Corporate report

The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2021 to 2022: Performance report

Updated 20 December 2022

1. Overview

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

1.1 Our mission

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

1.2 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 work with BEIS and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to deliver on UK government priorities including the transition to net zero, levelling up and climate and nature action – supporting a sustainable path for the future.

We also 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 safer, cleaner and greener nations for us all.

1.3 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.

1.4 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 very open minded and innovative
• we recognise that the past can help us shape the future
• we listen and learn

2. The work we do

During 2021 to 2022, across the 3 nations we serve:

2.1 Kept people safe and provided peace of mind

10,148 mine entry inspections carried out

493 surface hazard reports investigated

330 subsidence damage claims assessed

2.2 Used our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions

196,332 mining reports delivered

1,775 permits to intersect coal issued

10,292 planning consultation responses provided

2.3 Created value and minimised cost to the taxpayer

£2.9 million saved by recycling reedbed material

£6.4 million of income generated through our advisory services

77% of removed iron solids recycled

2.4 Protected and enhanced the environment

128 billion litres of water treated

40,816m² of our 350,000m² reed beds replaced

3,934 tonnes of iron solids prevented from entering water courses

3. Chair’s foreword

I’ve really enjoyed my first year as chair of the Coal Authority and am pleased to introduce our 2021 to 2022 annual report. I’ve enjoyed getting under the skin of the organisation and spending time out on site seeing our practical delivery on the ground, helping communities who have been impacted by mining legacy.

I’m particularly excited to see how opportunities, such as mine water heating, are coming to life to support the net zero carbon, levelling up, and energy security policies of the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments, as we all build back from the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This year we have developed our new business plan which will run from April 2022 to March 2025. This sets out what we will do and how we will do it.

Our previous plan was written to last from 2018 to 2023 but the board decided to progress our new plan earlier for a number of reasons. These include the progress we’ve made against the previous plan, the changing context that we all live and operate in, and the opportunity to align with the UK government’s latest spending review.

This new business plan is set in the context of a 10 year vision which has helped us to focus our thinking in the longer term – particularly in our response to the climate crisis, and to support the net zero carbon ambitions of the 3 nations’ governments that we serve.

We will continue our focus to demonstrate social and environmental value alongside economic effectiveness, which is something that I take a particular interest in. Over the last year I’ve been pleased to see this coming through even more strongly – for example the work done in Midlothian

During 2021 to 2022 we have seen a significant increase in the awareness of, and demand for, mine water heating across Great Britain. This has included mainstream media such as Countryfile, and the One Show, and widespread engagement with MPs and local authorities, including an event at the House of Commons in October 2021.

Similar events in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd are being planned for 2022 to 2023. Gateshead Council’s first mine water heat scheme has been built and will be online providing heat to 1,250 homes later this year. We will continue to work with BEIS, the devolved governments, and partners, to expand the opportunity of heat networks and make a real contribution to achieving net zero carbon.

When reading our accounts you’ll notice that our provisions balance, reflecting the future cost of resolving the impacts of past coal mining, has changed again this year, increasing by £3.1 billion from £2.5 billion to £5.6 billion at March 2022.

This balance is calculated by applying HM Treasury assumptions on the time-value of money to a forecast of cash flows at today’s prices. Our forecast of these underlying cash flows has increased by £0.3 billion to £2.8 billion, primarily reflecting an increase in the number and expected costs of building and operating mine water treatment schemes, and with some consideration for the impacts of climate change. We expect the impacts of climate change adaptation to increase the provisions over time as we undertake more research, and will continue to work to offset costs through efficiencies and our innovation programme.

The operational increases included this year are small compared with changes to the HM Treasury discount rates which increase the financial provision by more than £2.8 billion. You can find more information on this in the financial review.

I hope you’ll see in this report that sustainability, nature recovery, and resilience remain central to our work, and to our next business plan. We are building this into all of the decisions that we make about our work and remain committed to lowering our own carbon footprint to reach net zero by 2030. As a 24/7 response organisation we see first-hand the impacts of extreme weather and the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

We are also the government delivery body that is responsible for licensing what remains of the coal mining industry. In doing this we have to follow the specific tests set out in the 1994 Coal Industry Act and take account of policy from the UK and Welsh governments (for coal licensing) and the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments (through planning policy).

