House of Commons - Sustainability in BIS - Environmental Audit Committee

Sustainability in BIS - Environmental Audit Committee Contents

4 Governance of BIS sustainability

28. To embed sustainability into departments' operations and policy-making requires effective governance structures, strategies, skills and reporting.

29. BIS's sustainability performance for operations and procurement is monitored through its Operations Committee, which reports to the Executive Board.[73] A "standing item on the agenda" of the Operations Committee, we were told, is the embedding of sustainable development in policy-making.[74] A 'Sustainability Champion', a member of the Operations Committee, chairs a Sustainability Committee.

30. The Department's Operations Committee, reviewing sustainability within BIS, concluded in 2012 that work to progress the sustainability agenda lacked visibility at a high level within the Department and was insufficiently resourced. It agreed that the Committee itself could take forward action to embed sustainability within the operational management of the Department; but that, in relation to policy, a decision was required on the extent to which sustainability was a strategic priority for the Department. The Operations Committee recommended that the Executive Board consider whether further action and resources were needed, in particular to embed sustainable development in policy making (see paragraph 11). The NAO told us that the appointment of the Sustainability Champion in March 2013 came nine months after the previous champion had moved on. The Board has tasked her with "exploring how sustainability is being mainstreamed within the Department and specifically with bringing forward any proposals for how this might be taken forward without introducing excessively bureaucratic formal procedures".

31. Beyond that, the NAO told us in its August 2013 briefing, there were not at that time any formal terms of reference for this role.[75] When we took oral evidence from the Sustainability Champion, Emma Ward, in September, she told us that she now had formal terms of reference.[76] These are extensive, and clearly give her a mandate for ensuring that progress is made across the Department.[77] She explained that:

... everybody in the Department, every policy official, every member of staff, needs to recognise [embedding sustainable development] as an issue and needs to understand what guidelines are in place, what commitments the Department has that it needs to meet, and they need to take that on their own accountability. My role as Champion is to give that visibility and to ensure that there is effective leadership in the Department, the governance arrangements are in place and to report to the board on that.[78]

32. The terms of reference of the Sustainability Committee, chaired by the Sustainability Champion,[79] cover action needed in 'partner organisations', not just within BIS itself. [80] Emma Ward saw the future role of the Sustainability Committee as assessing whether there is a sufficiently strategic approach within BIS to sustainable development, including "looking across its policies as a whole".[81]

33. The establishment of a Sustainability Champion and Sustainability Committee in BIS should provide a good foundation for monitoring and encouraging sustainable operations. Defra and the Cabinet Office should encourage other departments to study the experience of BIS's Sustainability Champion and Sustainability Committee and consider introducing similar arrangements themselves.

34. The NAO briefing told us that in BIS "there are no formal structures or training modules in place within the Department to raise awareness among staff of the need to embed sustainable development in policy-making". "The Department has not incorporated separate overarching sustainable development objectives within staff objectives. ... There could be scope for taking this further in the case of senior officials, where objectives could be linked to specific sustainable development aims and targets, such as the promotion of a low-carbon economy".[82] BIS highlighted Treasury training available for staff on the policy appraisal 'green book' and DECC training on climate change and energy issues. Defra are working with Civil Service Learning to develop an e-learning module on sustainability.[83] The Cabinet Office should ensure that Civil Service Learning's e-learning module on sustainability is made available as soon as possible, and it should then test all departments on their use of it through the Business Plan review process.

35. In the past, departments had been encouraged to produce 'sustainable development action plans', with details of how they would implement the 2005 Government-wide Sustainable Development Strategy.[84] In our January 2011 report, we called for the Government to produce an updated overarching Sustainable Development Strategy.[85] This could provide an updated and relevant foundation for departments to produce new strategies.

