Home Office Sustainable Development Champion

  Julia Wright—Environmental Issues Manager

  For the delivery plans on all the targets the Department will be adopting a project management approach. The plan will appear on this website and will be updated regularly to show progress.

TARGET A3: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (EMSS) TO BE IN PLACE TO COVER 40% OF THE ESTATE BY 31 MARCH 2004 AND 80% OF THE ESTATE BY 31 MARCH 2006

  For the core Home Office office estate of 35 sites ( primarily our offices in central London and Croydon) we will implement EMSs by 31 March 2004, using the BT Entropy system. Responsibility for the running of the system will lie with the Sustainable Development Team but there will be local management input to action plans and performance monitoring. The Team will also liaise with local managers at sites in devolved areas to ensure that they have in place appropriate equivalent systems to manage their key environmental impacts by the same date, offering advice and assistance where necessary.

HM Prison Service

    —  There are four prisons with EMSs certified to ISO14001 (HMP Doncaster, Parc, Kirkham and Wymott).

    —  Work is currently underway to implement an EMS at HMP Norwich and at the Prison Service College at Newbold Revel.

    —  The Prison Service will commission consultants to produce an Environmental Manual for use at other establishments. Drawing on their experience of the pilot EMS sites the manual will explain in clear, practical terms the measures necessary to set up similar, but not necessarily accredited, systems. The manual should be available by August 2003 and will be piloted across the North West Area of the Prison Service with a view to adopting it across the whole Service.

Forensic Science Service

  The FSS has devised a detailed timetable for implementing EMSs at all sites by March 2004, together with associated measures to raise staff awareness. Following implementation individual benchmarks will be set up to March 2006.

UK Passport Agency

  The UKPS is currently operating a paper-based Environmental Management System, which will be strengthened and improved over 2003-04. This will include a requirement for each of the regional offices to maintain and update its own Strategy Activities Log and Action Plan, which will be accessible through a shared database.

National Probation Directorate

  NPD have only very recently taken central control of the probation estate. The new outsourcing FM arrangements, started in April 2003. As part of the new property management arrangements, a system for identifying and managing key sustainable development impacts on the 66 key major NPD sites will be in place by April 2004.

IS Accommodation Estate

  Information to be added as soon as it becomes available.

TARGETS A4 AND A5: ARRANGEMENTS FOR PUBLICLY REPORTING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS & VERIFYING THEIR PERFORMANCE TO BE REVIEWED AND IN PLACE BY 3 APRIL 2003

  The main Home Office currently reports sustainable development progress through a dedicated section in the Home Office annual report http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/annrep2002/html and the sustainable development in Government report prepared by DEFRA.

  http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/sdig/reports/ar2002/index.htm

  The Prison Service publishes a separate annual sustainable development report http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/corporate. The Home Office's approach to the targets covered by the Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate will be published on the Home Office internet site, as will our performance against all of the targets. We are also developing a series of Departmental sustainable development indicators which will be published on this website by the end of July and will publish these and our progress on them on this website.

TARGET B1: REDUCE ROAD TRANSPORT VEHICLE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS BY AT LEAST 10% BY 31 MARCH 2006, TO BE ACHIEVED THROUGH ANY COMBINATION OF:

      (a)  reducing total business mileage;

      (b)  improving average fuel efficiency of vehicles; and

      (c)   reducing total fuel consumed.

Current position: In the financial year 2001-02 Home Office staff travelled over one million business miles by private car. Reducing the business mileage is therefore key to achieving the overall target.

Action:

  Much of this travel is undertaken by immigration officers and staff involved in Inspectorate duties, who for operational and personal safety reasons cannot use public transport, but in order to reduce other business travel we will:

    —  review current levels of mileage payment, and the scope for providing incentives for the use of alternatively fuelled vehicles;

    —  review the policy on the payment of mileage claims ( including the level of payment for non-essential car journeys);

    —  promote the use of video-conferencing facilities, where available, as the first option rather than travelling to meetings;

    —  publish a statement of commitment to the use of public transport whenever possible; and

    —  collect baseline data on the use of hire cars with a view to reducing their use.

TARGET B2: TEN PER CENT OF FLEET CARS TO BE ALTERNATIVELY FUELLED BY 31 MARCH 2006

Current position: One thousand five hundred vehicles (cars and vans) are controlled by HMPS on behalf of the whole Department and 0.5% of this fleet is alternatively fuelled (Dual fuel LPG/petrol) at present. The vast majority of the remainder are diesel fuelled. Diesel is a highly efficient fuel (both petrol and LPG give less miles per litre). A far smaller fleet is run by the FSS (135 vehicles, 5% alternatively fuelled).

Action:

    —  The Departmental Transport Manager already encourages the purchase of fuel efficient cars when purchasing them on behalf of units and establishments and by 31 March 2006 we will meet the target of having 10% of the HMPS and FSS fleets alternatively fuelled.

    —  The only viable alternatively fuelled vehicles, in most circumstances, are dual fuelled LPG/petrol vehicles. These provide environmental benefits only if they are run on LPG most of the time so we will also monitor the pattern of use of these vehicles to ensure that this is the case.

