3 Next steps
40. In our separate report on the Rio+20 Summit,
which we are publishing alongside this report, we identify areas
where the Government needs to act to take forward its international
commitments, for example on using well-being to shape policy-making
and corporate sustainability reporting. That report includes a
recommendation that the Government should revisit the need for
a new Sustainable Development Strategy to present the Government's
commitment to sustainable development, internationally as much
as within the UK.[87]
Closer to home, in terms of embedding sustainable development
structures and processes within Government departments—the
focus of this report—there is also more for the Government
to do and for us to scrutinise.
41. As we made clear in our May 2011 report on
embedding sustainable development, we are in no position
to provide the resources to take on the full range of the scrutiny
that the Sustainable Development Commission had previously undertaken.
Our scrutiny role is to aid Government accountability to the House
rather than to develop the sustainable development capacity of
departments.[88] In that
role, we have continued to benefit from significant analysis and
briefing from the NAO, demonstrated by the range of material they
have provided for this inquiry. We have also continued to develop
links with an academic network of sustainable development researchers
(the 'Sustainable Knowledge Alliance'),[89]
which we hope will provide assistance with our recently launched
inquiry on Well-being.
42. We will continue to monitor how Defra, Cabinet
Office and the Treasury contribute to making progress in embedding
sustainable development across Government. The initiatives we
discussed in Part 2 are key building blocks for that process,
and we will wish to review progress on those again in due course.
Our next step, however, will be to take forward a key commitment
from our May 2011 report: to examine how well sustainable development
is operating in particular departments. With audit assistance
from the NAO, we will begin that work with an examination of the
sustainability structures, processes and performance of the Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills later this year.
43. This report has concentrated on the processes
concerned with the sustainability of departments' operations and
policies. If the Government is to drive actions on both the global
and domestic fronts to promote sustainable development, however,
shortcomings will remain as long as those processes consider the
sustainability of policy implementation rather than policy formulation.
The Government's stated aim has been to be "the greenest
government ever", but the continuing absence of sustainable
development criteria when identifying policy requirements is a
pressing cause for concern. The former Environment secretary oversaw
a revision of the Green Book to provide policy appraisal guidance
on applying sustainable development principles. That is of little
use, however, if an inherently unsustainable policy is made marginally
more sustainable by the application of less damaging features
when implemented. We intend to monitor the extent to which sustainable
development factors are taken into account at the stage of policy
formulation, including the Treasury's role in spending reviews
and infrastructure plans. We noted in our Autumn Statement
2012 report, for example, that while the Infrastructure (Financial
Assistance) Act will provide £50 billion of guarantees for
infrastructure investments, the Treasury allocated only £3
billion to the Green Investment Bank.[90]
87 Outcomes of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit, Second
Report of Session 2013-14, HC 200 Back
88
Embedding sustainable development: The Government's response,
op cit, para 10 Back
89
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/ska/ Back
90
Environmental Audit Committee, Autumn Statement 2012: environmental
issues, Fourth Report of Session 2012-13, HC 328, para 16 Back
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