Some of our decisions in implementing the Coal Industry Act have been high profile over the past year. We recognise that this is a politically and publicly sensitive area and we continue to be thoughtful, listen to feedback and provide practical, operational information to government to help them to balance the policy judgements that they need to make.

I am pleased with the engagement we have done to work even more closely with emergency response partners to raise better awareness of our 24/7 incident response capability and of legacy mining hazards. This has led to the Cabinet Office recommending, following their review of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, that we should be made a category 2 responder. This recognises that 29 of the 42 local resilience forum areas across England and Wales, and all 3 regional resilience partnerships in Scotland, are either on the coalfield or have notable metal mine risks.

Our work to protect people, drinking water and the environment from mining hazards will remain central to our approach as we continue to grow and evolve, and I have seen first-hand during my time with the Coal Authority the importance of our emergency work with others – including at Skewen in Neath Port Talbot, Wales; Workington in Cumbria, England; and Saltcoats in Ayrshire, Scotland, over the past year. Customer and community engagement and support is a crucial part of any response and we have developed our resilience and capability here, learning from feedback and from partners.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the commitment and hard work of colleagues at the Coal Authority. 2021 to 2022 was a further year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently cost of living pressures, inflation and the Ukraine crisis have been additional pressures at work and at home. Our focus on wellbeing and being a ‘great place to work for everyone’ remains, and we have taken learning from the pandemic to become a more flexible, fair and inclusive organisation.

In closing I must note that in March 2022 we said goodbye to Gemma Pearce after 6 years’ brilliant service as a non-executive director, and chair of our human resources and remuneration committee. Gemma added great value to the Coal Authority and has been instrumental to the advances we have made in becoming more innovative and dynamic. I would like to thank Gemma for her efforts and for the support she has provided to me personally through my first year. I am delighted to welcome David Brooks to the board as a successor to Gemma and look forward to working with him.

Jeff Halliwell, chair

4. Chief executive’s report

This year has been one of learning, evolving and looking to the future while continuing to deliver strongly, respond to and recover from incidents working closely with our partners, supply chain and the local communities. I am grateful to our people who have continued to work through the uncertainty and additional challenges posed by COVID-19 with passion and dedication to support communities and deliver real outcomes on the ground to help make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas across Great Britain.

Our strong operational delivery has continued. We have responded to 493 reported surface hazards and 330 damage claims and kept our 76 mine water treatment schemes working whilst continuing to monitor high risk areas for pollution and develop further schemes for the future.

Our work on metal mine pollution clear up with Defra and the Environment Agency in England and Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales in Wales continues to expand, making a real contribution to river quality. For example the Nent Haggs mine water scheme in the Pennines, England will improve water quality in 60km of rivers by capturing 3 tonnes of zinc and cadmium each year.

We’ve continued to work as part of the Welsh government’s ‘tip taskforce’ to ensure that higher risk sites have been regularly inspected and maintenance work done. We led the remediation of a slip at Wattstown Tip (Rhondda Cynon Taff, Wales), continued to support Rhonda Cynon Taff Council with their tip remediation at Tylorstown and led technology trials including movement sensors and work with the UK Space Agency and other partners to use satellite capability to detect moisture content.

Emergency and community response remains at the core of our work. We have continued our work at Skewen, South Wales with the community, Neath Port Talbot Council and other partners to assist their recovery from the mine water flooding incident in January 2021 and to complete a new mine water management scheme.

In September 2021, a rapid subsidence event occurred beneath 2 blocks of flats in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland, which required the evacuation of 8 families. We supported emergency partners in the initial response, arranged for the rapid demolition of the properties to prevent further risk and have worked with those affected, the wider community and North Ayrshire Council to support the residents and provide practical and financial support to help them move forwards with their lives.

While delivering and dealing with incidents we have ensured that we have listened to feedback, taken learning and developed our organisation and our capabilities to be even more professional and robust for future challenges. We have delivered structural change and recruited a new director of Community and Emergency Response, whose teams are already delivering more community focused and resilient approaches.

