Corporate report

The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2020-21: Performance report

Published 15 July 2021

Overview

The Coal Authority is a non- departmental public body and partner organisation of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Our mission:

Making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

Our purpose:

• we keep people safe and provide peace of mind

• we protect and enhance the environment

• we use our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions

• we create value and minimise cost to the taxpayer

We use our skills to provide services to other government departments and agencies, local governments and commercial partners.

We contribute to the delivery of key UK Government strategies including the ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, the industrial decarbonisation strategy and commitments to level up the UK. We contribute to the wider environmental, social and economic priorities of the Scottish, Welsh and UK Governments. By sharing our knowledge and expertise we support them, and our partners, to create cleaner, greener nations for us all.

Our governance:

We’ve an independent board responsible for setting our strategic direction and holding us to account. The board ensures that our statutory duties are carried out effectively and that we bring our mission, purpose and values to life.

Our chair and board members have relevant experience to support our work. Non-executive directors are recruited and appointed to the board by the Secretary of State for BEIS. Executive directors are recruited to their posts by the board and some of them are then appointed to the board, also by the Secretary of State for BEIS.

Our values:

Trusted

• we act with integrity

• we’re open and transparent

• we deliver on our commitments

Inclusive

• we promote a culture of mutual respect

• we recognise that our differences make us stronger

• we work with others to achieve our mission

Progressive

• we’re open minded and innovative

• we recognise that the past can help us shape the future

• we listen and learn

The work we do

During 2020-21, across the 3 nations we serve:

Kept people safe and provided peace of mind

8,370 mine entry inspections were carried out

589 surface hazard reports were investigated

212 subsidence damage claims were assessed

Used our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions

195,371 mining reports were delivered

1,704 permits to intersect coal were issued

7,599 planning consultation responses were provided

Protected and enhanced the environment

122 billion litres of water treated

32,000m² of our 350,000m² reedbeds were replaced

4,500 tonnes of iron solids were prevented from entering water courses

Created value and minimised cost to the taxpayer

£2.4 million saved by recycling reedbed material

£6 million of income generated through our advisory services

78% of removed iron solids were recycled

Chair’s foreword

I’m delighted to have been appointed by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as Chair of the Coal Authority and to be writing my first foreword for our Annual Report. In the time I’ve already spent with the organisation I can see that our focus on bringing our mission, purpose and values to life, makes a real difference for the customers and communities we support.

As chair I will continue to ensure that the organisation has a clear focus on creating economic, social and environmental value, and that innovation and maximising opportunity remains important alongside our core statutory work to protect life, drinking water and the environment for the communities we serve. I’m struck by the ambition of the organisation, and committed to working with the 3 governments we serve to help Great Britain build back from the COVID-19 pandemic better, fairer and greener.

Our investment in coalfield areas and use of local suppliers supports the levelling up agenda. The historic coal mines below 25% of Great Britain can provide low or zero carbon, stable priced heat for communities across the coalfields and we’re focused on developing this pipeline. During 2020-21 we’ve developed our licensing regime, worked with partners and undertaken further R&D to bring this to life. This has culminated in our Heat Consultancy team working with Gateshead Council to drill the first pilot boreholes for mine water heat in the region. Our newly published mine heat maps, developed in conjunction with the British Geological Survey, are further igniting interest and understanding of the potential for this renewable energy source across the UK. This work will help us, BEIS, the devolved governments and partners to make a practical difference to achieving net zero carbon through heat networks.

As we continue in our work to protect people and the environment in mining areas, our sustainability plans are increasing our focus in helping to resolve the climate crisis. We will lower our carbon footprint to reach net zero by 2030 in a number of ways, including investing further in renewable energy and using low carbon design and materials in our construction activities. There will be challenges too but we will face them head on and be innovative in creating solutions and in working with and learning from others.

By maximising and mapping the environments on our estate and working with others, such as Nature Recovery Networks, we can enhance value by increasing biodiversity to have local, regional and national impact. Our sites already create an important mosaic of habitats which attract a wide variety of species. Last year surveys of just 2 of our sites found an abundance of wildlife and 12 bird species on the list of conservation concern. During the COVID-19 pandemic access to nature has had many benefits, providing greater public access to our sites in the future will support wellbeing in coalfield areas.

I have clearly seen how central emergency and incident response is to the work of the Coal Authority and how prolonged rainfall and extreme weather can impact that. The board and I welcome the review that we will carry out this year to help us to work even more closely with emergency response partners and utility companies to further raise awareness of our 24/7 capability, alongside better understanding of legacy mining hazards and indicators which may help us to provide support and expertise to prevent incidents where possible or to respond even more effectively where they do occur.

My thoughts are with all of those who have been impacted by COVID-19. We have continued to focus on delivering essential services which protect life and wellbeing and due to the commitment of our staff we have been able to deliver the majority of our customer facing activities working in new and different ways, with 90% of the organisation working from home, but continuing to work together as ‘One Coal Authority’. I cannot thank our people enough for their continued dedication and commitment through these challenging times. Looking forwards we will take the positives learned from working in new and different ways to be an even more flexible, fair and responsive organisation. This will also help us to recruit and retain more diverse talent, hear from more voices across the breadth of our work and be even more representative of the communities that we serve.

In closing I must say a huge thank you to Stephen Dingle for his dedication to the organisation during 8 years as Chair and 5 years on the board before that. It is an honour to take the role forward from you and I look forward to working with board and executive colleagues and our great people across the whole organisation to continue the strong delivery that the Coal Authority is known for.

