This report is a joint piece of work between the public audit offices of the four UK nations and sets out the UK and devolved governments’ legislation, policy, strategy, governance and monitoring arrangements, relevant to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
5 July 2023: Managing government borrowing - National Audit Office (NAO) report
This report examines how public bodies pursue the government’s debt management objective, and particularly how government manages the risks of borrowing. It focuses on debt that central government issues but does not comment on the merits of fiscal and monetary policy objectives, levels of tax, spending and borrowing.28 June 2023: Condition of school buildings - National Audit Office (NAO) report
Progress has been made in the last year, DFE currently lacks comprehensive information on the extent and severity of safety issues which would allow it to develop a longer-term plan.
There is a significant gap between the funding available and that which DfE assesses it needs to achieve its aim for school buildings to be safe and in a good condition for those who learn and work there. Funding is also often used for urgent repairs rather than planned maintenance which, as DfE itself acknowledges, risks not offering good long-term value for money.
28 June 2023: Department for Education: sustainability overview - National Audit Office (NAO) report
The school estate consists of around 21,600 maintained schools funded by DfE, of which more than 11,400 are run by local authorities and more than 10,200 are academies run by single or multi-academy trusts.
Education is the public sector’s largest emitter of carbon from buildings: 37% of public sector emissions, comprising 13% from state primary schools, 11% from state secondary schools and 13% from universities.
The current condition of many schools is poor and requires huge investment to bring up to acceptable standards. This, together with a backdrop of uncertain funding for retrofitting the estate for net zero purposes is leading to great uncertainties. As it stands there is no plan in place for achieving the scale of decarbonisation across the education sector that is needed for DfE to make a proportionate contribution to government’s targets.
1 March 2023: Decarbonising the power sector - National Audit Office (NAO) report
Decarbonising electricity generation is fundamental to the government’s net zero strategy. In 2021, the government set an ambition that by 2035 all electricity should be generated using clean sources, subject to security of supply, while meeting an expected increase in electricity demand of up to 60%.
This report sets out the main challenges that DESNZ faces to decarbonise power. The longer DESNZ goes without a critical path bringing together different aspects of power decarbonisation, the higher the risk that it does not achieve its ambitions, or it does so at greater than necessary cost to taxpayers and consumers.
Other reports – departmental overviews
NAO overviews set out factual information about government departments, functions, sectors and services:
3 November 2023: Department for Transport Overview 2022-23
19 October 2023: BBC Overview 2022-23
