Recommendation 8

In early 2019, government established new coordination arrangements for the departments involved in achieving net zero. The arrangements include: cabinet committees for climate action strategy (chaired by the Prime Minister) and implementation; a Climate Change National Strategy Implementation Group (NSIG) of senior officials from the main departments involved; a net zero steering board for strategy and delivery supporting the NSIG; and boards within departments to oversee progress of emissions reductions.12 The Department’s overall responsibility for achieving net zero means it is responsible for ensuring cross-government arrangements are working effectively. The NAO found that while the Department reported actual and forecast greenhouse gas emissions annually and progress against the carbon budgets, giving it a high-level view of whether the UK is on track to meet net zero, it had not yet embedded performance monitoring into its cross- government coordination arrangements. It did not have a consolidated list of policies key to achieving net zero, nor did it collate data on how these policies were performing overall. This meant that the Department could not identify the key risks and issues emerging across government activities to achieve net zero that needed to be escalated to senior groups such as the cabinet committees.13