Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 32
32
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 153
The Government must urgently establish a baseline for the Outcome Indicator Framework.
Recommendation
The Government must urgently establish a baseline for the Outcome Indicator Framework. Defra’s planned Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment pilot, and any subsequent baseline exercise, must focus on measuring a clear set of representative natural capital assets across England. The Treasury should ensure the baseline assessment is properly funded at the next Spending Review.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government response describes the existing Outcome Indicator Framework but does not explicitly commit to urgently establishing a baseline for it, address funding, or detail Defra's pilot as requested.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
153
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
The Outcome Indicator Framework is designed to objectively describe environmental change in England. Where possible, a baseline near to 2018 (to align with the publication of the 25 Year Environment Plan) will be used as a reference point to assess change. Longer- term (historic) trends will also be presented for comparison where these data are available. Where suitable time series are available, we will assess both long-term (greater than 5 years) and recent (latest 5 year) trends. We expect the majority of outcome indicators will require long-term reporting before we can be confident they show a significant response to policy and other actions, because data series of less than five years are likely to show year-to-year fluctuations; and there will be time lags in the environmental response to interventions. We are working to develop all indicators by 2024, ensuring appropriate time is taken for quality, novel research to deliver the required environmental insights. Development of the indicators will also be informed by relevant government plans and policy to ensure the most useful and sustainable indicators are created. The Outcome Indicator Framework will be kept under regular review so that it continues to be relevant and provide the best and most cost-effective ways of assessing progress. The framework will be reviewed at a minimum every 5 years. In November 2020, a further £20 million of investment was announced to develop the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA). The NCEA is in a pilot phase, testing approaches and developing a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of environmental assets across England’s land and water environments. The pilot is exploring a systems approach to ensure all elements of our natural capital are produced to the same time, quality and spatial scale.
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