Memorandum submitted by the Department
for International Development
Dear Peter,
Thank you for your letter of 15 November on
the National Audit Office (NAO) study on Sustainable Development
Reporting by Government Departments for the Environmental Audit
Committee (EAC). You asked for comments on the NAG analysis of
DFID's sustainability reporting, and how I plan to deal with any
deficiencies.
The NAO has produced a useful and informative
study, in which the excerpt on DFID is a fair reflection of how
sustainable development was reported in DFID's annual Departmental
Report for 2004. I was pleased to see the study found that sustainable
development themes were integrated into the Departmental Report,
and also that sustainable development is integral to DFID's vision
of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. On operations,
I was also pleased the NAO found that DFID identifies housekeeping
priorities, makes links to sustain able development in Government
reporting, and recognises that we are developing an environmental
management system.
However, in common with many other Government
departments, the Study says that a link is not made with Government-wide
reporting on the UK's Sustainable Development Strategy. This will
change in future. The new UK Sustainable Development Strategy,
published in March this year, has a significant international
dimension with greater relevance to DFID. Future DFID Annual Reports
will make connections with the UK Strategy.
In addition, we are currently finalising DFID's
Sustainable Development Action Plan, identifying how we will take
forward commitments in the UK Sustainable Development Strategy.
I will review and approve the Action Plan before it is issued.
This Plan draws on comments from other Government Departments,
including Defra, as well as the Sustainable Development Commission.
I will send you a copy of the Action Plan when it has been finalised.
We will then report progress against the plan annually, as well
as summarising progress in the Departmental Report.
Thank you for the work of the EAC and the NAO
in producing this interesting and useful report, and DFID looks
forward to future cooperation.
I hope this is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Gareth Thomas MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
December 2005
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