Saving more than our bacon

The way the public sector spends its money has been under fire from all angles this week, particularly where it comes to food. First it was the NHS on Monday sparking off furious debate about whether meat-free hospital menus had a place in its carbon reduction strategy, and inevitably reigniting tempers about the quality of hospital food. Then came Jamie and his pig-shaped spotlight naming and shaming government institutions that are chomping on imported bacon and hastening the demise of British pig farming.

2009 is supposed to be the year the UK government achieves its goal of becoming a leader in sustainable procurement – essentially making spending decisions that help create a better future. The idea of ‘investing for a better future’ has risen sharply up the agenda since the Government set this goal in 2007. The debate about how to, or whether we can, spend our way out of the recession is still in full swing. Late last year, plans to bring forward spending on schools, hospitals and roads were top of the agenda, more recently replaced by ambitions of bringing broadband internet to the masses. These are great opportunities for the government to use spending as a force for good – but will they pull it off?

Jamie’s programme highlighted a massive issue that sheds some doubt on this: the divide between government policy and its spending decisions. Farmers have to maintain high animal welfare standards but the government doesn’t put its money where its mouth is by demanding that the meat it buys meets the same welfare standards.

It’s easy to point to many similar examples of this kind of double standard. Last year the Government committed extra funding support for the Fairtrade Foundation. Just before that the then trade minister Gareth Thomas publicly called on three retailers to join the Ethical Trading Initiative and take responsibility for ensuring that their suppliers pay a living wage. The NHS is testing out a new ethical procurement framework and the Greater London Authority group asks suppliers to pay a London living wage but few other public sector bodies go beyond Fairtrade tea and coffee.

More important perhaps, given the current investment plans, is that in 2008 fewer than half of new government buildings achieved the sustainability standards the government set itself. This makes me think that the government isn’t fully prepared to make sure that, as we spend our way out of a recession, we also help ‘save’ our shared future – by making our money work harder, creating infrastructure fit for a low carbon future, and making sure that the jobs this creates both here and overseas, give people a dignified livelihood.

In my time in local government I remember there being heated debate between the Mayor and the sustainability officer about what new mayoral car to buy. These days it isn’t inconceivable that the debate would be between a mayoral bike or bus pass in some cities. Things are moving on but it’s really time to up the ante on government spending. The public sector needs to put its money where its mouth is if we’re going to save a lot more than our bacon.