TARGET B3: REDUCE SINGLE OCCUPANCY CAR COMMUTING BY 5% BY 31 MARCH 2006

Current position: Data is not available on the extent of single occupancy car commuting and previous attempts to collate it have been resource-intensive and unsuccessful. Commuting by car is not a significant issue for staff in the main Home Office working in London due to the availability of good public transport, and the limited car parking at these buildings. There are no spaces allocated for the use of staff who choose to commute.

  The availability of car parking at non-London office sites varies considerably: for example in Croydon spaces are allocated on the basis of a point system and preference is already given to staff who car share.

  In areas of the Department such as the Prison Service and Immigration Service shift working makes car sharing arrangements difficult (one prison may have up to 19 different shift working patterns operating at any one time). It is important that measures adopted at these sites are tailored to their particular circumstances, taking into account the availability of public transport, whether restrictions would exacerbate existing recruitment and retention problems and whether they would simply result in a switch to on-street parking.

Action:

The Department will consider measures to discourage staff from commuting to work by car, including:

    —  Establishing baseline information on the number of car park spaces at each key site and setting targets to reduce them.

    —  Applying strict criteria to applications for car parking spaces, especially where the site is well served by public transport. The criteria will vary locally but will include factors such as car-sharing and the availability of public transport alternatives.

    —  Severely limiting staff car park spaces at any new buildings (eg the new Home Office HQ building will accommodate approximately 3,500 staff and have a maximum of 90 car park spaces but over 100 cycle rack spaces).

  At the same time it will encourage staff to use alternative methods of transport for travelling to work by:

    —  Promoting the facility for staff to receive no-interest loans for public transport season ticket and cycle purchases.

    —  Promoting national initiatives such as cycle to work days.

    —  Arranging free/subsidised travel where appropriate ( eg the FSS at Birmingham run a free bus service for staff to get to and from the local train station to their offices).

    —  Maintaining up to date travel plans for all its sites, which include staff awareness measures.

TARGET C1: DEPARTMENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY JOINED WATERMARK TO CONSIDER BY SEPTEMBER 2002 WHETHER THEY HAVE ANY FURTHER SITES THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE PROJECT

  The Watermark project was established in 1999 to develop benchmarking and management information on water consumption across the public sector. With reliable benchmarking data and proper monitoring and control systems it is estimated that over £60 million per year could be saved in public expenditure on water and effluent services. Features of Watermark include:

    —  A computerised database for data collection.

    —  An interactive website.

    —  Benchmarking information for a variety of buildings to enable the establishment of water consumption targets.

    —  Validation of participants water bills, providing advice on errors in billing.

Current position: Target met. The Home Office joined Watermark in 2001 and it provides data to Watermark on its directly managed key office and non-office sites.

TARGET C2: REDUCE WATER CONSUMPTION IN OFFICES TO AN AVERAGE OF 7.7M3 PER PERSON BY MARCH 04.7M3 PER PERSON FOR ALL NEW BUILDINGS AND MAJOR REFURBISHMENTS WHERE DESIGN COMMENCES AFTER 2002.

Current position: Water consumption at Home Office key office sites is currently around 13.9m3 per person per year.

Action:

    —  We intend to fund detailed water surveys at poor performing offices, and then undertake the recommended modifications where practicable.

    —  We will raise staff awareness of the need to conserve water and the practical measures for achieving this.

    —  The new Home Office headquarters building (due to open 2005) will aim to achieve at least a "very high" BREEAM rating : one aspect that will be taken into consideration is the efficient use of water.

  The Buildings Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) provides a comprehensive tool for analysing and improving the environmental performance of buildings from design through to management. It is widely accepted and used both as a property specification tool, a design tool and as an environmental review tool in environmental management strategies.

TARGETS C3 AND C4: IDENTIFY NON-OFFICE SITES ON THEIR ESTATES WHERE THERE ARE LIKELY TO BE OPPORTUNITIES FOR SIGNIFICANT WATER SAVINGS AND MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO PROVIDE AVAILABLE DATA ON SIGNIFICANT NON-OFFICE SITES TO WATERMARK, OR, IF DATA IS NOT AVAILABLE, ESTABLISH MONITORING ARRANGEMENTS WITH THEM.

Current position: The Prison Service forms the vast majority of the Home Office non-office estate and already belongs to the Watermark project, as does the Forensic Science Service (FSS).

Action:

Prison service

  Water consumption levels from 1998-99 were used as the baseline data and the resultant benchmarks for establishments are as follows:

    —  Prisons with laundries 143m3 /prisoner/year.

    —  Prisons without laundries 116.6m3 /prisoner/year.

    —  Good practice for Prisons with laundries is 115m3 /prisoner/year.

    —  Good practice for Prisons without laundries is 93m3 /prisoner/year.

FSS

  Individual targets have been set for laboratories based on Watermark benchmarking data.

National Probation Service

  The key sites from the National Probation Service estate will join the Watermark project over the next two years, unless they are leased premises where payment for utilities forms part of the overall rent.





 
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