Departmental reporting

52. Departments were also asked how they reported on sustainable development and we have summarised their responses in the table below.[18] We have also included additional information on whether departments have produced their own separate Sustainable Development or environmental reports, based on their responses and other available information.

Dept	Method of reporting	Separate SD / Environmental report?
CO	Green Ministers Annual Report Departmental Report	No
C&E	Departmental Report	Yes
DCMS	Departmental Report	No
DEFRA	Annual operations report (planned) Annual review of SD strategy	Operations report planned
DfES	Departmental Report	No
DfID	Departmental Report	No
DH	Departmental Report	No
DTI	Departmental Report	No
DTLR	n/a	n/a
DWP	Annual Sustainable Development report	Yes
ECGD	Departmental Report	No
FCO	SR 2002 SDR	No
HMT	Departmental Report Chancellor's Sustainability Report	Yes (Chancellor's Sustainability Report, coordinated by C&E)
HO	Departmental Report Prison Service Annual Environmental report	No (department) Yes (Prison Service)
IR	Departmental Report	[See HMT above]
LCD	Departmental Report	No
LOD	Departmental Report	No
MoD	Departmental Report Annual Environment and Safety Report	SD report planned
ONS	None	No

53. Most departments point to their annual reports as being the vehicle for reporting on sustainable development. However, we have previously noted that the coverage of this topic in those reports is generally very poor. Indeed, the Government has argued that this is understandable in view of the competing pressures on departments to include other material in their reports. If that is the case, we would expect departments to take their responsibilities for environmental reporting more seriously and publish free-standing reports. It is disappointing that so few departments produce their own sustainable development or environmental reports. Departments must also not use the production of the Sustainable Development in Government report as an excuse for not reporting themselves

54. We are also concerned that the Sustainable Development in Government Report has so little to say on the subject of associate bodies - the wide range of NDPBs (both executive and advisory) and other organisations sponsored by departments. The 2000 Green Ministers Report included a requirement for departments to complete action plans for incorporating sustainable development into the work of their associate bodies. While the Sustainable Development in Government questionnaire did include some questions on this topic, the responses do not enable us to assess with any degree of objectivity progress in this area.

55. For all these reasons, we were interested in the commitment contained in Part 1 of the report, namely that 'departments will also develop plans for reporting their main sustainable development impacts at departmental level.'[19] It is not entirely clear what is envisaged here, but we would favour any move towards making departments more accountable for their performance in this area. We recommend that the Government places on departments a formal requirement to report separately on their environmental impacts and to include in these reports coverage of not only the department itself and its agencies, but its associate bodies also.

The First Annual Report

56. With regard to part 1 of the Sustainable Development in Government report—the only part of the report to be published—we did not find any obvious misrepresentation or errors in the way that departmental responses had been used. To this extent it appears to us accurate.

57. However, we were concerned that insufficient use was made of the information departments provided on resources available and policy making. In this respect the published report fails to reflect some of the 'harder' data in sections 1 and 2 of the questionnaire. We have ourselves attempted to rectify this weakness in our own analysis above. Moreover, some parts of the a report were somewhat anecdotal in nature because of the manner in which it highlighted a wide variety of initiatives by individual departments, without subjecting these to any form of critical analysis.

58. While we would in no way wish to downplay the importance of departmental initiatives, we would not wish to see the Sustainable Development in Government Annual Report become simply a presentational vehicle for highlighting good practice. In our view, it should constitute a rigorous analysis to enable ENV(G) to monitor progress effectively, adjusting priorities and setting targets as required.

59. In order to fulfil this function, the questionnaire which forms the basis of the Sustainable Development in Government report needs to be tightened up. In our analysis, we noted that many of the questions were too open-ended or potentially ambiguous to provide reliable and comparable data. It was also striking that, even where this was not the case, some departments pointedly failed to answer the questions posed. We recommend that DEFRA, in drafting the 2004 questionnaire, ensures that the questions it contains are sufficiently specific to elicit reliable and comparable data from departments. Departments should also be required to indicate clearly where they consider questions are not relevant.

The Framework

60. The Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate was launched in July 2002. It supersedes the previous Model Framework for Greening Operations (dating from the 1990s) which provided guidance to departments. The new Framework, by contrast, represents a more comprehensive approach to setting targets across all departments and monitoring them in a systematic way. We welcome the Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate as tangible evidence of progress towards a more systematic and comprehensive approach to cross-departmental target setting and monitoring.

