Government response
Introduction
This is the Government's response to the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee's Report (HC 707)
on the Departmental Annual Report 2004 for the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Where appropriate, the Department
will take the Committee's views into account when drafting the
next Departmental Annual Report.
Recommendation 1
Although the Departmental Report is
more helpful now in seeking to provide a commentary about performance
against Defra's objectives, and in identifying key relevant financial
data, further improvement is needed. We recommend that the Department
in future make clear exactly how it has performed against each
target as part of its main commentary, using the clear assessment
currently relegated to an appendix.
(Paragraph 4)
The Government welcomes the positive comments
from the Committee on this year's report. The Government recognises
that in producing a document such as the Departmental Report it
will have to satisfy a number of audiences. HM Treasury's guidance
to departments for producing the Departmental Report stipulates
that each Report should contain a summary of performance, and
this is provided as an appendix to Defra's 2004 Departmental Report.
This summary must include an assessment of progress, for example
'on course', 'slippage' or 'met'. This summary allows readers
who have an interest only in looking at the PSA target component
of the report to access a quick and easy reference guide of performance.
It would therefore be unfair to say that this is 'relegated' to
an appendix. However, the Department accepts that an assessment
of progress could also be added to the main body of the report
for each PSA target in order to improve clarity for the reader.
Recommendation 2
Whilst we applaud the Department's
efforts to provide additional information to its stakeholders,
it must strike a balance between comprehensiveness on the one
hand and accessibility and readability on the other. Defra should
be as concise as possible in the Departmental Report: this year
the Report is more than long enough. (Paragraph 5)
The Government is committed to fulfilling
its duty to report on its progress against its objectives to Parliament
and the public. The Department has worked hard to address the
Committee's recommendations and suggestions for improvement on
the 2002 and 2003 Departmental Reports. This year Defra has produced
a report which provides a more comprehensive overview of some
of the main recommendations and focus of the Departments work
in 2003-04.
The size of the Departmental report is
also driven by external factors such as the commitment to include
the Public Accounts Committee recommendations and Government responses
and provide details on major announcements such as Lord Haskins'
recommendations on changes to rural delivery.
A balance needs to be found between the
length of the report, what needs to be included, the level of
detail that should be reported and what indeed should be omitted.
The Department is aware of the need to
balance brevity with the requirement of providing an account of
what the Department has done and will keep this recommendation
in mind when preparing the 2005 Departmental Report, with a view
to making it an accessible but useful document which focuses on
the issues that will be of interest to Parliament and to the public.
Recommendation 3
We are convinced that financial management
in Defra has improved immeasurably in the past two years. We support
the efforts of senior staff to improve the situation still further.
(Paragraph 6)
The Government is grateful to the Select
Committee for its recognition of the improvement. Ministers, the
Permanent Secretary, and the Department's Management Board have
all focused on improving financial management. The Select Committee's
recognition is also appreciated by the many staff at all levels
within the Department who have worked hard for it, and is an encouragement
to them to implement the further improvements currently underway
and planned.
Recommendation 4
We welcome the Department's efforts
to update and improve its financial records, to provide a more
accurate picture of its historic spending. Doing so reflects well
on financial management in Defra. (Paragraph 8)
Again, the Government is grateful to the
Select Committee for its recognition of the Department's efforts
and the lead given by Ministers, the Permanent Secretary and the
Department's Management Board on improving financial management.
Members of the particular team leading on this, as well as colleagues
across the Department and HM Treasury, have worked hard to provide
this more accurate picture, and this recognition is appreciated.
