We are already seeing the effects of climate change with more extreme weather in many countries, including record heat, rain and floods, forest fires and more. So the latest report from the UK’s National Audit Office, published last week, is timely. Titled “Government resilience: extreme weather”, it looks at how the country is taking steps to mitigate the risks around climate.
“Given the cross-cutting nature of these risks and their impacts they require coordinated action to be taken across government and beyond. The report sets out how central government coordinates, leads, supports and assures local activity but does not cover local responses, such as local response plans. It also does not cover arrangements in the devolved nations”.
It aims to answer these questions:
Does the UK government have a clear vision and well-defined roles and responsibilities to manage national risks, such as extreme weather events, and the generic capabilities to deal with emergencies?
Does the UK government have a clear understanding of extreme weather events and the impacts that they can have in England?
· Has the UK government taken appropriate action to prepare for, respond to, and prevent the potential impacts of, extreme weather events in England?
To no-one’s great surprise, the NAO’s conclusion is that the answers are (in summary) no, not really and only partially. The government has not defined the outcomes it is looking to achieve in managing these risks, or how much risk it will accept (you can’t mitigate every risk as it would cost all the money in the world).
But it does not even know how much is being spent on managing extreme weather risks. So there cannot be any assessment of value for money. “Extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe. Government needs to increase its focus on reducing these risks and making the system more resilient to the worsening impacts of extreme weather”.
To be fair, there have been some positive improvements. The National Situation Centre was established in 2021 to bring data and analysis together to help manage risk, and there is now a resilience directorate in Cabinet Office. But it has not defined what it is trying to achieve, rather focusing “on common consequences of risks and the ability to respond via generic capabilities, as well as planning for specific risks where this will make the most difference”.
There are other issues too. Weather forecasting is pretty good, including for extreme events (looking short periods ahead anyway) but forecasting for flooding is much weaker. Another concern is a lack of understanding of events causing knock-on effects in another system. “For example, the July 2022 heatwave resulted in failures at two data centres used to host the IT systems of a London hospital. This caused widespread disruption to patient care and clinical services, including to hospitals in the area to which patients were diverted”.
There are six recommendations, all sensible,
1. The Cabinet Office, working with other departments, should strengthen leadership, accountability and assurance arrangements for the management of extreme weather risks.
2. The Cabinet Office should review the current risk and resilience structures and identify any gaps in its system-wide oversight of national risks.
3. The Cabinet Office should set out what a resilient UK looks like, a strategy to deliver this, and the specific roles of government, the private and voluntary sectors and the public.
4. LGDs, working with the Cabinet Office, should develop a set of resilience standards for infrastructure and give regulators consistent climate resilience roles.
5. The Cabinet Office, working with HM Treasury and other departments, should develop a coordinated, prioritised approach to investment in climate and wider resilience by 2025, and implement it by 2028.
But the number 6 is perhaps of greater interest to a business audience.
“Lead government departments, working with HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office, should encourage greater investment in climate adaptation from the private sector. This might involve publicising the benefits the private sector derives from adaptation, expanding the use of UK green gilts or introducing similar financial instruments to mobilise private sector resources for climate adaptation; and facilitating risk-sharing by expanding the scope of risk-pooling arrangements. The private sector has a pivotal role to play in managing extreme weather risk and other risks related to climate change”.
Whilst we write every week about procurement taking a key role in reducing emissions, it is clear that extreme weather is here to stay for decades at least. So adaptation and mitigating risks needs to be just as high on the procurement (and business) agenda as the vital work of driving emissions down. And the same applies to the public sector, as the NAO is pointing out here.