Value for Money
Government resilience: extreme weather
Published 6 December 2023
6 recommendations
Cross-government
Climate change and net zeroEnergy and environmentEnvironmental sustainabilityResilienceRisk and resilienceRisk management
nao.org.uk
Government is underprepared for extreme weather events which can cause significant disruption to people, businesses, and their communities.
Recommendations (6)
Source: NAO Recommendations Tracker · PAC follow-up below
Cabinet Office
Rec 1
Accepted
Work in Progress
The Cabinet Office, working with other departments, should strengthen leadership, accountability and assurance arrangements for the management of extreme weather risks. This could build on the new Climate Resilience Board that will oversee strategic, cross-cutting climate adaptation and resilience issues. It needs to cover the whole risk lifecycle and prevention activity across government to ensure action is taken where needed. This recommendation could equally apply to other national and cross-cutting risks that require cross-government action.
Cabinet Office
Rec 2
Partially Accepted
Work in Progress
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. The Cabinet Office, working with LGDs should:
? assess the current level of risk and how that risk is changing over time;
? decide what is the tolerable and acceptable level for that risk (or sets of similar risks) and set out 'what good looks like' now and in the future;
? identify the gap between this and the current performance and position;
? produce costed long-term plans, in which there is a high degree of confidence in delivery, for how to drive down the risk to an acceptable level;
? bring this information together for a coordinated and prioritised approach to investment (see recommendation e); and
? monitor and track the progress in driving down the risk to the acceptable level.
Cabinet Office
Rec 3
Partially Accepted
Implemented
The Cabinet Office should review the current risk and resilience structures and identify any gaps in its system-wide oversight of national risks. Once this review is completed it should consider how to address any gaps identified, including consideration of the merits of a Chief Risk Adviser.
Cabinet Office
Rec 4
Partially Accepted
Work in Progress
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. While government has committed to developing this approach by 2030, it should bring forward its delivery as a coordinated, prioritised approach is urgently needed to ensure that investment in resilience is cost-effective and achieves the greatest benefits.
Cabinet Office
Rec 5
Partially Accepted
Work in Progress
LGDs, working with the Cabinet Office, should develop a set of resilience standards for infrastructure and give regulators consistent climate resilience roles. Government has already committed to improve standards for resilience by 2030. It should set out a pathway to deliver these standards. Giving regulators consistent roles would enable greater coordination across regulators to improve resilience across sectors.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Rec 6
Response Pending
LGDs, 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.
Parliamentary Committee Follow-Up
The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.
Twenty-Seventh Report - Government resilience: extreme weather
Public Accounts Committee
· 19 April 2024
· 2 recommendations