Recommendation 5
We welcome the steps taken by senior
managers to encourage integration in the Department. We agree,
though, that there is still much further to go; we encourage Defra,
in responding to this report, to set out how further integration
will be achieved against the backdrop of departmental staff cuts
and its response to Lord Haskins' rural delivery review. (Paragraph
11)
The challenge of achieving integration
exists on a number of fronts including the level of Ministerial
oversight. The Secretary of State decided that each of her Ministerial
team would have a portfolio which would focus in one major area
of Defra's responsibility but would also include elements from
each of the other policy areas. This has helped Defra Ministers
to take a wider view of Government priorities and to provide a
context for Departmental accountability, stressing sustainable
development at every level. This is reflected in the approach
of the Management Board which has put in place arrangements to
ensure that each of the areas summarised below is subject to suitable
oversight and effective coordination. First, Defra needs to ensure
that the it is focussed on achieving the outcomes which underpin
Defra's five strategic priorities, which sit underneath its overarching
aim of Sustainable Development, and, in many cases, cut across
existing Departmental structures:
- Climate Change and Energy;
- Sustainable Consumption and Production;
- Natural Resource Protection;
- Sustainable Rural Communities; and
- a sustainable farming and food sector,
including animal health and welfare.
Underpinning all this is its ongoing responsibilities
for emergency preparedness.
To ensure this corporate alignment Defra
is working to ensure that accountability is managed in a consistent
way across the Department so that strategy, planning, deployment
of resources and management of performance work together as one
coherent whole. This work is overseen by a new Management Board
sub-committee called the Strategy Group (chaired by Defra's Environment
Director General).
Secondly, Defra is working to improve
the efficiency and integration of its internal corporate services.
To do this Defra is:
- developing shared services models
for internal services (such as HR, through its T-HR programme,
and IT through its new e-nabling strategic partnership with IBM);
and
- identifying areas where coherence
or rationalisation of activity can be improved.
A new Management Board sub-committee called
the Corporate Resources Group has been established to oversee
this work (chaired by Defra's Director-General of Operations and
Service Delivery).
Thirdly, Defra is evaluating its future
requirements for numbers of policy staff in the Department, in
the light of its strategic priorities, and the roles which these
staff will play in a modern policy-making department. This challenge
is being addressed through its Policy Centre Review Programme
(PCRP). This programme will develop a vision of the future role,
shape, organisation and skills needs of the policy centre of the
department.
Defra is also taking forward its Delivery
Strategy to achieve a greater delegation of responsibilities to
delivery bodies, including Executive Agencies This principle is
a key element of the implementation of the Rural Strategy 2004,
with its plans to establish the new Integrated Agency with devolved
powers for decision-making and delivery, and to devolve regional
decision-making. This requires a significant cultural shift in
the Department, and Defra is building its capability to manage
partnerships and develop sponsorship and accountability arrangements
which are fit for purpose.
Finally, the Department needs to ensure
that it has a coherent view of the portfolio of challenging change
programmes it is committed to over the coming few years. To oversee
this, the Management Board has established another sub-committee—the
Performance and Improvement Committee, chaired by the Permanent
Secretary.
Recommendation 6
We welcome the one-stop shop project
as a way to help to ensure that all parts of Defra have regard
to the Department's core values and objectives in policy making.
We recommend that the project be adopted permanently by Defra:
it should serve to encourage integration and coherence in Departmental
policies. (Paragraph 13)
The Government notes the Committee's recommendation
about the One Stop Shop project. The Government shares their view
that permanent institutional arrangements to encourage the integration
of Defra's core values and coherence in policy making are necessary.
It was for this reason that the integration of the Integrated
Policy Appraisal approach with the Cabinet Office's Regulatory
Impact Assessment process was such an important step forward earlier
this year and one in which the One Stop Shop played a key role.
Furthermore, the establishment of Defra's Better Regulation Unit
and the Central Analytical Directorate during 2004 provides the
Department with two new teams to support integration and coherence
in policy making. For these reasons - and in order to avoid duplication
of effort or the waste of resources - members of the One Stop
Shop team recommended in their evaluation that the project should
not continue as constituted in its pilot phase but that its objectives
should be delivered through the work of the Better Regulation
Unit and the Central Analytical Directorate to which it would
contribute its experience and expertise.
Recommendation 7
We commend the Department for acting
on our recommendation that the Departmental Report should include
more information about the delivery of policies across Government.