As Jeff says we have also worked with BEIS and the Cabinet Office to become recognised as a category 2 response organisation under ongoing reforms to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and know that this will allow us to work even more closely and effectively with emergency partners and increase awareness of mining risk and what can be done to mitigate it and protect life, homes, drinking water and the environment.

In our last annual report I made a number of commitments for 2021 to 22 and we have made clear progress on each:

• we have further developed our incident and emergency response resilience capabilities with a new dedicated Community and Emergency Response Directorate who support our operations and other colleagues to ensure that we are professional and resilient and who lead our engagement with other emergency responders through Local Resilience Forum/Regional Resilience Partnership engagement

• we have developed a new Critical Incident Plan, building on learning and feedback from major incidents that we’ve been involved with, and designed a new Minesafe awareness programme for emergency response organisations and other partners

• we have made further progress on our journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 by baselining our emissions and identifying particular challenges which need additional investigation – our new sustainability plan will be published shortly showing our targets and journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030

• we have developed a pipeline of 15 mine water heat projects with councils and private enterprises to enable locally produced, low carbon heating for coal mining communities and the Gateshead scheme will begin heating homes later this year

• we have done more work to assess the risk from climate change and more extreme weather to our assets and developed a plan for further, targeted research to inform key aspects of our work

• we have developed our next long term business plan to set the direction of the organisation, in support of the 3 governments we serve, for the next 3 years in line with the UK Government Spending Review – the plan sits within a 10 year vision for our work, and we are grateful for the input of colleagues, customers and partners in developing this

Supporting customers and communities and delivering operational outcomes is at the heart of our new business plan and the thematic plans (sustainability, customer, people and so on) that underpin it. The plan is clear that this must be achieved sustainably and by creating social and environmental benefits and value alongside economic income.

The plan also describes how we will work, reinforcing our commitment to being a ‘great place to work for everyone’ and showing the practical steps that we need to take – including in the digital space – to be truly fit for the future. Our business plan includes clear and challenging targets and priorities over the three years so that we are transparent and accountable. Our 2022 to 2023 annual report and accounts will report on the first year of our progress against these.

In 2019, I described the Coal Authority as a small organisation with a big remit and great people. We’ve grown since then while taking on even wider responsibilities, services and delivery across Great Britain. What hasn’t changed are the great people who make our work possible and I continue to be proud to lead and support them to make a difference every day. Together we have learnt from working differently through the pandemic and are a more flexible and dynamic workplace for it which leads to better service for our customers.

We will continue our focus on wellbeing and inclusion to ensure that we are an organisation where diverse and talented people want to work and so that everyone who works for or with us feels that they can be themselves and belong to a values-led organisation that makes a difference.

To solve the complex challenges ahead we need to find, retain, develop and support great people across Great Britain who can work with others to find solutions.

Lisa Pinney MBE, chief executive and accounting officer

5. Our work in Wales

Working with the Welsh Government and a range of Welsh partners, we have managed critical maintenance work on a disused coal tip to reduce the risk of a further tip waste slip.

Coal tips in Wales are often located on steep sloping hillsides and mountains. Wattstown tip is a disused coal tip located in the Rhondda valley, constructed in the late 19th century using waste material from the nearby Wattstown Colliery.

Tipping in this area finished in the early 1930s and the site eventually naturally grassed over and returned to nature. In recent years there have been minor movements on the tip but following the storms in March and December 2020, a visibly larger part of the tip slipped leading to spoil waste moving down the hillside. Following investigations, it was confirmed this was a shallow surface slip, caused by the heavy rainfall and poor drainage on the steep side of the tip.

The Welsh Government and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council called us in to design a scheme that would protect the exposed part of the tip and prevent further movement over the short to medium term until a final decision regarding the wider site in general is agreed.

To support the work we undertook a number of specialist drone surveys to fully understand the situation and inform our thinking. Our Engineering team were then able to design a programme that would protect the bare slopes and enable vegetation growth that will, over time, help bind the surface.

