Official Report 121KB pdf
“Improving energy efficiency”
Item 3 is to consider a section 23 report entitled "Improving energy efficiency". I invite the Auditor General to provide us with a briefing on the report.
Angela Cullen, who is with me today, led the project team and will give you a brief introduction to the report, if that is acceptable to you.
The Auditor General and the Accounts Commission published their joint report on improving energy efficiency on 11 December. The report considers the performance of councils, the national health service and central Government bodies in improving energy efficiency.
You have highlighted the significance of climate change and the contribution that energy efficiency will make to tackling it. It seems, therefore, rather peculiar that you state in the report:
We did examine that. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that there is a lack of comprehensive data across the public sector on energy consumption. A large majority of bodies rely on energy bills, rather than measuring their consumption themselves. There is a lack of data to enable local bodies to measure their own improvement in that area—it is not collected on a national basis. Mark Roberts and Susan Lovatt might want to comment on that.
Health Facilities Scotland monitors performance in the NHS annually; energy consumption data are collected and reported through an annual environmental report. In the other sectors, however, that reporting mechanism is not in place.
Do you think that that is a significant weakness?
We have recommended that information be collected and reported locally and to the Government, and that some sort of public report be made available.
My question follows on from the convener's point about the role of the Government, which is addressed in the report recommendations. Has a lack of direction on that issue been present for a long time? Did it exist under the previous Executive, or has it been there only for the past 19 months or so?
I will start on that one and then I will ask Mark Roberts to come in. It is a complex area and, in the report, we identify the policy and guidance that are currently available. It is not clear to public bodies, however, how they should use the policy and guidance to develop their own strategies and set targets to improve energy efficiency at a local level.
There are different patterns across the three sectors. Within central Government, the Scottish Executive set up the environmental performance of public bodies initiative in 2004. That was an initial step, and the focal point for work with central Government bodies. As Susan Lovatt mentioned, Health Facilities Scotland takes the lead in the NHS in collating and reporting information. In the council sector, there is a different structure altogether: councils have all committed to the climate change declaration, which from 2009 will require them to report on the progress that they have made. Each of the three sectors has a very different structure in place.
I wanted to comment on the three sectors. Appendix 2 of the report on page 24 shows that 29 out of 32 local authorities responded; 17 out of 22 NHS bodies responded; and 34 out of 44 central Government bodies responded. Why was there not a 100 per cent response rate from all those public bodies?
There are probably various reasons for that. We chased up survey responses, but the size of central Government bodies limited how much information they could provide, so they did not feel that it was appropriate to complete the full survey response. We were dependent on getting data back directly from the bodies and we chased that up, but there came a time when we had to put a deadline on the process and analyse the data that we had received.
That stuck out like a sore thumb. One of the local authorities that did not respond is the local authority for the area in which I stay, which is one of the smallest councils in Scotland.
Another reason could be that it tended to be energy management staff who completed the survey responses. If, for some reason, there were no such staff in post or, as we highlighted in the report, staff had other duties, it might have been difficult for them to respond to us in addition to doing everything else that they had to do. The fact that we did not get a 100 per cent response rate confirmed some of the issues that we highlighted regarding the lack of energy management staff.
My final question relates to paragraphs 32 and 33. Paragraph 33 says:
The percentage is relatively low but, as we go on to say in paragraph 34, the Scottish Government is piloting automated metering systems in 12 councils and Scottish Water. Depending on the results of the pilot project, there might be further roll-out of automated metering. We hope that that happens.
Once again, Audit Scotland has produced an extremely interesting and useful report. There is a lot that the committee can do to progress some of the issues that are identified.
We are talking about two different strategies. In the key messages, we are saying that it is a core component of public bodies' leadership and an important part of the process of setting out what they ought to be doing that they have a robust strategy. The issue of central guidance from the Scottish Government is more important in the context of setting the overall national picture. We were highlighting two tiers of strategy.
In your first key message, you say:
We mean that the Government should be clear about what it expects of public bodies. During the fieldwork, we found a degree of uncertainty among public bodies about what they were expected to do in this area and exactly how they were expected to proceed with energy efficiency strategies. They wanted guidance.
That is helpful.
No. The Parliament was not included in the sample.
That is a pity. Perhaps a future piece of work could be done to look at the energy efficiency of the Holyrood complex.
I have a piece of information that might help fill out the answers that members of the team have given. I draw to your attention exhibit 8 on page 17, which attempts to capture on one page the quality of the strategies by sector. You would give some credibility to the fact that a number of local authorities and, to some extent, national health service bodies, have strategies that are reasonable or good. Central Government has further to go. The report talks about clear strategic leadership. One practical implication of that is that the Government should be taking an interest in the quality of the strategies that are being developed by individual bodies in the public sector and it should try to obtain some kind of assurance about whether they are appropriate.
You referred to exhibit 8. It strikes me as worrying that central Government bodies are generally the worst performers. To some extent, that chimes with some of the other discussions that we have been having about the way that Government bodies are being run—if we separate the management from the political aspects. There is either poor management or complacency, or something else that I have not noticed. There should be no reason for central Government bodies to score so consistently low.