However, we recommend that future reports include clearer descriptions
of the lines of accountability when matters are dealt with by
a range of departments and agencies. For example, when public
service agreement targets are shared between Defra and other government
departments it would be sensible if the Departmental Report explained
exactly what the contribution of each has been, and what difference
it has made for the target to be shared. (Paragraph 14)
The Government welcomes the recognition
of the Efra Committee that this year's Departmental Report does
include more information about the delivery of policies across
Government. It wishes to point out that this year's report does
contain some clear descriptions of accountability; for example,
Chapter 4 and Appendix 6 set out in some detail the relationship
between Defra and its major delivery partners and the part they
play in delivering Defra's objectives.
However, future reports will look to set
out in more detail the contribution of partner organisations in
delivering PSA targets, in particular the role played by other
government departments who share Defra's PSA targets. This process
will be aided by Defra's review of its Delivery Plans for its
post 2004 Spending Review PSA targets.
Recommendation 8
We remain concerned that Defra does
not yet have sufficient 'clout' to be taken seriously by other
government departments in framing their key policy decisions.
We urge the Department to continue to work to increase its influence
across Whitehall. We recommend that future Departmental Reports
record failures as well as successes in working with other parts
of Government. (Paragraph 18)
Responsibility for sustainable development
lies with all departments - Defra cannot achieve it alone. It
is not only an issue of Defra having influence over other government
departments but of embedding sustainable development across Government.
Substantial progress has been made since
the 2004 Departmental Report:
- Sustainable Development in the
2004 Spending Review. The inclusion
of sustainable development as a cross-cutting theme in the 2004
Spending Review (SR2004) confirms that it is a cross government
priority. The spending review also factored sustainable development
into other government departments' Public Service Agreements,
for example:
- new housing to be built to
high standards in relation to energy and water efficiency, waste
and building materials;
- a new PSA on cleaner, safer and greener public
spaces; and
- a new PSA to tackle childhood obesity as part
of a new emphasis on tackling
health inequality.
Another positive result of SR2004 has
been to formally link the headline indicators with specific Public
Service Agreements across a wide range of government departments.
This will ensure that sustainable development is given full consideration
when departments are developing their policies.
- Significant changes to Regulatory
Impact Assessments. Since April
2004, departments must explicitly identify in the mandatory Regulatory
Impact Assessment (RIA), environmental and social, as well as
economic costs and benefits. From the same date, the RIA regime
has also been extended to cover all policies and proposals that
will have a substantial impact on the public sector, as well as
the private sector. The combined effect of these changes will
ensure that all new and revised policies and initiatives within
Government are evaluated against sustainable development criteria.
- In addition to this, the majority
of central Government departments now have some sort of strategic
document on sustainable development, such as a strategy, action
plan or policy statement.
- New Strategy Development.
Work on the new UK Sustainable Development Strategy is being taken
forward on a cross-departmental basis. Defra has established a
high-level interdepartmental Government Programme Board chaired
by the Permanent Secretary and with representation from key Government
delivery departments (including HM Treasury and the Prime Minister's
Office). They will oversee development of the new sustainable
development strategy and its subsequent delivery. This aims to
ensure that the new strategy has ownership in other government
departments, to drive the strategy forward and to ensure accountability
in those departments.
- Ministers from six government departments
and two devolved administrations launched the consultation for
the new strategy on 21 April. The three-month consultation, run
by the UK Government, together with the Scottish Executive, the
Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration,
included local and regional events and an online consultation.
- As part of the Strategy Review, a
Ministerial Working Group was established under the Central Local
Partnership to develop an action plan for improving delivery of
sustainable development at the local level. Defra worked to establish
this Group jointly with ODPM and the Local Government Association
given the importance of both ODPM's approach to local government
and its sustainable communities agenda. Chaired by Alun Michael
and Keith Hill, the Group agreed a fourteen point action plan
on 9 November which included a new joint vision which sees:
- Sustainable communities embody the
principles of sustainable development. They :-
- balance and integrate the social, economic and
environmental
- components of their community
- meet the needs of existing and future generations
- and, they respect the needs of other communities
in the wider region or internationally to also make their community
sustainable.
- This vision then goes on to set out
a number of components of a sustainable community.
- Sustainable Development Task Force.
The Sustainable Development Task Force was established both to
help ensure effective follow-up of the UK's WSSD commitments,
and to help ensure that the strategy review is focused on delivery.
Chaired by Defra's Secretary of State, Margaret Beckett, the Task
Force comprises a core membership, and a wider network of Ministers
and stakeholders who are invited to attend meetings where the
agenda requires their involvement. The core membership of the
Task Force consists of Ministers drawn from key departments involved
in the implementation of sustainable development, and a similar
number of key opinion formers from outside government.
Although Defra has a remit for rural affairs,
it relies on many other departments to deliver its rural policies.
The Government's recently published Rural Strategy 2004 was the
result of extensive consultation with national and other partners
and identifies the key priorities for rural policy for the next
three to five years. The Government's new approach is based on
devolving decisions and action closer to rural communities, targeting
greater resources at areas of greatest need, and working in partnership.
Much work is already underway with our partners at national, regional
and local level to deliver the policy priorities and to facilitate
the changes necessary to modernise rural delivery arrangements.
The Domestic Affairs (Rural Renewal) (DA(RR))
Committee was set up to oversee the development and implementation
of the Government's policies on the rural economy and rural communities.
This also includes providing a rural proofing function by monitoring
the impact of the Government's wider policies on rural areas.
The Committee's agenda includes the consideration of shared priorities,
6-monthly reporting and geographically tagged data. There is also
a Senior Officials Group which has considered in detail implementing
the decisions of the DA(RR) Committee. Specifically, the group
has reached agreement in principle on geographical data reporting
where practical for both the 02 and 04 spending reviews. This
has enabled SR04 to be rural proofed from an early stage.
Defra has made good progress in embedding
rural proofing into the policy making process across Government
in several ways:
- working closely with central departments
to identify policy areas that are important to building sustainable
rural communities. Our PSA4 for SR04 measures our success in this
using a range of 9 targets from across Government;
- with ODPM, ONS and Birkbeck College,
provided the means for Government to report on rural delivery
of PSA targets with the revised rural/urban definition;
- working with regional and local delivery
agents to enhance service delivery to rural communities;
- developing the evidence base in support
of the identification and tackling of rural social exclusion;
and
- including rural proofing as an element
of the Regulatory Impact Assessment.
In addition, the Minister of State for
Rural Affairs regularly hosts trilateral meetings with the Chair
of the Countryside Agency and Ministers to discuss the rural effects
of their Departments' policies, and enhance our influence on them.
Defra does not believe that it would be
practicable to record 'failures' to influence others in its Departmental
Report. Other Departments' policies are agreed collectively by
Ministers, and that process and the outcome cannot be reduced
to a simple success or failure on the part of any one department.
Moreover, Defra believes that departments should report on their
own sustainable development and rural performance, and many are
already moving in that direction. The changes made to the RIA
will increase the obligation on departments to consider sustainable
development and rural proofing impacts of policies. The Sustainable
Development Commission's report, Shows promise. But must try
harder[1] assessed
Government's performance overall on sustainable development and
this has been fed into the review of the UK sustainable development
strategy.
Recommentation 9
We strongly support the efforts made
to encourage secondments between Defra and other government departments.
We look forward to more details in future Departmental Reports
about these activities. (Paragraph 19)
The Department's interchange strategy
recommends increasing interchange activity across all sectors.
In collaboration with others, we are exploring ways in which more
exchanges might be achieved especially in such sectors as local
government and the voluntary and community sectors, and with delivery
partners, as well as with other government departments. We undertake
to provide details on interchange activity for future Departmental
Reports.