Jeff Halliwell, Chair

Chief executive’s report

This has been a year like no other. I am proud of the commitment and dedication of our people in ensuring that we were able to continue our 24/7 emergency and community response across Great Britain and prioritise work on public safety, the protection of drinking water and the environment.

Our customers have been at the heart of every decision we made so that we could prioritise services to keep them safe and support both the green and economic recovery of the nations we serve. Alongside all this we have focused on the wellbeing of our staff who have had their lives disrupted, as we all have, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our operational work on the ground has continued, working closely with our partners and supply chain. We have delivered our biggest capital programme ever which means that more drinking water aquifers, rivers and streams are protected from pollution from mine water. We have responded to 589 reported surface hazards and 212 subsidence damage claims and kept our 76 mine water treatment schemes operating while working with BEIS, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), Welsh and Scottish Governments and partners to develop ambitious forward programmes for further coal and metal mine treatment works across Great Britain.

Working with Welsh Government, the UK Government and a range of Welsh partners we have undertaken a comprehensive assessment of colliery tips in Wales and ensured that all of the higher risk sites have been inspected at least twice, with necessary maintenance works undertaken and innovative technology used to give reassurance to the communities that live beneath and around them.

On the 21 January 2021 following prolonged wet weather and heavy rainfall from Storm Christoph, 77 homes/gardens in Skewen, South Wales were flooded by water which blew out of a historic mine drainage level. We supported emergency partners in the initial response and have worked with the community, Neath Port Talbot Council and other partners to support the residents and provide practical support to help them to recover. We are building a new mine water management scheme to provide peace of mind for the future.

We’ve also invested in the recovery of our land drainage stations damaged by widespread flooding in Yorkshire last year to ensure that they enable communities and farmers to use their land.

The majority of our other services have been delivered through home working. I remain extremely grateful to our people who, whilst facing their own fears, family pressures and caring responsibilities, have continued to do their very best to support our customers.

In our last annual report, I made a number of commitments for 2020-21 and we have made clear progress on each.

• We’ve continued to support the governments of the 3 nations we serve by delivering appropriately through changing COVID-19 restrictions and enabled green and economic recovery by supporting the housing market, providing expertise and advice to infrastructure providers and working with our supply chain and partners to deliver our capital build programme and mine water energy infrastructure projects.

• Our board committed to achieving net zero carbon by 2030 and to enabling natural resilience and social access through the habitat we create and the decarbonised heat and energy storage that we can provide. This year we have established a baseline position and are finalising a clear plan for progress to 2030 and beyond.

• We have continued to provide our core duties and 24/7 incident response and reassurance for anyone impacted by coal mining gas, subsidence or hazards and work with partners to ensure Welsh colliery spoil tips are inspected and to inform a future approach to regulation and maintenance.

In 2021-22 we will:

• further develop our incident and emergency response resilience capabilities through our new structure and a campaign to raise awareness of mine legacy hazards, our work and 24/7 response. We will achieve this through training and engagement with local resilience partners and utility companies

• make further clear progress on our journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 and develop a pipeline of mine heat projects in partnership with councils and developers. Alongside that we will do more work to assess the risk from our legacy mining assets, hazards and risks in light of climate change and more extreme weather

• develop our next long term business plan to set the direction of the organisation, in support of the 3 governments that we serve, for the next 3-5 years in line with the UK Government’s next spending review

We can only deliver what we do because of our great people. We are committed to learning from the ways of working over the past year to become even more flexible and dynamic. This includes continuing to become more diverse, inclusive and actively anti-racist to ensure we are relevant to the communities we serve and continuing our focus on wellbeing to ensure that we are an organisation where people with great potential want to work.

Lisa Pinney MBE Chief Executive and Accounting Officer

Case study: Our work in Wales

In February 2020, Wales suffered significant impacts from Storms Ciara and Dennis which included slippage of a council owned coal tip in Tylorstown. We were asked by the UK and Welsh Governments to provide advice and expertise on a Welsh Government led taskforce to ensure that coal tips in Wales were identified, risk assessed, inspected and flagged for maintenance work to reduce the risk from these sites to the communities around and below them.

We worked 7 days a week following the incident to provide support to Rhondda Cynon Taf Council at Tylorstown, to use our information to identify tip locations, provide immediate advice to emergency partners and offer information and reassurance through the media.

Working with local authorities, the Welsh Local Government Association and Natural Resources Wales as part of the taskforce, we identified more than 2,000 coal tips, mostly across the South Wales Valleys. All of these have been risk classified and the higher rated tips were inspected between February to July 2020 and then again during the winter of 2020-21. Maintenance work needed was flagged and monitored by the taskforce.

Coal tips in Wales are often located on steep slopes, on the sides of hills and mountains.

Under current law and regulations, the responsibility for the management of tips and tip safety sits with the landowner. Most coal tips are in private ownership, with others under the management of local councils and Natural Resources Wales. The Coal Authority own 26 tips in Wales. To find out more about our management of them, please visit our website.

The Welsh Government have asked the Law Commission to make recommendations for future legislation and we’re providing support for this and contributing to the consultation process.

To support the community and provide reassurance we also provide a 24/7 tips helpline on 0800 021 9230.

Our year in Wales

602 mine entry inspections were carried out

107 surface hazard reports were investigated

14,924 mining reports were delivered

1,110 planning consultation responses were provided

17 billion litres of water treated

380 tonnes of iron solids were prevented from entering water courses

Our performance

We’re just over half way through our current 5 year plan and have made good progress, setting the foundations to create a more sustainable organisation able to deliver our mission for years to come. We have focused on the wellbeing of our people through COVID-19 whilst also delivering strongly against our purpose to keep people safe, protect the environment, provide good quality information to help others make informed decisions and create value.

