Recommendations
5. The
Home Office undertakes policies and programmes with a range of
social and environmental impacts, and directs staff to follow
guidance on considering sustainability as part of policy appraisal
and impact assessment. It should ensure that sufficient time and
resources, including high quality internal challenge and review,
are spent on more complex cases to ensure the full range of impacts
are assessed and incorporated into the design of policies. (Paragraph
6)
6. Long-term action
is needed to tackle wildlife crime, and it is important that the
Government sets out a vision for the Wildlife Crime Unit with
long-term funding maintained and at least increased with inflation.
(Paragraph 13)
7. The Government
should keep wildlife crime sentencing under review and be ready
to facilitate clear guidance for the judiciary to ensure that
wildlife crime is punished with appropriately strong penalties.
(Paragraph 15)
8. We welcome the
steps that the Government has taken around data coding to ensure
wildlife crime is a separate statistic. However, a more detailed
publicly available database would provide greater transparency.
Once the Government has received the Law Commission's report on
modernising wildlife law, it should work with stakeholders to
design a clearer and more comprehensive system of recording and
reporting. (Paragraph 18)
9. The Home Office
is making good progress towards achieving the Greening Government
Commitment targets. However, it needs to maintain progress and
improve its performance on emissions from travel. Going forward,
it should work with Defra and the Cabinet Office to prepare itself
for future targets. These should include indirect, or 'scope 3',
emissions and targets on a 'per unit' basis to more accurately
measure the overall efficiency of departments' operations. (Paragraph
26)
10. The Home Office
CAESER tool provides a useful way of engaging suppliers on their
sustainability. The Government should incorporate the full version
of the CAESER tool within its sustainable procurement portal,
to ensure that all major Government suppliers complete it. However,
the CAESER tool is not sufficient on its own to ensure suppliers
comply with sustainable procurement standards. The Home Office
needs to introduce a robust process for ensuring all contracts
include sustainability criteria and performance indicators and
the delivery of commitments is actively managed. The Home Office
should ensure that the sustainability indicators for the COMPASS
asylum accommodation contracts are agreed as soon as possible.
(Paragraph 34)
11. The Home Office
should set minimum contractual standards and work with other Government
Departments such as DECC to encourage landlords of asylum accommodation
to invest in energy efficiency improvements. (Paragraph 35)
12. The Home Office
should review police procurement spend to introduce new areas
for sustainability standards which could be covered by national
procurement frameworks. It should also actively explore ways that
its procurement can promote wider social impacts. (Paragraph 36)
13. The role of a senior-level 'Sustainability
Champion' is important for embedding sustainability and giving
organisational leadership and all departments should have one.
Whilst the 'Champion' does not need to be a sustainability specialist,
it is important that they have a good knowledge and practical
experience of the issues involved. (Paragraph 40)
14. It is important that high-quality
training material is available to support staff in considering
sustainability. This new training course appears to be a useful
resource, and the Home Office should ensure that all staff with
sustainability in their job descriptions should undertake this
role. Additionally, we would like to see all new Civil Service
staff undertaking this training, as part of their induction. (Paragraph
42)
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