Recommendation 10
The achievement of many of the goals
of Defra, such as the promotion of recycling and reuse, and reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions, require changes in public attitudes
and behaviour. We recommend that the Department redirect its communication
activities so that its primary focus is on conveying the message
of sustainability to the public. (Paragraph 21)
Public attitude and behaviour change relating
to Sustainable Development is recognised as an overarching priority
for the Department. As a consequence, and in addition to centrally
produced efforts, Defra funds a wide range of communication activity
through external delivery agents such as the Energy Saving Trust,
Carbon Trust, Waste Recycling Action Programme, Encams and the
Environment Agency. This activity works together with infrastructure,
fiscal and legislative measures to drive attitude and behaviour
change.
Defra is moving towards prioritising its
communications budget to cover Sustainable Development as the
Department's overarching remit whilst supporting its five strategic
priorities—climate change and energy, natural resource protection,
sustainable consumption and production, sustainable food and farming
including animal welfare and sustainable rural communities.
Recommendation 11
We wish to be informed of major appointments
made by Defra, including at the level of director general or above
within the Department, and at senior levels in its associated
public bodies. We ask only to be informed of vacancies, and of
appointments made. Our aim is not to approve or reject candidates.
Indeed we may not take evidence from many of them. But we do at
least wish to know about appointments so that we can consider
whether to take evidence from senior figures at an early stage
about their responsibilities and their plans. We recommend that
Defra put in place arrangements without delay to provide us with
this information. (Paragraph 23)
The Government reaffirms its commitment,
previously given in the response to the Efra Committee's Annual
Report published 29 July 2004, that where the Department is issuing
a Press Release on an appointment, arrangements will be made to
provide the Committee with an advance copy wherever possible.
In addition, the Department will provide a regular update listing
other major appointments that have been made over the preceding
months and for which no press release was issued. Defra also undertakes
to implement a process to notify the Committee of any internal
appointments made at Director General level or above within the
Department.
Recommendation 12
We commend the Department, and the
permanent secretary in particular, for the efforts made to promote
diversity in the staff of Defra. Given the success it has had
in the other grades we recommend that the Department now focus
particularly on improving the diversity of staff in senior grades.
(Paragraph 25)
The Government notes the Committee's comments
with regard to focusing on improving the diversity of staff in
senior grades. Defra is employing a variety of strategies to address
this issue, which include the provision of a Women Managers Training
course and the introduction, in September 2004, of a mentoring
scheme for women at Grade 6 and 7. There are also separate mentoring
scheme for AA/AOs (Releasing Talent) and EO/HEOs (Into Leadership),
which have been running for 3 years. The Releasing Talent Scheme
has places reserved for minority ethnic staff with modules dealing
with issues around race. Minority ethnic staff can apply for either
programme. For all the Schemes, the emphasis is on building and
gaining skills and confidence, through training and personal development
modules. The Schemes are currently under review and it is possible
that similar targeted Schemes will be developed for staff with
a disability in the future. The Department also has a developing
Diversity Champions group, part of whose role is to help take
forward the work addressing any disparities identified in the
success rates of minority groups in the monitoring of progression,
recruitment and selection.
Recommendation 13
We recommend that targets are set for
improving diversity amongst the staff of Defra's executive agencies.
We recommend that the permanent secretary take responsibility
for ensuring that the agencies have in place programmes to encourage
the recruitment, retention and progression of staff who are female,
from ethnic minority backgrounds or with disabilities. (Paragraph
26)
The Government notes the Committee's comments
regarding the agencies setting targets for improving diversity.
The establishment of independent targets for each agency would
raise difficult questions, as the numbers of senior staff in some
cases are very small. In addition, the geographical location of
the agencies, and the specialist nature of their work impose restrictions
on the pool from which they can recruit staff. However, the Chief
Executive of each agency is accountable to the Permanent Secretary
for the operation of programmes for diversity and equality issues.