Our people

Through the pandemic, we prioritised our work so that our people could balance delivery with care for their wellbeing and that of their loved ones. We adapted our ways of working so that most people could work from home and so those working in communities could do so confidently in a COVID safe way.

We worked to maximise the experience and efficiency of our processes for staff working from home, using video conferencing and other media to ensure that effective cross organisation working could continue and that everyone was clear about our priorities and direction to support our customers. This included biweekly staff calls to share best practice, challenges and new thinking which was good for learning and morale.

We introduced engaging online learning and launched a new ‘onboarding’ programme, to ensure new starters have the best possible start to life at the Coal Authority.

Working in this way has made us a fairer organisation as staff based across Great Britain have had a more equal voice across all aspects of our work and we’re focusing on how we build the positive learning into our ‘new normal’ approach for the future.

Throughout this we’ve continued our focus on diversity and inclusion including further progress on our gender pay gap and work to become a more actively anti-racist organisation. As well as education and discussion we have changed core policies and processes including recruitment, based on good practice from others and are raising up and bringing in wider voices and perspectives to inform our work.

Much of this has helped us progress against the findings of our 2019 people survey but we have more to do and this will continue to be a theme during 2021-22.

Customers and stakeholders

Customers have remained at the heart of our thinking and decision making during 2020-21. We’ve communicated regular updates both to targeted customer groups and openly on social media for all, improved the accessibility of our digital services and frozen planned charge increases for all our products and services until at least 30 September 2021, recognising the challenges of the year for everyone. We have needed to extend the response times on our customer standards at times but have remained committed to responding as quickly and completely as possible.

We’ve prioritised on the ground delivery and incident response throughout the year to protect life, protect drinking water and the environment. We continue to provide a 24/7 incident response line (0800 288 4242) and have responded to 752 mining hazards such as subsidence, mine gas and shaft collapse and taken action to support those affected. We have supported emergency partners at incidents related to coal tips and the major mine water flooding incident at Skewen in South Wales in January which caused more than 100 homes to be evacuated and 77 to suffer internal and/or external flooding.

Following the Skewen incident we set up a dedicated customer helpline to support affected residents and to provide what support we were able under our Skewen policy, alongside our core responsibilities to remediate the damaged mining features and build a new mine water management scheme. We have held a number of residents meetings and now have a dedicated community liaison officer based on site to provide support until our site works are completed. We continue to work closely with Neath Port Talbot Council and other partners to ensure the most joined up approach possible to support the residents impacted by this sad event.

We’ve continued to work as part of the Welsh and UK Government’s Tips Taskforce to improve the recording, common risk classification, inspection and maintenance of coal tips across Wales and to support the Law Commission in preparing their consultation on a future regulatory approach. We’ve increased our work to address pollution from metal mines in Wales and England working with Natural Resources Wales and the Environment Agency and worked to further reduce pollution from coal mines by refurbishing existing assets and developing new treatment schemes. This has led to us delivering our biggest ever capital programme of £11.3 million which is a credit to our supply chain who remobilised strongly following the first lockdown where many of their staff were furloughed and a sign of our commitment to the UK Government’s Build Back Better, Greener and Fairer initiatives. To further support this we have delivered 1,704 permits and 7,599 planning consultations in line with our targets, as well as 195,371 mining reports (96% of our pre-COVID-19 expectation).

We’ve continued to work with local politicians and partners to progress the opportunity of mine water heat and energy storage including a new scheme in Gateshead. We developed and published a mine heat map with the British Geological Survey which enables councils, developers and others to see the best locations to take advantage of this resource. We have also developed our licensing process to better enable applications and continued to work with the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Triple Point and other regulators to help ensure that funding and other processes are as streamlined as possible for applicants.

Internal processes

We worked quickly to support resilient and effective home working through the pandemic and to ensure that our financial, governance and other core controls remained in place were enhanced as needed. We assessed any new risks and put in place additional training to keep our people and the Coal Authority safe – especially relating to cyber security and anti-fraud protections.

Our business continuity processes have worked well and been adapted as needed to ensure that we could prioritise work and flex as different lockdown restrictions eased and tightened and varied across the 3 nations we serve. This gave our staff and supply chain confidence to keep delivering safely through changing conditions.

We have made further progress in embedding our new risk management and assurance framework and in benchmarking our carbon emissions to ensure we can plan to achieve our aspiration of being net zero carbon by 2030.

Managing our money

We’ve continued to work closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), our sponsor department, so that they understand our financial risks and opportunities and help ensure that we deliver our programmes and activities in line with agreed control totals through an unprecedented period.

We generated £6.0 million income (2019- 20 £5.3 million) from our advisory services and by- products, using our expertise to help other government organisations manage their risks and to create opportunities from our mining legacy.

Our Innovation and Research and Development programmes have generated savings of £3.7 million to offset our costs during the year by identifying innovative uses for our by-products and generating operational efficiencies.

Outlook for 2021-22

Throughout 2021-22 we’ll continue to focus on our mission of making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

We’ll continue to support the ambitions of the governments we serve for a green recovery from COVID-19, to deliver the ten point environment plan, net zero carbon targets and the levelling up agenda. We’ll further develop our benchmark and route map to become net zero carbon by 2030 and evolve our Sustainability Strategy to maximise outcomes for people and wildlife from our sites, recognising the importance of local green space for wellbeing and mental health over the past year.