We cannot provide the definitive answer to that, but there are some structural and systems explanations for what is going on. One interesting point is that the central energy efficiency fund has been concentrated on the NHS and local Government. We can see from exhibit 8 that benefits from that are coming through. Related to that is the fact that it tends to be in local government and the NHS that experts in the organisation can drive the agenda forward. That is more difficult for smaller bodies. The message that comes out of that is the importance of the Government finding ways of creating at the centre that sort of expertise, which is available across the public sector to help drive the strategy forward.
As ever, the Auditor General gets to the heart of the matter. The money is there, whether it is £24 million from the Government or £11.5 million from public bodies. The will to implement energy efficiency is there. However, the report says that it is really not happening. I get the impression that it is all diffuse. We have loads of titles. We have a method—the Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method. We have a staff training tool, local champions, leads energy management lead and energy management teams.
I wish that I had a pound—or even a euro, given that it has about the same value these days—for every strategy that circulates in Government. As Mr Black said, it is much better to focus on direct action that delivers results. I am glad to see that the Government seems to be taking that approach in articulating the strategy.
We could have a virtual Parliament and perhaps dispose of this building; that would help Murdo Fraser to resolve his problems with its energy inefficiency.
Face-to-face meetings are always preferable, but they are sometimes impractical. Sometimes it is dangerous for members to take to the road or the air to be here.
I suppose that it depends on the face as well.
I suppose so. I think that it would occasionally be possible for us to do videoconferencing. The technology allows us to embrace that kind of opportunity, but we do not do it particularly well.
If we are not careful, some people might question whether we need to be here at all.
Just before the Auditor General answers, I put on record that the comments about incompetence and complacency were not his, but mine.
Yes, but he was not sure which was the problem. I think that it is complacency. Anyway, what should we do to follow up the report?
It is always important for the committee to consider what it can do as part of the process of holding to account. This is a good example of how we can present analysis in which we have confidence. It is for the committee to determine the extent to which it should take evidence from appropriate accountable officers and how that should be done. That focuses Government attention quite usefully, if I may be so frank as to say so.
We normally follow up our reports, but we do not have this report down to be followed up in our current programme, which we will bring to the committee in January. However, we will probably start to follow it up within the next two years and report to the Parliament and the committee in about two years.
There is also a wider issue of the best way in which an organisation such as ours can engage in this developing area of public policy. During next year, I imagine that we will have discussions with various stakeholders about the role that we might play.
That would be helpful.
That is outwith the competence of the Auditor General. It is a political issue that can be pursued elsewhere.
It is a practical issue.
It sounds like a recommendation that would make a good episode of "Yes Minister".
I have a small point about exhibit 9 on page 19, on the confidence of local authorities and public bodies in meeting the targets. It is disappointing that only half the public bodies are confident that they can meet the targets. The targets are set by central Government, which makes it even more concerning that, in the three years up to 2006-07, when energy consumption reduced in the public sector overall by 4.8 per cent, there was an increase in central Government departments' energy consumption. How can central Government crack the whip, if you like, over our local authorities and the national health service when bodies that are answerable to the Government and to us are not delivering? Obviously, they cannot deliver 100 per cent, but they do not appear to be setting an example for councils to follow.
It is not clear to us why central Government's energy consumption increased, albeit slightly, over the three years. However, it is worth stating that the funding that we mentioned earlier and much of the concerted effort has been around the council and NHS sectors. The NHS has set a national target. In their single outcome agreements, councils have agreed to contribute to meeting energy efficiency targets. Both sectors have forums in place and have made a huge effort, probably because they are the largest consumers of energy in the public sector.
The central Government sector is quite diverse compared with the council and NHS sectors. It includes quite a large number of small bodies that occupy or lease parts of buildings. It is hard for bodies that lease accommodation from private landlords actively to improve their energy efficiency.
If the people who are expected to deliver on our behalf have no confidence in their ability to do so, where is the deficit? Why are people not confident in their ability to deliver? Do they not have the cash or expertise to do so? Has any work been done to break down the deficit in confidence that has been identified?
The problem is highlighted in the report because we asked public bodies how confident they were and, if they were not confident, what the reasons for that lack of confidence were. They highlighted a number of issues, including the possibility of expansion in the estate, vehicle fleets or staff numbers, and the requirement to use more energy-intensive technology, which has a significant impact on their energy consumption in any year.
So negative issues were highlighted. Was no reference made to positive uses of technology to reduce energy consumption, as my colleague Willie Coffey suggested?
The use of energy-intensive technology is particularly relevant to health bodies. For example, computed tomography scanners impact significantly on their energy consumption. Facilities such as videoconferencing can counterbalance that, but their use is linked to behavioural and cultural change. Changing the emphasis and leadership to ensure that staff use such mechanisms to reduce consumption was highlighted as a particular challenge by public bodies.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency energy management team was formed only recently, but has it yielded any improvements? Once it is established, will it provide a model for others?
We highlighted SEPA as a case study because its approach represents good practice. One reason why we include examples of good practice in our reports is that we hope that they will be picked up and rolled out in other organisations. Mark Roberts can provide the committee with further information on the impact of the initiative.
Against a baseline of 1998-99, by 2006-07, SEPA's overall carbon dioxide emissions had fallen by 23 per cent, so it has made significant inroads into the problem.
So we are beginning to get a model that could serve as an exemplar for others.
Thank you for your evidence. The next item on the agenda is consideration of our approach to the report. That concludes the public part of the meeting.
Meeting continued in private until 11:46.
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