Defra's Diversity and Equality Unit ensure that the agencies are
aware of all diversity and equality initiatives and keep them
updated about all new equality legislation; Defra is currently
helping one agency with their Race Equality Scheme. The Permanent
Secretary will continue to work actively with the Chief Executives
of all the agencies to ensure that in the selection and progression
of staff, they continue to work towards improving representation
of minority groups.
Recommendation 14
We recommend that the forthcoming review
of the climate change programme should ensure that Defra retains
primary responsibility for responding to climate change, but that
other departments—including the Department for Transport
and the Treasury, as well as the Department of Trade and Industry—firmly
re-commit themselves to reducing all emissions of greenhouse gases.
We strongly recommend that the review does not reduce the target
for carbon dioxide emissions in Defra's existing PSA target. In
addition, we recommend that Defra looks for additional mechanisms
which could be introduced in future to meet the Government's carbon
dioxide targets. (Paragraph 29)
The review of the UK Climate Change Programme,
launched on 15 September 2004[2]
with the publication of the Terms of Reference for the review,
will be wide ranging and comprehensive. It is being led by Defra
who will retain overall responsibility for the Programme and involves
representatives from all key Whitehall departments (Department
for Transport, Department of Trade and Industry, Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister and HM Treasury) as well as from the Devolved
Administrations.
The Terms of Reference confirm that the
review will assess whether the UK is on course to achieve its
target under the Kyoto Protocol and its more stringent domestic
goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% below 1990 levels
by 2010.
It will also consider whether the UK is
on course to make the "real progress by 2020" towards
the longer-term goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by some
60 per cent by about 2050, anticipated in the Energy White Paper[3].
The review will also identify and evaluate options for putting
the UK on a path to its 2050 goal.
The Government's aim is to carry out an
open and inclusive review which will evaluate key elements of
the UK Climate Change Programme, to measure their impacts and
effects as well as assessing the costs and benefits of the climate
change programme. The Government intends to consult stakeholders,
both on the findings of the evaluation and on possible policy
options for the future. A more detailed appraisal of the options
along with the results of this consultation will be used to help
design the revised programme. The involvement of all of the different
government stakeholders will be key to ensuring that the review
takes full account of all of the impacts on all relevant sectors
of the UK economy that would be expected to contribute to any
future emission reduction targets.
Recommendation 15
We recommend that in the next Departmental
Report the Department set out exactly the 'trajectory' it will
follow towards the target of bringing 95% of SSSI sites into favourable
condition by 2010. (Paragraph 33)
The Government will publish a trajectory
for the achievement of this target in its next Departmental Report,
and indeed is publishing a provisional trajectory, based on the
modelling of sampled data, in the 2004 Autumn Performance Report.
These trajectories will show the rate of progress that will be
necessary if the target is to be met, rather than a timetable
of works by Defra and English Nature which will result in achievement
of the target.
Currently, close to 65% of SSSI land is
in favourable or recovering condition. The remainder is split
between about 7200 management units, each with one or more reasons
for its unfavourable condition. English Nature is, through its
current 'Remedy' programme, establishing what needs to be done
to tackle each of these issues, and with whom the responsibility
for doing so lies. The result is likely to be a list of many thousands
of actions, by the landowners, English Nature, and many others
who have an influence on the future condition of such land. For
each management unit, target condition will be achieved only when
the detailed plans and commitments needed to implement each of
the remedies is in place.
The target will therefore not be achieved
through the centralised direction of all the necessary actions
on each site, but through the endeavours of English Nature, Defra
and others to make or encourage progress simultaneously on many
fronts.
Recommendation 16
We look forward to the outcome of the
review of rural funding streams, and indeed to the overall Government
plan for the implementation of the Haskins proposals which we
assume will form part of the 'refreshed' rural strategy. We will
maintain a close interest in these matters, which obviously have
a highly significant part to play in the way in which Government
seeks to encourage rural development. (Paragraph 36)
The Government published the conclusions
from its review of rural funding streams and the Government's
detailed response to Lord Haskins' review of rural delivery as
part of its Rural Strategy 2004 on 21 July 2004. This set out
the Government's plans for ruthlessly streamlining the present
100 or so funding streams and a major programme of change to modernise
rural delivery arrangements, all within the context of its strategic
priorities for the next three to five years. Defra has provided
the Committee with further details in its memorandum to the Committee's
inquiry into the Strategy and will be supplementing this with
its oral evidence.
The Strategy specifically addresses the
need to ensure that rural needs are taken account of in developing
policy and in delivery, through measures such as the establishment
of a new Countryside Agency to act as a watchdog for rural people
and communities, with an emphasis on disadvantage, and devolving
more decision making to regional and local levels where problems
and potential solutions are better understood. One of Defra's
priorities is also to work with other Government Departments to
ensure that they rural proof their policies. Defra's 'inside track'
in Government, including early consultation on developing policy,
makes it best placed to ensure that Government initiatives are
developed with rural communities in mind. This requires continuous
engagement at Ministerial and official level. Examples of Defra's
success in this regard can be found in the Countryside Agency's
annual Rural Proofing Report.
Recommendation 17
We urge Defra to take all steps necessary
to ensure that its PSA target relating to waste is met. Again,
it would not be acceptable to respond to a likely failure to meet
the target by making the target less challenging. We will return
to the subject of waste policy later in the year. (Paragraph 39)
The Government is committed to achieving
the PSA target of 25% of household waste recycling and composting
by 2005-06, which is a key milestone on the way to meeting the
2010 Landfill Directive target. Data for 2002-03 from the Municipal
Waste Management Survey reveal a welcome improvement on all
waste indicators, and the rate of increase in total recycling
has doubled since 2001-02.
Defra will continue to provide significant
funding and support to help local authorities to achieve a step
change in their waste management, particularly those at most risk
of not achieving targets, and Ministers are prepared to use their
powers to intervene formally in authorities which fail to meet
their statutory targets and show no commitment to improve. More
details of departmental action to encourage improved waste management
performance can be found in Defra's memorandum to the Select Committee
Inquiry into Waste Policy and the Landfill Directive.
Recommendation 18
We welcome the announcement made in
the 2004 spending review of a PSA target relating to fuel poverty
which is geared to ending the problem. We recommend that in its
next Departmental Report Defra set out in detail the measures
it will take to meet the new target. (Paragraph 41)
Following the 2004 Spending Review, Defra
has a new PSA target to mirror the commitment to eradicating fuel
poverty in England made in the Energy White Paper and Fuel Poverty
Strategy. The target is to 'Eliminate fuel poverty in vulnerable
households in England by 2010 in line with the Government's Fuel
Poverty Strategy objective'.
Detailed discussion on its key policies
for tackling fuel poverty in England will be set out in its Fuel
Poverty Action Plan, to be published in 2004. The plan will consider
the contribution of a range of government policies and programmes
to its fuel poverty targets. It will include outline proposals
for the future format of Warm Front, its key programme for tackling
fuel poverty in the private sector, looking at options for the
targeting, eligibility, and impact of the Scheme in removing householders
from fuel poverty in line with its targets.
Recommendation 19
We recommend that the Department ensure
that its PSA target relating to air quality is maintained at its
existing challenging level. We look forward to the exposition
in the next Departmental Report of what the Government will do
to ensure that its air quality PSA target is achieved. (Paragraph
44)
The 2004 Spending Review agreed that the
PSA for improving air quality, which Defra share with the Department
for Transport, should be maintained and rolled forward to 2008.
The Defra 2004 Autumn Performance Report and future Departmental
Reports will provide details of the progress with the work.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
November 2004
1 Shows promise. But must try harder can be
found at: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/news/resource_download_search.php?attach_id=SMDOB79-7JQMZFE-1OHI1PA-UFRDL3I Back
2
Press notice: http://www.defraweb/news/2004/040915b.htm Back
3
Our Energy Future - creating a low carbon economy can
be found at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/whitepaper/ourenergyfuture.pdf
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