The past few years have seen increasing numbers of major incidents relating to extreme weather and climate change. This year we will further develop our incident response infrastructure and approach to ensure that we remain a modern and resilient 24/7 incident response organisation that works even more closely with emergency partners to keep communities safe. As part of that we will run a campaign with utilities and councils to promote awareness of our work and services and to make hazard reporting easier for them. We will also further review the impact of more extreme weather on our assets and our work and make recommendations for the future as needed.

We’ll work more with partners, such as BEIS and the devolved governments, local councils and politicians, public and private sector and green finance partners to encourage further growth in the pipeline of mine water heat and energy projects to provide low carbon, cost effective heating for residential, industrial and horticulture development and continue to develop practical uses for our by-products to maximise their use and minimise what is wasted.

We’ll underpin this by developing a new research and development plan which increases our work with partners including the British Geological Survey and the university sector and pulls together the thinking we need to support practical delivery on net zero carbon, mine water heat and energy and to enable innovation, efficiency and continuous improvement across all aspects of our work.

Building on our learning from the last year, we’ll create a flexible and blended way of working for the future that ensures all staff are included and can work together easily across different teams and geographies. This will make us easier to do business with and will include more digital services and greater accessibility for our customers, building on feedback they have provided.

We’ll do further work with financial and lending institutions and conveyancers to increase awareness of our role and retain confidence in the housing market across coalfield areas.

We’ll continue to focus on the wellbeing of our people and invest in their development. We’ll build on the progress we have made over the last year in becoming a more actively anti-racist and inclusive organisation, developing our recruitment approaches, policies and processes further, continuing to focus on education and raising up voices and inviting challenge both from within and outside of our organisation. This will include delivering our new strategy ‘a great place to work for everyone’. Read more about our new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2021-2024

As we continue to grow and evolve, our commitment to delivering our essential work to protect life, protect drinking water and protect the environment remains unchanged. From supporting households affected by subsidence or mine gas to protecting drinking water, rivers and beaches from pollution from mines our work keeps communities safe and ensures that rivers, beaches and other local spaces can be enjoyed by local people. This is our core work and will continue alongside our 24/7 incident response to provide reassurance to communities across the coalfield.

Our business model

Our business model underpins our business plan. It illustrates how we’re going to deliver to our customers and create economic, social and environmental value from mining legacy.

Our purpose sits at the centre of our Business Model, underpinning the 4 key considerations already discussed in “Our Performance”:

• Our people

• Customers and stakeholders

• Internal processes

• Managing our money

By constantly improving our relationships with our people, customers and stakeholders, strengthening our processes and doing all of this within a sound financial governance framework, we’re able to use our information and expertise:

• to help people make informed decisions and

• deliver on our commitments to manage the risks associated with mining

Whilst at the same time creating value and minimising cost to the taxpayer.

Our purpose:

• we keep people safe and provide peace of mind

• we protect and enhance the environment

• we use our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions

• we create value and minimise cost to the taxpayer

Our business plan

Our business plan places our purpose at the heart of what we do. Our improvement programmes and value creating activities ensure that we’ll remain able to undertake these core duties as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Lead, support and develop our people:

• learning and development inspires, motivates and helps staff achieve their full potential

• we promote diversity and inclusion

• our staff are empowered and engaged

• our staff reward mechanism is aligned to development

• we’ve capability to deliver our statutory duties in perpetuity

Implement a customer strategy:

• we understand our customers and focus on their needs

• our customer data is measured, understood and used to add value

• best practice ways of working are embedded

• our services are accessible and we are easy to do business with

Pursue value creating opportunities:

• we provide advisory services to enable other organisations to manage their risk

• we develop products and services to create value from our information and data

• we create value from our mining legacy and by-products

Invest in our governance and processes:

• risk management processes are refreshed and risk reporting is dynamic

• effective business planning and programme offices support effective prioritisation and delivery

• governance is simple and empowers people within frameworks

Strategic risks

Risk - Public safety risk

Despite Coal Authority controls, a significant hazard caused by past coal mining or incident at a Coal Authority legacy site causes serious injury or fatality.

Update and mitigation

We’ve well established processes to manage our risks including proactive inspection and communication programmes and a 24/7 triaged response line.

We adopt a proportionate response to manage this risk but it cannot be eliminated.

Relative rating

High (stable)

Risk - COVID-19 (staff wellbeing and business continuity)

COVID-19 (or similar health event) and associated restrictions affect staff health, safety or wellbeing and the ability of the Coal Authority to undertake its core functions.

Update and mitigation

During March 2020 we invoked our business continuity plan and the majority of our people were working from home. A senior management team was in place to make real time decisions and ensure staff wellbeing was protected and our communication effective. Critical, front line activities were carefully prioritised and all critical operations continued throughout lockdown periods. At time of publication, we continue to move to a ‘new normal’ as restrictions ease.

Relative rating

Medium (decreasing)

Risk – COVID-19 financial impact

The economic impact caused by COVID-19 affects Coal Authority income.

Update and mitigation

Volumes though permits, mining reports and mining information recovered through 2020-21 after a slow start and continue to be strong at the beginning of 2021-22.

Relative rating

Medium (decreasing)

Risk – Disruptors in the information market

Due to limited resource and focus on core duties we fail to improve our information or develop new products and services, leading to missed opportunities for the Coal Authority and others to create value from our information and data.

Update and mitigation

We’ve been successful in releasing our data for others to use and opening up the coal mining reports market resulting in a lower market share and reduced income from this market as expected.

We’ll continue to work closely with the Geospatial Commission, its partner bodies, and other organisations to identify opportunities to improve and share our data and information providing excellent services to help our customers make informed decisions.

