Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Accepted
Publish a review of active travel objectives and improved progress monitoring in Treasury Minute response.
Conclusion
DfT is not on track to meet its objectives to increases rates of active travel by 2025. DfT told us that its targets to increase active travel were deliberately ambitious. They include objectives to double rates of cycling and to increase the proportion of children walking to school by 6 percentage points. But progress has been disappointingly slow. There has been no sustained increase in cycling rates and, in some cases, for example the proportion of children walking to school, levels of activity are lower now than when the targets were set. The existing national measures that DfT uses to track progress on cycling rates are too high level to capture the impact of local investment accurately. Although DfT suggested that funding has not been a key issue in the failure to achieve its targets, we are not convinced that progress against DfT’s active travel objectives will be unaffected by the decisions made by the department to reduce funding. DfT states that it can no longer promise to deliver all 33 actions in Gear Change due to funding constraints and the shifting priorities of Ministers, but that it would focus on the activities could have the greatest impact on increasing active travel. Recommendation 2: DfT should include in its Treasury Minute response: • its review of its objectives for active travel in England, setting out what it expects to achieve with the funding now available for active travel to 2025; • how it plans to improve the monitoring of progress against its objectives. This should include better measures that can track progress on cycling rates where there has been local investment.
Government Response Summary
The government states it uses National Travel Survey data and is working to increase its sample size. Active Travel England (ATE) is developing a revised evaluation approach for local schemes and exploring locally representative datasets, while also developing an impact evaluation with DLUHC.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The department considers the National Travel Survey statistics to be the best available source to measure progress against the four objectives set out in CWIS 2. Its size and design provide a nationally representative, statistically robust source that allows repeatable longitudinal measurement of progress. Work is underway to increase the national sample size further, allowing better sub-national representation. The department does agree that more can be done to understand the impact on cycling and walking rates following investment at the local level. ATE is developing a revised approach to evaluation of active travel schemes that have received grant funding from government, and where ATE has been involved in the assessment of the related bid for grant funding from the relevant local authority. ATE is also investigating the potential to develop locally representative datasets to complement existing data sources. The cornerstone of the revised ATE evaluation approach is the five-year Active Travel Portfolio Evaluation, a process and impact evaluation of Active Travel Investment, led by Sheffield Hallam University, to be completed in 2026-27. ATE is also considering the approach to process, impact, and value for money evaluation of particular interventions (for example Social Prescribing). In parallel, the department is, in collaboration with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, developing the scope of an impact evaluation of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement and the Levelling Up Fund. This includes the impact of active travel elements. The department and ATE are working to ensure complementary approaches across the evaluations. billion of taxpayers’ money it has spent on active travel. and work with the national evaluator if selected. More broadly, and in respect of funding not directly allocated by ATE, there is a long-term piece of work (which is at the very early stages of development) to align standards of data reporting from local authorities for all active travel schemes. A definitive timeframe cannot be provided at this stage.