Spending Review 2002

69. As part of Spending Review 2002, departments were required to complete Sustainable Development Reports (SDRs) and submit them with their bids. In our report on last year's Pre-Budget, we warmly welcomed this new requirement. We strongly recommended that these reports should be made available to us so that we could examine in detail to what extent departments had taken into account sustainable development objectives in compiling their bids.[25]

70. In its response to our report, the Government made clear that these reports would continue to be kept secret as they are regarded as a confidential part of the bidding process. The lack of accountability which now exists in relation to departmental Sustainable Development Reports submitted as part of Spending Review 2002 is unacceptable. We will continue to demand greater transparency in this process and for departments to be required to publish—perhaps on a two-yearly basis as in Canada—their own sustainable development reports.

The role of ENV

71. Our earlier reports on Greening Government emphasised the need for leadership. In this context, two Cabinet Committees—ENV and ENV(G)—should play crucial roles. The membership of ENV consists of the Secretaries of State of all Ministerial Departments, and it is responsible for environmental policy at the highest level. ENV(G) was created in 2001. It is essentially the previous Green Ministers Committee (which had no formal status), but reconstituted as a formal sub-committee of ENV.

72. There are some benefits in the transformation of the Green Ministers Committee into a formal Cabinet sub-Committee. It carries more clout, in particular with regard to target setting where it is now able to set targets for all departments. By contrast the status of targets set by the former Green Ministers Committee was always somewhat unclear. The downside of the transition is that the workings of ENV(G) are now covered by the Cabinet code of secrecy, and therefore nothing can be disclosed—not even the number of times it has met.

73. We also note that ENV and ENV(G) are not the only Cabinet Committees concerned with environmental matters. The Energy White Paper stated the Government's intention to set up an ad hoc Ministerial group to oversee its sustainable energy strategy.[26] We find it surprising that the Government did not feel that ENV could oversee the sustainable energy strategy. If it has no role here, we question what effective role it can play in any sphere of Government activity, and indeed how its role can be clearly differentiated from that of ENV(G).

Audit

74. The scope of the work we have undertaken in this report is considerable. Even so there is much more we could do. This raises not only issues about the resources available to us to fulfil our remit adequately, but also the question of access to departmental records. In principle, the Government has accepted our need for audit support. Indeed, the NAO has carried out work specifically in response to recommendations we have made—notably on energy statistics where audit access was of crucial importance in establishing the reliability of departmental data.

75. Our work has involved considerable analysis which the NAO would be ideally placed to carry out. We would therefore welcome the NAO's assistance in analysing future reports and associated evidence, in the form of a management report and accompanying analyses submitted to this Committee on an annual basis. The publication of the next Sustainable Development in Government annual report, due very shortly, offers an opportunity to begin the process.

76. Our annual review may well highlight specific areas which require further investigation. For this reason, we would also welcome the assistance of the NAO in carrying out detailed studies on specific aspects of departmental performance. Such assistance would materially help us carry out our audit function in a timely and effective manner.

26   The Energy White Paper, Our energy future - creating a low carbon economy, February 2002, Cm 5761. Back