Relative rating

High (stable)

Risk – Take up of government services

Due to external funding pressures and economic uncertainty, opportunities to provide services to government organisations develop more slowly leading to missed opportunity to help them manage their risks or create value from mining legacy and lost financial contribution.

Update and mitigation

We continue to improve our profile and strengthen key relationships. We continue to work with our partners, including the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Natural Resources Wales to manage mine water remediation and have established a tips incident response team on behalf of the Welsh Government.

Relative rating

Medium (decreasing)

Risk – Innovation

Due to funding constraints and the inherent risk in innovation, progress to develop new technology, processes and products may take longer than planned leading to delay in value creation and cost savings.

Update and mitigation

This programme is overseen by our innovation board. Actions taken during the last multi-year spending review period have reduced operating costs of treating mine water by £3.7 million in 2020-21 and we continue to undertake research and development, develop our licensing processes, and work with partners to progress opportunities for mine water energy schemes. We’ll continue to collaborate with our sponsor department BEIS, British Geological Survey and other organisations to maximise our success.

Relative rating

Medium (stable)

Risk – Devolution

Policy differences continue to grow between the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments in areas relevant to our work, causing inefficiency, uncertainty or reputational risk.

Update and mitigation

The 3 nations we serve have developed different policies during COVID-19 which has caused additional work and, at times, different guidance and approaches for our people and operations in each country.

There is a possibility that the policy differences between the nations could continue to grow. We’ll continue to work closely with the nations in delivering our work to maximise the delivery of UK and national outcomes.

Relative rating

Medium (increasing)

Risk – Exit from EU

Uncertainty in respect of the nature of exit from the EU may lead to impact on funding and policy for the Coal Authority and its partners and short term disruption.

Update and mitigation

Prior to EU Exit we reviewed the elements of our business that may be affected in the short term by EU exit, for instance supply of chemicals to our mine water treatment plants, and have plans in place to manage these.

We have not experienced an impact on our activities from EU exit, but will continue to monitor the situation carefully.

Relative rating

Low (decreasing)

Risk – Climate change

Failure to consider, monitor and manage the likely effects of climate change and adverse weather events impacts our assets and ability to deliver our remit.

Update and mitigation

Our significant capital build and refurbishment programmes are designed to ensure that our schemes mitigate and prevent pollution and flooding.

Our sustainability programme will further consider the impacts of climate change on current and future operational assets.

Relative rating

Medium (increasing)

Case study: Our work in Scotland

In August 2020, a local council investigated cracking on a road in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. They found a large void beneath the road surface and called us in to investigate and take action to keep people safe and resolve the problem for the community.

Our investigations showed 2 recorded mine shafts in the local area with recorded depths of approximately 330 metres deep and over 200 years old. Further ground investigations found that one of the recorded mineshafts had collapsed causing the void to appear underneath the road surface. The shaft was 22 metres below ground level and the material between the shaft and the road was soft, sandy gravels which was difficult to work with, especially in wet conditions.

The collapse occurred in a residential housing estate and we worked with the residents, the Parish Council, North Lanarkshire Council and other partners to ensure that everyone was aware of what had happened, how it would be repaired and the timescale for the works. Keeping people safe and providing reassurance for the community was our focus throughout the works.

We worked with our contractors to install a 36 metre wide platform across the shaft and the area around it. This allowed work to take place safely and minimised the risk of further collapse. The mine shaft was repaired by injecting 716 tonnes of cement grout and the sandy gravel material above and around it was stabilised with 3,850 litres of resin and cement. This will ensure that the area is safe and stable for years to come.

Key statistics

• 330 metre shaft over 200 years old

• 3,850 litres of resin and cement used to stabilise

• 716 tonnes of cement grout injected

Our year in Scotland

6 mine entry inspections were carried out

158 surface hazard reports were investigated

54,366 mining reports were delivered

964 planning consultation responses were provided

34 billion litres of water treated

960 tonnes of iron solids were prevented from entering water courses

Financial review

We’ve delivered strongly over the year despite COVID-19 constraints. Our incident response and public safety work has continued to keep people safe and provide peace of mind, and ongoing investment in our schemes will enable us to treat mine water and protect the environment into the future. We have grown our advisory services income as we support our partners to understand and manage their risks and provided information and services to support the housing market throughout the period.

During an uncertain year, we have worked closely with BEIS to communicate the risks and sensitivities behind our funding requirements and have delivered in line with our forecasts. BEIS grant in aid received in the year was £44.1 million (2019-20: £34.8 million) reflecting an increase in the net cost of our operations. This is illustrated on the graphic below. (Note that a significant proportion of this cost was provided for in previous years as explained at note 13 of the financial statements and is not charged directly to the Statement of Comprehensive Net Expenditure in the year).

How we used our money in 2020-21

2019-20 figures are shown in brackets.

Our spend £60.2 million (in 2019-20 - £54.1 million)

• Operation and public safety £13.3 million ((in 2019-20 - £12.0 million)

• Operations mine water treatment schemes £14.4 million (in 2019-20 - £12.6 million)

• Operations subsidence pumping stations £1.0 million (in 2019-20 - £1.6 million)

• Development: Planning, licensing, permissions and property £4.1 million (in 2019-20 - £3.2 million)

• Data and information £3.9 million (in 2019-20 - £4.2 million)

• Commercial £8.9 million (in 2019-20 - £9.1 million)

• Innovation £0.9 million (in 2019-20 - £0.9 million)

• Mine water treatment schemes (CAPITAL) £10.9 million (in 2019-20 - £8.2 million)

• Subsidence pumping stations (CAPITAL) £0.4 million (in 2019-20 - £1.3 million)

