Whatever next? SD-scene newsletter Oct / Nov 2007 feature

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The Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 – or CSR07 to its friends – was the process by which Government set its targets, budgets and work plans for the three years from April 2008 until March 2011.

Essentially a negotiation between HM Treasury and other Whitehall Departments, the review lasted for more than a year, engendered tens of thousands of pages of policy documents and involved hundreds of stakeholders.

The results are four ambitious overarching goals with a smaller set of Government priorities sitting underneath them; delivery plans with more joint working between Departments; and budgets that reflect the tightened purse-strings. Here we take a look at how sustainable development fared in the process.

• The starting point
• Goals and targets
• How prominent is sustainable development?
• Who is accountable for sustainable development?

The starting point

The Comprehensive Spending Review started with the question: “What are the big, long-term challenges and opportunities we face over the next decade and beyond?” The answers are set out under the headings:

• Demographic and socio-economic change
• Globalisation
• Technological change
• Global Uncertainty
• Pressure on Natural Resources and Global Climate

In planning their business, Departments were asked to take these issues into account, along with a number of Government reviews including the Stern review on the economics of climate change, the Leitch review on skills, the Eddington study on transport, the Barker review of Land Use Planning, and others.

Goals and targets

Through the CSR07, Government has set itself these four overarching goals:

• Sustainable growth and prosperity, in order to continue to improve people’s standard of living;
• Fairness and opportunity for all, so that everyone can make the most of their talents and share in rising national prosperity;
• Stronger communities and a better quality of life, enabling people to lead healthy, safe and fulfilling lives; and
• A more secure, fair and environmentally sustainable world, with the UK playing a leading global role.

Underneath these, there is a set of thirty so-called Public Service Agreements (or PSAs). Previously there were over a hundred PSAs ranging from wide issues to relatively narrow goals for individual Departments. With the review there are now only thirty Agreements, which cover only the top priorities for Government as a whole.

Each of these PSAs – on health, education, global security, and so on – has one lead Department and several others that contribute. Each has indicators to measure progress and a detailed delivery strategy setting out how Departments are going to work together to deliver the targets. The Defra-led targets, for example, are on climate change and the natural environment.

How prominent is sustainable development?

The overarching goals are in line with the principles of sustainable development, emphasising social, environmental and economic priorities. Wording on ‘quality of life’ and a ‘fair and environmentally sustainable world’ is welcome. The challenge for the coming years will be to integrate the need for environmental sustainability with the ambition to maintain steady economic growth. However, these new targets, which are designed to ensure that individual areas of Government work together on a prioritised programme of work, can only help the better coordination of economic, social and environmental aspects of policy. For example, a Defra climate change target with six other Departments signed up as formal delivery partners will deliver better results.

As well as the streamlined set of PSA targets, Departments have also now agreed new Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs). These too have indicators and there are some interesting sustainable development points among these objectives. For example, the Department for Communities and Local Government’s DSO on housing includes an indicator on the environmental sustainability of new homes. The Department for Transport has a DSO to improve the environmental performance of transport. Among the DSOs, we also find Defra’s objective to champion sustainable development.

Who is accountable for sustainable development?

Under the previous set of targets, which take us to April next year, Defra has had the goal of delivering sustainable development: it has been accountable for delivering positive trends on a broad range of sustainable development outcomes – including health, education, crime and transport. In truth, however, Defra hasn’t had the power or resources to deliver these things alone. The priorities of the Departments that are in a position to deliver these SD outcomes have been driven by their own different set of targets and objectives. In other words, Defra’s sustainable development PSA on its own hasn’t been able to influence delivery to a great extent.

Under the future framework of PSAs and DSOs, there will be a different way of ensuring that there is accountability for sustainable development. This will distribute responsibility across Government. And it will ensure that issues aren’t dealt with in silos, but instead brought together and seen through the lens of sustainable development.

To ensure that the responsibility for sustainable development is shared, Defra has agreed with other Departments and the Sustainable Development Commission that a sustainable development sub-set of PSA and DSO indicators (see box) will be used to monitor Government’s performance.

This will allow the various, different bodies whose job it is to support the achievement of sustainable development, to draw conclusions on the delivery of sustainable development, whether senior Department officials or the Sustainable Development Commission (see Who’s Who box below). If, for example, indicators on CO2 emissions from transport, cycling and walking, and obesity should go in the wrong direction, under the new framework Government will be able to look to improve things in all areas with joined-up solutions. A test of the framework will be whether such problems can be properly analysed and solutions found.