Looking back on nine years at the SDC

My final blog as chair of the Sustainable Development Commission – this being my final day!

It hasbeen an extraordinary nine years.Back in June 2000, when Michael Meacher persuaded John Prescott to persuade Tony Blair that I would (despite all the obvious downsides!) be a suitable candidate for the SDC’s first Chair, we didn’t really have much to go on.There were various initiatives that had arisen out of the 1992 Earth Summit (a round table, a high-level advisory group reporting to the prime minister, a decent but largely ignored strategy and so on), but zero understanding across government that sustainable development was anything other than environmentalism by another name. Our budget was small (around £350K), our welcome was muted, expectations were low (‘just another government-sponsored talkshop’) – but our ambitions were large!

It’s all a bit different now. We have got a real job, reasonable resources, a good ‘inside track’ with much of Whitehall and with the governments of Scotland and Wales, a genuinely independent persona, the inevitable mish-mash of respect, irritation, disregard and enthusiasm for what we do, both within and beyond government, and a reasonable portfolio of serious interventions, publications, watchdog reports, policy breakthroughs and constructive engagement with departments that has helped make a real difference.

Though it may not always see this as a blessing, the UK government has earned a lot of credit internationally for setting up a body like the SDC, as well for formulating what is still a cracking good SD strategy (Securing the Future) in 2005.The ‘mainstreaming’ imperative that drives all our work (“to make sustainable development the central organising principle of everything Government does”) may not as yet have got as far as we would have liked, but it has got a lot further than many may once have thought possible.

Getting the balance right between our advisory and capacity-building work on the one hand, and our watchdog work on the other, remains something of an art form – and it has to be said there have been several ministers (and even more senior civil servants!) who have been pretty angst-ridden about that balancing act over the years.

But though it’s bound to be frustrating for any government to have a body like the SDC commenting on weaknesses as well as strengths (the media, of course, are only ever interested in the former!), I suspect the conclusion amongst most of them is broadly supportive. At least, I very much hope it is!

So full marks to the government (and to DEFRA in particular) for some serious process innovation here, and to that cohort of SD champions inside the system working away indefatigably to improve the performance of their organisations, often invisibly and usually unloved.They have been amazing.

But the real strength of the Commission lies in that combination of experienced, passionate and totally committed Commissioners, working closely with an extraordinarily professional and equally committed Secretariat.It hasbeen an unbelievable privilege to be part of that – and, in true SD style, to leave things at least a little bit better on quitting the post than they were on arriving!