61. The Framework actually consists of 9 parts:

• Part A: an overarching statement
• Part B: travel
• Part C: water
• Part D: waste
• Part E: energy
• Part F: procurement
• Part G: estates management
• Part H: biodiversity
• Part I:   social impacts

62. Each of these parts was intended to include an introduction, detailed information on all the cross-departmental targets set, and a further section setting out progress in achieving targets. On its release, the first three parts were launched while the other six were to be published over the next year (ie by July 2003). However, as at the time of agreeing this report (November 2003), only Part H on biodiversity had in fact been published on the web site.[20] We are concerned about the slow rate of progress in implementing the Framework. Five of its nine constituent parts have still not been published—three months after the date by which it should have been complete.

63. The Framework includes a commitment that all Departments should, within 4 months of announcing each suite of targets, make public a strategy showing how they plan to deliver those targets. In part 1 of the First Annual Report, the Government suggest that 'this approach responds, for the Estate, to the EAC's request that departments should provide explanatory memoranda when targets are published.'[21] However, these departmental strategies are not included or referenced in the Sustainable Development in Government web-site for the three specific sections of the Framework which have been completed, and indeed those sections of the Framework contain no provision for monitoring progress. We are therefore unable to assess whether departments have fulfilled the requirement to publish strategies showing how they plan to deliver targets. We recommend that, within 4 months of the announcement of each suite of targets, all departments should submit their delivery strategies to the Environmental Audit Committee or provide an explanation as to why they have not done so. The Sustainable Development in Government web-site should also include full provision for monitoring progress against targets.

64. Moreover, the main focus of the Framework remains on departmental operations: it will not encompass main policy-related objectives or targets—such as the UK waste reduction or renewable energy targets. It therefore represents only a partial response to the EAC's request for the provision of explanatory memoranda when new targets are set. In our view, it should be relatively easy to incorporate, within the development of integrated appraisal systems, a formal requirement for an explanatory memorandum where departments are amending environmentally-related targets or setting new ones. We urge the Government to develop a more systematic approach to environmental target setting in a policy context as a complement to the systematic approach it is now adopting for departmental operations and as a way of providing greater accountability to Parliament through the EAC for environmentally related policy targets.

A better quality of life?

65. One of the reasons for the change in name of the Sustainable Development in Government report is that the Government wanted to broaden its title to reflect its wider focus and the move towards corporate social reporting. Accordingly, the questionnaire and the report itself included sections on social issues in relation to departmental operations—such as part-time working, home-working, and childcare. This reflects the broader focus to sustainable development which the Government has developed since 1997 in its Sustainable Development Strategy and indeed in the Government's Sustainable Development web-site.

66. We have not assessed the social aspects of this report, but will monitor with interest how the Government intends to take forward this agenda. We note that there is no generally agreed consensus about the framework within which to carry out sustainable development reporting. Indeed, the Sustainable Development in Government Report refers to corporate social reporting (CSR) but stops short of a commitment to triple bottom line reporting—within which economic, social and environmental impacts are clearly set against each other.[22] We have serious concerns about the Government's attempt to broaden the scope of what was the annual report of the Green Ministers Committee. While the quality of environmental reporting by departments remains inadequate, it seems over-ambitious to try to encompass social reporting as well. Indeed, the Sustainable Development in Government report is very far from being comprehensive in this respect.

67. Moreover, sustainable development can mean all things to all men, and we have pointed out elsewhere that the Government's own view puts less weight on inter-generational aspects and inclines more to an economic interpretation.[23] We are critical of the tendency for departments to cite any policy initiative or objective—including economic or social initiatives—as counting towards sustainable development. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the Government's Sustainable Development web-site does not, in fact, attempt to encompass the entire breadth of this agenda, and presents a rather more eclectic view of what is relevant. In view of such considerations, we strongly feel that the term 'sustainable development' should be defined in such a way as to include only those policies, objectives and targets in which environmental aspects form a major component. Indeed, we note that the DEFRA sponsored Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) has adopted just such a definition as a means of defining eligible research.[24]

68. In launching its Sustainable Development Strategy in 1999, the Government made a commitment to review it within five years, and DEFRA has recently carried out some work in this area. The performance of Government departments under the Strategy should comprise an important component of such a review. We recommend that the Government should include, as part of its review of the Sustainable Development Strategy, an evaluation of the impact of the strategy on departments and the extent to which it has been successful in mainstreaming environmental objectives.

19   First Annual Report, Sustainable Development in Government, DEFRA, November 2002, paragraph 3.19. Back

20   The website is at:http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/sdig/improving/index.htm . Back

21   First Annual Report, Sustainable Development in Government, DEFRA, November 2002, paragraph 3.18. Back

22   op. cit, Chapter 5. Back

23   EAC, Fourth report of 2002-03, Pre-Budget Rep[ort 2002, HC 167, para 59. Back

24   See http://www.sd-research.org.uk/sdrguide/introduction.html. Back