Due to the steep location of the site, we worked with our contractors to establish a specialist rope access system and along with the use of a spider excavator, we were able to successfully install 3,000m² of erosion control matting across the entire affected area. This was secured in place by 3,000 primary anchors and 9,000 secondary anchors. This specially designed matting will help protect the site and the tip will be part of a long-term coal tip safety regime being implemented in Wales. Work started in October 2021 and was finished in January 2022.

To support communities around and below disused tips and provide reassurance, we provide a 24/7 tips helpline on 0800 021 9230.

5.1 Our year in Wales

2,409 mine entry inspections carried out

103 surface hazard reports investigated

15,320 mining reports delivered

1,525 planning consultation responses provided

15 billion litres of water treated

423 tonnes of iron solids prevented from entering water courses

6. Our performance

We are 4 years through our current 5 year plan and we’ve made good progress, setting the foundations to create a more sustainable organisation able to deliver our mission for years to come. The sections below set out progress made in the year against the key elements of this plan.

Because of the progress we’ve made against this previous plan, the changing context that we all live and operate in, and the opportunity to align with the UK Government’s latest Spending Review, we have published our new business plan.

6.1 Our people

We have continued to focus on encouraging and enabling our people to prioritise their mental health and wellbeing through the COVID-19 pandemic and associated challenges. We worked with colleagues to develop a new hybrid working framework that balances flexibility with office and collaborative working and ensures that we can continue to effectively respond to incidents and deliver for customers on the ground.

We have developed and published our Great Place to Work for Everyone plan with input from colleagues and partners. This sets out further work to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation to ensure that we can recruit and retain great people and work effectively and respectfully with the communities we serve.

We have continued to invest in learning and development through our leadership programmes and through technical training and continual professional development.

We undertook a pulse people survey to show what progress we have made since the last full survey in 2019 and ahead of the people survey planned for 2022 and 87% of colleagues responded. We’ve made good progress on work life balance and line of sight between individuals and the organisation’s objectives and we continue to focus on understanding and addressing bullying and harassment in all its forms and on ensuring that everyone feels safe to report any concerns.

6.2 Customers and stakeholders

Customers, and our practical delivery work, remain at the core of our approach and we have continued to develop staff, listen to feedback and evolve our approaches to deliver improved service for all our customers and particularly those impacted by coal mining subsidence or hazards.

We have continued to provide dedicated support to the community in Skewen, South Wales, following the significant mine water flooding incident in January 2021. We’ve worked closely with Neath Port Talbot Council, other partners, local councillors, MSs and MPs to provide information, regular newsletters, briefings and meetings.

Through our Skewen Policy we have provided practical help and support with clean up, drainage and restoring 58 garden and outdoor spaces.

We’ve stabilised the damaged mining features and built a new mine water management scheme to provide peace of mind for the future. We’ve also worked closely with the Association of British Insurers and provided information for insurers and financial institutions to improve understanding of the event.

We took the learning from Skewen and developed a new approach for holistic community support following a significant or major incident. We used this to support those impacted by an incident in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland where 8 flats subsided requiring urgent evacuation. Our focus was on resident welfare and support and we worked closely with North Ayrshire Council and other partners to provide a joined up approach.

We’ve continued to work closely with Welsh Government, local authorities and other partners on the tips taskforce using our expertise to ensure that higher risk tips are regularly inspected and maintained and trialling innovative technologies to inform future approaches. We managed work at Wattstown tip (Rhondda Cyon Taff, Wales) to stabilise the tip face. We’ve inputted to the Law Commission review of coal tip regulation in Wales and welcome the long term approach for tip management which should help to provide greater reassurance for local communities.

We have responded to 823 mining hazards and claims such as subsidence, mine gas or shaft collapses and taken action as needed. We have continued to work closely with Local Resilience Fora in England and Wales and Regional Resilience Partnerships in Scotland to increase awareness of mining legacy, provide training and advice and to support incident response. We welcome the Cabinet Office’s recommendation for us to become a category 2 responder under their review of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.

