Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 25
25
Rejected
The NAO reports that, by not tracking spend across its work on air quality, government...
Conclusion
The NAO reports that, by not tracking spend across its work on air quality, government risks being unable to evaluate the relative cost-effectiveness of its spending on the issue. The NAO highlighted the example of government’s preparations for EU Exit, where it found that a lack of spending information at a cross-government level created risks to financial management, programme management, and public accountability.40 We have seen similar weaknesses in government’s approach to Net Zero, with neither the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy nor HM Treasury collating information on the total costs and benefits of government policies that contribute to achieving Net Zero.41 UK100 told us that it believes government may miss out on opportunities for significant cost savings as a result of more cross-cutting policy implementation if investments are not clearly delineated, and claimed that it had identified that better integrating clean air and Net Zero policies could save £1.6 billion a year on the cost of delivering Net Zero.42
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation to improve transparency of cross-government air quality spending, citing the disproportionate level of resources required and the uncertainties in the resulting estimates.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
4. PAC conclusion: 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. 4. PAC 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. 4.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation 4.2 The government holds robust information on spend for its two air quality programmes: the Air Quality and Industrial Emissions Programme (Defra) and the Joint Air Quality Unit (Defra/DfT). 4.3 Whilst the department holds overall strategic responsibility for the development and implementation of air quality policy, the levers which affect air pollution are varied, complex and sit across government. 4.4 The department works closely with other government departments to manage interdependencies and maximise co-benefits of policies that affect air pollution. Where it is beneficial, the government sees the value in making one-off estimates of the cross-cutting economic impacts of policies that impact air pollution. For example, the department has estimated that air quality co-benefits of policies and measures to meet Carbon Budget 6 and Net Zero to be about £35 billion over 2020-2050. 4.5 However, a wide and diverse range of complex policies across government affect air quality, including transport decarbonisation, active travel, increased use of renewable energy sources, planning regulations, and sustainable food production practices. 4.6 The government cannot justify the disproportionate level of resource required to disaggregate the amount of spend driving air quality benefits for each of these policies. Due to the complexities surrounding the associated measures, any estimates produced would likely have large uncertainties, making them misleading and therefore unsupportive of greater accountability and transparency regarding government spending.