Recommendation 18

Treasury told us that the extent to which departments appraise the environmental impact of what they are doing is variable, a good example being the Department for Transport which has worked closely with Defra and the Treasury on its programme to improve air quality in local authorities, and another being the Ministry of Defence which has requested support from Treasury to improve its assessments and appraisals in the way it does its spending submissions.48 However, Treasury acknowledged that departments had generally struggled to articulate their contribution to climate change, let alone the environment, in part due to a lack of science capability (following reductions in funding between 2010 and 2015).49