Committee News Release
CENV 003/2004
14 September, 2004
PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS WEAKNESS IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
Commissioned research published today by the Scottish Parliament’s Environment and Rural Development Committee highlights the huge challenge facing the Scottish Executive if it is to mainstream sustainable development into policy and legislation.
CAG Consultants was commissioned by the Committee to investigate: Is the Scottish Executive structured and positioned to deliver sustainable development?
The report shows that the Executive has established a number of useful mechanisms to help address the sustainable development agenda, but also highlights fundamental weaknesses in approach including the lack of a coherent Sustainable Development Strategy and Action Plan for Scotland, and the lack of detailed sustainable development training within the Executive.
Committee Convener Sarah Boyack said:
“This piece of work acknowledges that progress has been made by the Executive but there are clear areas where improvement is necessary.
The researchers attempted to benchmark the Executive against areas of emerging global best practice. This has helped highlight the huge scale of the challenge, and provides a basis for future work by the Executive - and indeed for other public bodies including the Parliament.
The Committee will follow this work up by seeking a formal response from the Minister and will be discussing the recommendations with him. Sustainable development must continue to be a vital part of the agenda for all of us.”
The report presents the main research findings. It includes an Executive Summary and summary of recommendations. A supplementary report (also published today on the Committee’s web site) has also been produced, setting out in more detail the various elements of the analysis.
Background
The research draws on the framework for the analysis of sustainable development governance developed by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and on the examples of good practice governance highlighted by the OECD in their recent report.
The report examines the mechanisms by which the Executive has integrated sustainable development into its internal workings and how this has translated into the development of Executive Strategies, Guidance for NDPBs (Non-Departmental Public Bodies) and Executive Bills put before Parliament.
Recommendations
The report makes a series of recommendations to be considered by the Environment and Rural Development Committee. These include that the Scottish Executive should:
* Agree a Scottish sustainable development strategy which identifies priorities that reflect the need to integrate social, economic and environmental objectives. The Executive should follow the lead of the Welsh Assembly and begin the preparation of a Scottish strategy now, and not delay until the revised UK framework is in place.
* Develop an Action Plan with meaningful targets and timescales based on the strategy priorities, and establish mechanisms to translate the Action Plan into key Executive documents
* Establish a mechanism for translating the sustainable development commitment to other public bodies and local government
* Allocate overall responsibility for implementation of the Action Plan to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Sustainable Scotland
* Better integrate sustainable development into core staff training
* Consider whether the Executive’s sustainable development resources are positioned correctly in the organisation
* Ensure more integrated sustainability appraisal of Executive policies and legislation early in their development
* Expand the procurement strategy to support social and economic objectives
* Establish a commitment to regular (e.g. every 4 years) independent scrutiny of Executive sustainable development performance
Recommendations for the Scottish Parliament include:
* Better integrate sustainable development into staff training
* Develop a checklist to help Parliamentary Committees to assess the sustainability of legislation under consideration
* Enhance scrutiny of the Executive by Parliament
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