UK Status Quo – Environmentally Related Subsidies

1. UK Status Quo – Environmentally Related Subsidies Eurostat Task Force on Environmentally Related Transfers. Meeting of 23-24 February 2010 Donna Livesey, Environmental Accounts, Societal Wellbeing Division, ONS

2. Overview • Current state of play • Environmentally related subsidies in the UK • Plans for the coming year

3. Current state of play • UK not currently publishing statistics on environmentally related subsidies at present but working to change this. • Eurostat funded project underway – scheduled to complete action by end March and report by mid-May 2010. • Meetings with HM Treasury, Department for Energy and Climate Change and others indicate not key priority for the UK (compared with EGSS, for example) but there is interest, particularly in understanding success of environmentally motivated subsidies – monitoring is set to improve in next few years.

4. Environmentally related subsidies in the UK – Sources and data linking Industry breakdown – working with Supply-Use team

6. Environmentally related subsidies in the UK – Some potential issues • Minimising subjectivity in assessing whether transfer is “environmentally-motivated” etc. • Unlike taxes, does not easily fall out of National Accounts system – will require continued exploitation of supporting materials unless infrastructure for classification and reporting changes – potentially resource intensive • Support consideration of transport separately – number of projects not environmentally motivated but potentially environmentally beneficial – area where this it true to greatest extent – not a category considered in current proposals – also swamps everything else. • Coding by departments – descriptions not always clear Example Capital Grants -> Fuel and Energy -> 6 expenditure items -> 2 clearly classified to a renewable energy programme, 2 to other programmes, 2 have generic descriptions Can follow up specified programmes to find out motivation for project. First programme description indicated clear resource use management objective, second programme has environmental motivation listed but not primary objective, third potentially environmentally damaging. For the other two, we can make some assumptions based on departmental accounts but no clear designation. • Presentational issues – not an obstacle but something to be aware of. • New government reporting system in development – opportunity to improve coding but need to get in early

7. Plans for the coming year • Deliver Eurostat project Spring 2010 • Publish article and experimental dataset Summer 2010 • Contribute to Eurostat Task Force • Establish infrastructure for regular reporting – this may take longer than 12 months dependent on priorities of new UK Societal Wellbeing agenda and progress of Task Force

8. Contact details Donna Livesey Environmental Accounts Branch Societal Wellbeing Division Office for National Statistics Government Buildings, Cardiff Road Newport South Wales NP10 8XG Donna.livesey@ons.gov.uk Tel: 00 44 (0)1633 455814 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/focuson/environmental/