• Other (CAPITAL) £2.4 million (in 2019-20 - £1.0 million)

Our income £60.2 million (in 2019-20 - £54.1 million)

• Grant in aid (BEIS) £44.1 million (in 2019-20 - £34.8 million)

• Mining reports £7.9 million (in 2019-20 - £9.5 million)

• Advisory and technical £6.0 million (in 2019-20 - £5.3 million)

• By-products and other commercial innovation £0.2 million (in 2019-20 - £0.1 million)

• Operator licensing / permissions £0.8 million (in 2019-20 - £0.8 million)

• Data licensing £1.2 million (in 2019-20 - £1.0 million)

• Property related £0.7 million (in 2019-20 - £1.4 million)

• Public safety management fee and other £0.1 million (in 2019-20 - £0.2 million)

• Working capital movement -£0.8 million (in 2019-20 - £1.0 million)

Income of £16.9 million per the Statement of comprehensive net expenditure is the total of the Income figures above excluding grant in aid and working capital movement.

Despite a pause in our capital programmes because of initial COVID-19 restrictions, by reprioritising our work and adopting COVID safe working practices, with our partners we delivered our largest ever annual capital programme to protect watercourses and drinking aquifers. We also increased expenditure to ensure the effective operation of a growing and ageing number of mine water and subsidence pumping schemes. Our ongoing capital refurbishment and innovation programmes will minimise the future cost of running these schemes and during the year we saved £3.7 million by employing innovative uses for our by-products and by generating other operational efficiencies.

Our expenditure on public safety has increased during the period reflecting a number of significant claims and incidents and includes our support of the emergency response and ongoing work to remediate the mining feature at Skewen, South Wales. An increase in our Development team’s expenditure is driven by work at Clipstone, Nottinghamshire, where we are treating the mineshafts at a legacy site to enable its safe redevelopment for the community.

Our mining reports income decreased year on year primarily due to a severe reduction of income at the beginning of the COVID restrictions with a strong recovery back to expected levels by the end of the period. Our advisory services work generated income of £6.0 million (a significant increase on 2019-20’s £5.3 million). This reflects success in delivering with other government organisations including mine water schemes for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs in England and Natural Resources Wales, and supporting Welsh Government with the safe management of tips.

Financial statements

Our accounts are dominated by the provisions balance of £2,529.0 million. The rationale and methodology for calculating this are shown at note 13 to the accounts. As in previous years and in line with our accounting policy, this provision for resolving the impacts of past coal mining was reviewed at the end of the year (2020-21). This balance has risen by £223.0 million (2019-20: increase of £9.0 million), largely the result of the inclusion of 2 new preventative schemes and the continuing pressure on the cost of operating our schemes. In line with accounting practice we adjust our cashflows to reflect the time value of money based on assumptions and discount rates provided by HM Treasury. These rates were relatively stable this year, resulting in a reduction in the provisions balance of only £15.0 million (2019-20: reduction of £96.0 million).

Statement of comprehensive net expenditure

Comprehensive net expenditure for the year to 31 March 2021 was £260.9 million as compared to £48.0 million in 2019-20. The large difference between the 2 years is driven by the provision movements outlined above. Excluding these provisions movements, comprehensive net expenditure for the year was £16.9 million (2019-20: £20.6 million), a fall of £3.7 million.

The reasons behind this movement are outlined below.

Total operating income:

Total operating income, which excludes grant in aid, was £16.9 million (2019-20: £18.3 million) reflecting our ongoing strategies to work collaboratively with government organisations to support them in managing their risks whilst promoting competition in the mining reports market and enabling others to use our information to make informed decisions.

We’re a long way now from our original near-monopoly position in mining reports, with around 50% market share demonstrating the success of an opening up of the market over the last 6 years. A modest loss of market share during the year combined with the initial effect of COVID-19 on housing and related markets has seen our mining reports revenue drop by £1.6 million to £7.9 million, offset by increased fees of £0.2 million from the sale of our data to external bodies to broaden the market.

Our advisory and technical services income has, however, risen by £0.7 million to £6.0 million, driven mainly by our work with our Welsh partners to safely manage coal tips providing peace of mind to local communities.

The other major difference in our income from 2019-20 is reduced ‘clawback’ income from the sale of properties previously owned by the Coal Authority - £0.6 million compared to £1.1 million in 2019-20. This income is unpredictable and its timing is largely outside our control.

Expenditure:

Staff costs of £15.8 million showed an increase of £0.7 million compared to the previous year as we increased headcount in order to deliver our front line services. 2020-21 also saw the extension of a small number of agency staff contracts to provide resilience in our teams as COVID-19 and related government lockdowns began to affect our work and people.

Purchase of goods and services (not including costs previously provided) dropped by £0.5 million to £8.45 million, including a saving of £0.3 million through reduced travel during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

It is worth mentioning again, in passing, our commitment to incident response. Whilst there was significant spend on a number of incident responses, this spend, whilst having an effect on our cash flows, has not been booked to the Statement of comprehensive net expenditure as it was covered by provisions previously raised against the future cost of managing coal mining legacy. See the section below on cash flow for further information.

Depreciation, revaluation and impairment charges were this year £9.4 million. The 2019-20 charge at £15.0 million was unusually high due to the completion of 2 large schemes which were immediately impaired to nil net book value in line with our accounting policy. Significant capital investment over both years will reduce future costs of maintaining and operating schemes.

Statement of financial position

Net liabilities at £2,519.9 million increased by £216.9 million against 2019-20’s £2,303.0 million. Key factors were:

Provisions against future liabilities increased by £223.0 million as a result of the review in provisions outlined above. Further information is available at note 13 to the accounts.