36. Within the BIS Group, the Higher Education Funding Council for England last published a sustainability strategy in 2008. It includes an aim to promote sustainable development within the higher education sector and to make the sector "recognised as a major contributor to society's efforts to achieve sustainability". The strategy contained a commitment to undertake a new strategy review in 2011.[86] That is now belatedly being done, as required in their 2013 grant letter from BIS, and it is consulting on this with universities and colleges.[87]

37. That approach is not followed, however, for other BIS Group organisations. The NAO told us that "the Department has no structured process to ensure that the remits of its partner organisations include sustainable development objectives and targets where appropriate".[88] BIS officials told us that that they had "to make sure we are giving the right brief to the right partner organisation; this is not a one-size-fits-all"[89] and that requiring sustainable development strategies of other organisations "depends on the challenges of that organisation and what priorities it needs to balance at a particular time".[90] Nevertheless, BIS officials told us that exploring the scope for partner organisations to include sustainable development objectives in their remit was "the next stage in our development", and acknowledged that with BIS having "some good partner organisations who are frankly better at this than the centre of the Department, we need to leverage that across the BIS family".[91] We noted that our BIS witnesses had not engaged in the work of the Natural Capital Committee and its work on addressing environmental factors in policy-making.[92] Emma Ward believed that, without "BIS laying down a checklist", the partner organisations could learn from one another and that "having formed the Sustainability Committee, it will give us a forum within which we can now do that".[93]

38. Sustainable development strategies are essential as a means of providing a reference point in departments for sustainability initiatives by senior management and sustainability champions, and allowing all staff to readily understand the wider sustainable development imperatives, including to address natural and social capitals, that should lie behind all of a department's policies and operations. They could also provide an important means of external accountability, complementing the requirements of sustainability reporting (paragraph 39). BIS should produce a sustainable development strategy, in consultation with Defra and the Cabinet Office to identify good practice. Defra and the Cabinet Office should encourage other departments to do the same. Such strategies should then form a focal point of the Business Plan review process (paragraph 11). In BIS's case, such a strategy document could make clear the extent to which sustainability is a strategic priority for the Department and what resources are needed to embed sustainable development in policy making (paragraph 11). BIS should also encourage all of its agencies and NDPBs to produce sustainability strategies, and where appropriate make their production a condition for securing BIS funding. Again, Defra and the Cabinet Office should encourage other departments to act similarly.

39. We concluded in our June report that sustainability reporting in departments' annual reports and accounts was a key driver in embedding sustainable development because of the scrutiny this allows and the focus on sustainability it brings to departments' operations. Though at an early stage in that initiative, the first year results showed that there was scope for more information to be published by departments, but also that there was room for greater compliance with the formal reporting requirements.[94] There was particularly poor compliance on reporting on sustainable procurement, as well as significant slippage in refreshing Government Buying Standards; in part the result of a continuing flux in governance arrangements and leadership in this area (paragraph 9).[95] We concluded that Defra and the Cabinet Office, as well as the Treasury, needed to take ownership of sustainability reporting compliance.[96] The Government's response, however, was that individual departments were responsible for compliance in their reporting.[97]

40. The NAO told us in its briefing on BIS that the Department had "made considerable efforts" to produce its Sustainability Report, but that the Report:

contains less detail on the extent to which sustainability has been embedded within policy and procurement processes. The 2013 report includes a single example of embedding sustainability within policy making, but the main narrative is very short and provides no information on the key areas where the Department's policies may have significant impacts and how it is planning to address those.[98]

41. The measures discussed throughout this report, from Business Plan reviews to Greening Government Commitment targets, to sustainability champions and strategies, all have an important role in facilitating and encouraging sustainable policy-making and operations in departments. But that is only part of the picture. Equally important is transparent accountability, and that requires an effective system of sustainability reporting, with all departments fully complying with those requirements. The Government should reconsider its response to our June 2013 recommendations on tightening overall compliance on sustainability reporting, to make that a clear Defra, Cabinet Office and Treasury responsibility.

73 Departmental Sustainability Overview: Business, Innovation and Skills , op cit, figure 4 Back

74 Q22 Back

75 Departmental Sustainability Overview: Business, Innovation and Skills , op cit, paras 1.12 - 1.13 Back

76 Q5 Back

77 BIS (BIS 003) Back

78 Q8 Back

79 Qq6, 33 Back

80 BIS (BIS 003) Back

81 Qq20, 33 Back

82 Departmental Sustainability Overview: Business, Innovation and Skills , op cit, paras 1.15�1.16 Back

83 BIS (BIS 003); Q30 Back

84 Embedding sustainable development across Government, HC 504, op cit, para 10 Back