7. The 'Sustainable Development in Government: First Annual Report' was published in late November 2002. It supersedes the previous series of Green Ministers' annual reports which were published in 1999, 2000, and 2001.[6] The Development in Government report is based on a questionnaire which was agreed with departments earlier in 2002 and formally sent out in May 2002. Only a summary report (Part 1) was published. Part 2, containing the departmental questionnaire responses was published only on a DEFRA web-site in the form of a database one could query by individual department or subject area.

8. In examining this report, we set out to:

• establish whether the available information in Part 2 is complete, in terms of both the questions which were asked of departments and the results which the latter provided;
• assess whether the questionnaire itself is adequate;
• identify how accurately the published summary report reflects the results of the departmental responses;
• highlight our concerns, in terms of either the performance of individual departments or more general themes which emerged from the analysis.

9. The Annex to this report contains the original questionnaire which the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) within DEFRA sent out to all departments, together with our own detailed commentary on departmental responses to this questionnaire. We have not commented in detail on every question. In particular, we have not analysed the section on social reporting—though we will follow with interest future developments in this area.

10. In the following sections, we highlight from our analysis of departmental responses various issues which, in our view, receive insufficient coverage in the published Part 1 of the report. In particular, we note that the latter included little quantified information of any kind on policy aspects of Greening Government—an area we consider particularly important. By contrast, operational issues are covered far better, and we have therefore devoted less attention to them.