Title

How green was my government? On 14 May, barely a week after forming the coalition government, David Cameron vowed to make his administration ‘the greenest ever'. His diktat forced departmental headquarters buildings to account for their energy usage by publishing details online, and in real-time. Whitehall was enrolled, en masse, into the 10:10 carbon-reduction initiative. Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, summoned leading facilities management suppliers for talks aimed at reducing waste and sharing best practice. On 22 July, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced it was withdrawing funding from the Sustainability Development Commission (SDC). With exquisite timing, the news came on the very day the environmental watchdog's annual report boasted it had saved the Government between £60-70m a year, and further progress could save hundreds of millions of pounds more. Despite being responsible for delivering efficiency savings totalling many times what the organisation cost, there was no reprieve. The SDC, founded in 2000 and with an annual budget of £3m, was early kindling for DEFRA secretary, Caroline Spelman's own quango bonfire. Moving forward, DEFRA promised to announce in December whether new targets for government sustainability and energy usage would be set. Working jointly with the Department for Energy and Climate Change – the body whose genesis was written on the back of the proverbial cigarette packet in order to give now-Labour leader, Ed Miliband, ‘something to do' – and the Cabinet Office, ministers would also present an action plan on green government operations. At the time of writing, both announcements are still overdue according to Number 10's most recent business plans. Meanwhile, the green government agenda is seemingly faltering. Parliamentary watchdog, the Environmental Audit Commission (EAC), published a report on 10 January castigating DEFRA's lack of influence and calling for the Cabinet Office to step up and take command of sustainability. The EAC has graciously declined Ms Spelman's offer to completely fill the accountability gap left by the SDC's abolition. Jonathan Porrit, former head of the SDC, believes it is ‘patently ridiculous' to believe the parliamentary watchdog has sufficient independence, competence or resources to do the job authoritatively. Instead the EAC will continue to monitor operation of the Government's post-SDC sustainability architecture, making use of data released under the transparency agenda, in collaboration with the public, NGOs and academics. Perhaps we are witnessing what may come to be the hallmark of the coalition – outsourced accountability, competing audits based on shared datasets, and relative levels of ultimate responsibility. Jonathan Werran is editor of Governetz Public Property

Title

WHITEHALL

Inside View

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING