Recommendation 25

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