1 Introduction
1. At the beginning of this Parliament, the Government
abolished the Sustainable Development Commission, with the aim
of embedding sustainable development in all departments.[1]
In February 2011, the Government published Mainstreaming Sustainable
Development: The Government's vision and what this means in practice,[2]
which described a number of processes to implement that change
of approach, and in May 2013 it published a Progress report.[3]
The Government's approach since the abolition of the SDC has involved
a number of new processes:
- Departments would be directly
responsible for their sustainable development performance, with
key policy-making objectives being set out in new Business Plans
which would be regularly reviewed by Defra and the Cabinet Office
Minister for Government Policy for their adherence to sustainable
development principles.
- The Environment Secretary would sit on the Economic
Affairs cabinet committee, to enforce consideration of sustainable
development issues across Government.
- Policy appraisal guidance for departments would
be further developed to reflect the needs of sustainable development.[4]
- New 'Greening Government Commitment' targets
would be introduced (replacing the previous 'Sustainability on
the Government Estate' targets), with performance overseen by
a new Greening Government Sub-committee.
- Revised Sustainable Development Indicators would
be developed to monitor sustainability across Government. Defra
published the Government's response to a consultation on the new
Indicators in June 2013[5]
and the first revised set was published in July 2013.[6]
2. Because of the significance of these changes,
in 2010 we made the consequences of the abolition of the Sustainable
Development Commission our first inquiry.[7]
We concluded that an opportunity existed to reassess and revitalise
the architecture for delivering sustainable development.[8]
We undertook to monitor the delivery of these changes and their
results,[9] and subsequently
again took evidence from Defra and Cabinet Office ministers in
July 2012 and March 2013.[10]
We reported most recently on the progress in embedding sustainable
development in June 2013,[11]
recommending that the Government:
- apply the results of an audit
of policy impact assessments to challenge departments where they
are non-compliant with the new guidance (paragraph 14);
- use the Business Plan review process to focus
departments' attention on the sustainability of their policies;
- reassess the ambition of new Greening Government
Commitment targets; and
- tackle departments with poor compliance with
the Treasury's sustainability reporting requirements.[12]
3. We concluded that while it would remain important
for us to continue to monitor the performance of Defra and the
Cabinet Office in overseeing the structures to embed sustainable
development, it was essential also to examine more directly how
other departments were responding to and engaging with the new
systems. We therefore decided to examine sustainability of operations,
policy-making and governance arrangements in a single department—the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)— as
the first in a series of departmentally focused inquiries.
4. The National Audit Office examined the position
in BIS for us, and on the basis of its audit they published a
briefing report in July 2013.[13]
The NAO examined three BIS policy-making case examples—the
Regional Growth Fund, higher education funding reform and student
fees changes, and the Government's Industrial Strategies initiative.
The NAO's audit provided the basis for a session in July when
we took oral evidence from BIS officials at the centre of the
Department's sustainable development governance systems, as well
as officials in BIS and the Higher Education Funding Council for
England involved in the three case examples examined. We are grateful
to the NAO for its significant and essential support on this inquiry.
5. In this Report we examine the sustainability of
operations, policy-making and governance in BIS, and seek to identify
wider lessons that other departments and the Government more generally
might apply.
1 Environmental Audit Committee, First report of Session 2010–12, Embedding sustainable development across Government, HC 504 Back
2
Defra, Mainstreaming Sustainable Development: The Government’s vision and what this means in practice(February 2011) Back
3
Defra, Government progress in Mainstreaming Sustainable Development (May 2013) Back
4
Environmental Audit Committee, Fourth report of Session 2010–12, Embedding sustainable development: the Government’s response, HC 877, para 5 Back
5
Defra, New Sustainable Development Indicators, (June 2013) Back
6
Defra, Sustainable Development Indicators (July 2013) Back
7
Embedding sustainable development across Government, HC 504, op cit Back
8
ibid. Back
9
Embedding sustainable development: the Government’s response, HC 877, op cit Back
10
Environmental Audit Committee, First report of Session 2013–14, Embedding Sustainable Development: An Update, HC 202 Back
11
Ibid. Back
12
Embedding Sustainable Development: An Update, HC 202, op cit, Summary Back
13
National Audit Office, Departmental Sustainability Overview: Business, Innovation and Skills (July 2013). The NAO also previously produced detailed briefs for us on sustainability in policy evaluation, sustainability reporting and on sustainable procurement (HC 202, para 4). Back
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