One of the biggest cross-government challenges that the civil service faces over the next few years is getting on track to meet the government’s long-term targets to respond to climate change and restore the natural environment.
The breadth of this challenge means that every part of government has a part to play.
That might involve designing and implementing initiatives to help drive the transition to a green, low-carbon economy.
Or improving the sustainability of an organisation’s estate and operations.
Or perhaps, just as importantly, helping to understand and manage the environmental impact of wider projects and programmes.
And whether you have just started a new role in the civil service or whether you’re an old hand at what you do, it’s valuable to look back as part of going forward, particularly when the challenges ahead appear rather daunting.
Here at the National Audit Office, we have a rich source of insights that civil servants can draw on through our back catalogue of reports examining how the government’s actions have been working in practice.
Our reports have covered many of the government’s biggest environment and climate-change interventions over the last five years, including tree-planting and decarbonising home heating.
Our new report, Achieving environmental improvement and responding to climate change: enablers for success, distills our learning in this area, and is coupled with insights from interviews and workshops held with central and local government and other expert stakeholders.
It identifies seven enablers that the government needs to focus attention on if it is to create the conditions for success.
Leadership
Three of the enablers we identify are all about the leadership that is needed to ensure aligned and timely activity across the government and the economy more broadly.
Firstly, and perhaps most fundamentally, we highlight the need to ensure a culture of shared commitment across the government on delivering its environment and climate change goals.
Culture can make all the difference in how effectively people work together in pursuit of a shared goal.
Secondly, we point out the importance of taking an integrated approach.
This will make the most of win-win opportunities between the government’s environment and climate change goals and its wider ambitions, such as growth and house building, as well as surface and resolve difficult decisions when ambitions come into tension.
And thirdly, we emphasise the importance of strategic direction, to ensure that overall plans give clarity on roles and responsibilities and when key decisions need to be made.
Delivery
The other four enablers we identify are about the design and implementation of environment and climate change interventions.
These enablers highlight the need for the government to do more to plan for the resources and skills that are required, support the people and organisations involved, enable well-managed risk-taking, and carry out effective monitoring and evaluation.
Seizing opportunities for progress
Making meaningful progress against these enablers is not going to be straightforward, and will take concerted, collective effort.
Our report identifies tangible opportunities for government to progress its approach over the next six months, including in the upcoming Spending Review, as government develops its ‘mission-based’ approach, and as it completes reviews of its plans for environmental goals and net zero delivery.
Civil servants in lead departments – Defra and DESNZ – have a particularly important part to play in seizing these opportunities and finding others, working closely with HM Treasury and Cabinet Office. So too do those leading the design and implementation of environmental projects and programmes across government.
But there’s perhaps a part for everyone, even if only to ask questions and share ideas for how government’s approach can develop.
We want this report to help support a wide group of people across the civil service to learn from our insights on how things have worked so far, as part of looking to the future.
Katy Losse is director of environment and climate change at the NAO. Read Achieving environmental improvement and responding to climate change: enablers for success. Find out more about NAO work on climate change and environment