The increase in property, plant and equipment balances of £3.9 million to £13.0 million, is driven mainly by land purchases for mine water schemes (£2.4 million) and ongoing scheme expenditure within our “assets under construction” balance (£1.1 million) as well as expenditure of £0.6 million to refurbish Head Office buildings.

Intangible assets have risen slightly by £0.3 million reflecting ongoing investment in our information technology and systems.

Continued focus on disposing of surplus property resulted in a £0.4 million drop in the combined value of properties held for investment and those held for sale after the sale of surplus land in the North East of England.

Although our underlying receivables balance has remained broadly consistent year on year, the carrying balance has risen by £0.4 million including the removal of certain provisions against bad debts (‘expected credit losses’) once the reduced economic uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic on our customers was better understood.

Cash and cash equivalents stand at £10.8 million (2019-20: £5.1 million): see the section below on cash flow for details on movements.

Trade and other payables have seen a significant increase of £3.8 million, with 2 main drivers: an increase in accruals of £4.8 million for public safety expenditure and capital expenditure on mine water schemes offset by a reduction of £1.0 million in the security balances carried to discharge liabilities relating to industry claims.

Cash flow

There was a net increase in cash during the year of £5.7 million. Constituent parts of this movement were:

The receipt of £44.1 million grant in aid from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (2019-20: £34.8 million). The increase, which is the major movement in our cash balance year on year, is drawdown to cover working capital relating to 2 main areas: settling public safety incidents and our capital programmes, in line with the commentary on accruals above.

A net cash outflow from operating activities of £27.9 million (2019-20: £25.1 million). We have spent more this year on our operations, particularly the emergency response in Skewen, South Wales, though also at incidents in Scotland and South Yorkshire and on settling our legacy commitment at Clipstone Colliery.

A net cash outflow from investing activities of £10.5 million (2019-20: £10.6 million). This relates to the purchase of property, plant and equipment as part of our ongoing programme to develop and build mine water treatment schemes and subsidence pumping stations, and in the ongoing investment in our information technology and systems. The increased investment is partly offset by £0.9 million of receipts (2019-20: £1.1 million) from the sale of properties owned or previously owned by the Coal Authority.

At 31 March 2021 we held £10.8 million cash (2019: £5.1 million). This includes £2.2 million (2019: £2.9 million) of ring fenced funds in respect of security called in from mining operators that have been liquidated. The movement in called in security is used to discharge these industry claim liabilities as part of our operating activities.

Going concern

To the extent that they are not met from our other sources of income, our liabilities may only be met by future grants or grants in aid from our sponsor department BEIS. This is because, under the normal conventions applying to parliamentary control over income and expenditure, such grants may not be issued in advance of need.

Paragraph 14(1) of Schedule 1 to the Coal Industry Act 1994, states: “The Secretary of State shall, in respect of each accounting year, pay to the Coal Authority such amount as he may determine to be the amount required by the Coal Authority for the carrying out during that year of its functions under this Act.”

On that basis, the board has a reasonable expectation that we’ll continue to receive funding so as to be able to meet our liabilities. We’ve therefore prepared our accounts on a going concern basis.

Our people

The last year has been difficult, challenging and at times heart breaking for everyone. Our focus on wellbeing has allowed colleagues to balance delivery with care for their loved ones and by prioritising work we have protected services that most impact the lives, health and wellbeing of our customers.

The dedication of our people has stood out across the year. Much of our 24/7 incident response work requires us to be present in communities and supporting people face to face and the commitment of our staff has enabled this to happen safely - and allowed us to provide additional support to those have needed to evacuate or sell their home to us during the pandemic.

We quickly adapted our ways of working so that most people could work from home and those working in communities could do so confidently in a COVID-19 safe way. We also recognised that not everyone feels safe or able to work from home and created a COVID-19 safe working environment in the office for those who preferred to be based there. We prioritised staff engagement to ensure that everyone felt supported and was clear about our direction and priorities and encouraged colleagues to share things that helped them cope and made them happy alongside working together to deliver for our customers.

Following an IT upgrade in 2019-20 we had surplus laptops and IT equipment that would have been recycled or disposed of once all the information had been securely wiped. We provided most of these to a local charitable campaign, #makingITpossible, which helps tackle the digital divide by distributing reconditioned IT equipment to children and young people in the Mansfield and Ashfield area. We also loaned 20 of these laptops to colleagues whose home IT equipment was insufficient to support home schooling commitments.

We also enabled some staff to volunteer for the NHS / local charities to support their communities during the pandemic.

We have taken lots of learning from working differently and are now developing a plan for our ‘new normal’ ways of working which will be more flexible and blended than we were before and help us to employ more people across coalfield areas which we hope will allow us to attract more diverse talent and to be more representative of the range of communities that we serve.

We’ve continued to invest in the development of our people and have developed an online platform to support this, including topics such as health and wellbeing, equality and diversity, leadership and management. We launched a new online ‘on boarding’ programme to support new starters and have received great feedback from those who have joined us.

We’ve continued to make progress on the actions identified in the 2019 people survey but have needed to prioritise in some areas to achieve the urgent changes mentioned previously. Our commitment remains and further work will take place this year including developing our next long term business plan to give greater corporate direction and rolling out more technical competency frameworks.

We supported Anti-Bullying week in November 2020 and continue to reinforce the importance of dignity and respect at work for all.

