Recommendation 4

Although calculating an exact figure may be difficult, with Departments claiming it would be a great deal of effort to produce something not necessarily precise, Government could do more to improve the transparency of cross-government public spending that has an impact on air pollution. While Defra tracks spend on its own air quality initiatives, it could not provide the National Audit Office with a breakdown of spend across all the cross-government initiatives it expects to contribute to air quality improvements, such as from programmes within BEIS and DLUHC. Government says that disaggregating the air quality impact of these programmes from other outcomes is a difficult technical challenge. It is important for government to be transparent with the public and Parliament about how much taxpayer’s money is going towards meeting air quality targets. Without this information the benefits and risks for air quality of wider programmes across government are not be as clear as they need to be. A lack of cross- government transparency also makes it harder for government to reprioritise when necessary and judge value-for-money. Recommendation: Although calculating an exact level of spend on air quality across government may be too difficult, there is value in improving transparency through higher level estimates. Government should, by the end of the year, develop options for improving the transparency of cross-government air quality spend and inform the Committee of its preferred approach.