Our Staff Engagement Group and growing number of diversity, inclusion and wellbeing groups and networks create a range of safe spaces for people to raise concerns or ideas and to feel supported.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion has continued. We now have a diversity and inclusion steering group to support our networks and drive progress against our plan and priorities. We have delivered tangible improvements such as a new approach to recruitment, more inclusive policies as they are reviewed and sharing regular perspectives and reflections on anti-racism. We have worked with other organisations such as HS2, the Intellectual Property Office, Bristol Water and other public bodies through the Association of Chief Executives to share learning and seek best practice. We have recently become members of the IEMA Sustainable Diversity Initiative and look forward to working with others to drive progress on diversity and inclusion, especially on race, across the environmental sector.

Our 2019-20 Gender Pay Gap report showed that our mean and median gender pay gaps have reduced by 1.94% and 5% respectively. We have seen more women coming into the organisation in higher grades and more women being promoted through our internal process which suggests the work we have been doing on anonymous recruitment and on mentoring, coaching and leadership development is starting to work. We know that the gap (mean 19.97% median 26.49%) is still too high and have much more to do.

Read more about our next steps to make progress across all aspect of diversity and inclusions for our staff and customers in our new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2021-2024

Health, safety and wellbeing

We have always put the health safety and wellbeing of our people, customers, partners and supply chain at the heart of what we do but this has never been more clearly felt than during the past year.

We’ve talked elsewhere in this report about our move to home working and support for the mental health and wellbeing of our people. This was supported by more training on DSE and by access to resilience and wellbeing webinars, group coaching sessions and to private counselling for them and their families through our employee assistance programme. Our mental health first aiders also played an important role.

Just before the first lockdown in 2020 we had begun to replace the heating and air conditioning systems in our Mansfield office. The project was quickly reassessed and adjusted to maximise flexible working options and include additional COVID-19 security measures.

Following the first lockdown, where many of our contractors had to furlough staff, we worked with our supply chain to ensure that everyone was trained and ready to come back onto site and developed a COVID checklist for all sites. HSW observations are reduced as less people have been on site but we’ve continued key inspections and audits to ensure work is happening safely and have reviewed our near miss and accident reporting process to improve escalation and learning.

In 2021-22 we will publish our new Health and Safety Plan (to complement our existing Wellbeing Plan) and develop a new system to enable better reporting and communication of our health, safety and wellbeing data.

Measure	2020-21	2019-20
HS&W observations – unsafe acts (staff and contractors)	959	3,051
HS&W observations – good practice examples (staff and contractors)	320	324
HS&W inspections (staff)	140	412
Accidents – no time lost (staff)	6	5
Accidents – time lost (staff)	0	0
Incidents – Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR)	0	2

Sustainability and the environment

We’ve established a baseline position for our simpler to identify emissions and are working on the more complex so that we can finalise a clear plan for us to achieve net zero carbon by 2030.

We’ve identified the areas that can make the greatest difference and aspects where we need to undertake more research to make significant progress. We’re embedding sustainability into all aspects of our decision making and are working with partners including the Environment Agency and Severn Trent Services and across our supply chain to learn and share best practicing areas like construction, pumping, chemical and water use. We know that we need to significantly increase the amount of renewable power we generate we will develop a focused plan for that this year.

We will evolve our Sustainability Plan to maximise outcomes for people and wildlife from our sites. This year we have undertaken desk based assessments of the biodiversity on each of our sites and this will be tested through site based evaluations during 2021-22.

We’ve taken learning from working differently over the last year and will use this to inform our future approaches. We have much more to do but we’re committed to real progress over the years ahead.

Sustainability drivers	2020-21	2019-20
Carbon emissions from mine water operations CO2e (tonnes)	2,858	3,753
Carbon emissions from head office CO2e (tonnes)	97	216
Carbon intensity - business travel (tCO2e/100,000km)	17.2	15.8
Water usage m3	478	1,145

Our data shows that we’ve continued to make progress on our sustainability drivers, although the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we do our essential work. Home working has greatly reduced our head office carbon emissions and water usage. However our business travel carbon emissions have increased slightly through the need to take more carbon intense car journeys rather than rail travel during the pandemic. Through our new Sustainability Plan we will focus our sustainability drivers and reporting to measure progress against our new targets.

Case study: Our work in England

We’re committed to promoting thriving wildlife and resilient nature across our sites and to providing safe access to our green spaces for local people wherever we can. We’ve been working with partners through the Nature Recovery Network in England to better understand and enhance the habitats across our estate.

Working with students from Hull University we have looked at the diversity of birds visiting two of our mine water treatment sites. This work showed that these mine water treatment schemes create an important mosaic of habitats including grasslands, reed bed and swamp, open water, woodland and scrub. Twelve species listed on the British Ornithological Trust’s list of Birds of Conservation Concern were found during these surveys. This shows that our mine water treatment sites have the potential to offer far more environmental benefits than just clean water alone.

The learning from this exercise is being used across our network of sites, not just in England but across the rest of Britain. Our estate includes 290 hectares of mine water treatment sites and 690 hectares of disused coal tips. Detailed habitat and species information will also help to inform where we can make changes to further enhance biodiversity, such as changing grass cutting activities to encourage more wildflowers and providing more food sources for bees, butterflies and beetles. This increased understanding will also help us better design future schemes to prioritise community access and nature alongside renewable energy and the protection of drinking water, rivers and marine environments.

Our year in England

7,762 mine entry inspections were carried out

324 surface hazard reports were investigated

126,081 mining reports were delivered

5,525 planning consultation responses were provided

71 billion litres of water treated

3,200 tonnes of iron solids were prevented from entering water courses

This performance report, has been approved by the chief executive and accounting officer.

Lisa Pinney MBE Chief Executive and Accounting Officer, 1 July 2021