Our mine water remediation programmes continue to monitor mine water quality, develop, design and build new schemes and maintain existing schemes to protect drinking water, rivers and the sea from pollution. We deliver our BEIS-funded coal programme across Great Britain and metal mine programmes in England for Defra and the Environment Agency and in Wales for Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales. We are treating 6 billion more litres of mine water than this time last year and this will continue to increase as we work with partners and our supply chain to deliver further schemes over the years ahead.

We’ve continued to provide information and services to help developers, mortgage lenders and property owners understand and manage the risks from past coal mining appropriately and recognising our role to repair many types of coal mining damage. We provided 196,332 mining reports to support the housing market, delivered 1,775 permits for developers to undertake ground investigations on the coalfield and responded to 10,292 local authority planning consultations.

We have strongly promoted the potential of mine water heat over the year including a ministerial event at Seaham Garden Village, a House of Commons event for MPs, a public webinar and significant local and national media coverage. We’ve worked closely with local politicians, councils and developers and the devolved nations to strengthen the pipeline of potential schemes and have supported Gateshead Council to develop their mine water heat network which will be operational in 2022 providing heat to 1,250 homes.

6.3 Internal processes

We have learnt from the emergency incidents that we manage and created our new Community and Emergency Response Directorate, strengthening our 24/7/365 incident response capability.

We have further developed our technology and IT infrastructure to support hybrid and effective working, to support teams to collaborate and work together and with partners – wherever they are located.

We continue to improve our governance framework to reflect our growing and increasingly complex organisation. We have embedded a new risk management and assurance framework which is promoting more conversations on risk and an even stronger risk management culture.

We have further developed our counter fraud awareness and continued to deliver our counter fraud action plan. We have strengthened our cyber risk policies, planning and testing using both technical upgrades and staff awareness programmes to minimise our exposure to cyber attack.

Our project management professionals have established a community of practice and produced a change and enhancement roadmap to improve the consistency of project management across the organisation while ensuring it is dynamic and can flex based on scale and risk.

We have strengthened our assessment and approach to tackling modern slavery within our supply chain and have published our first modern slavery statement. We have increasingly embedded environmental and social value into our procurement decisions.

6.4 Managing our money

We’ve continued to work closely with BEIS, our sponsor department, so they understand our financial risks and opportunities and help ensure that we deliver our programmes and activities in line with agreed control totals.

A significant proportion of our expenditure spend is reactive and driven by emergency incidents and public safety and subsidence events and we dealt with a number of significant and complicated events during the year. This led to an agreed increase of funding during the year, from £44.1 million to £53.2 million.

Working with partners we off-set our costs through generating income. We generated £6.4 million income from our advisory services and by-products using our expertise to help other government organisations manage their risks and to create opportunities from mining legacy.

We exceeded our capital income targets, raising £2.7 million from clawback and asset disposals against a target of £0.7 million, offsetting the capital expenditure needed to treat mine water and flooding due to subsidence.

7. 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, ensuring we:

• manage the risks associated with mining
• create value and minimise cost to the taxpayer
• deliver on our commitments
• apply our unique expertise, experience and approach

8. Our business plan

We have published our new 3 year business plan set against a 10 year vision. This explains how we will make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas. Our plan is underpinned by our values and focussed on delivering for the communities we serve.

8.1 Deliver for the communities we serve

The Coal Authority is a practical operational organisation, which delivers a number of core, statutory duties across Great Britain to help keep people, drinking water and the environment safe from the impacts of our mining legacy.

This includes 24/7 incident response capacity. We are committed to doing this in a customer and community focused way. We act with integrity, do what we say we will and listen and learn so that we can continually improve. Working with and through other partners we can provide a joined up response and maximise the outcome that can be delivered. This helps us to deliver on our mission to ‘make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas’.

8.2 Ensure sustainability

We’re committed to becoming a more sustainable organisation, and want to use our work to help deliver positive change in the communities we support. This includes real consideration of environmental and social sustainability and factoring this thinking into our decision making and reporting.

To do this we will work with others, sharing learnings and taking practical action to move towards our ambition to be a net zero organisation by 2030 as our board have committed to. We will continue taking action to decarbonise our activities and maximise carbon sequestration at our sites. We will also take action to support resilient nature and wildlife by managing our sites and estate in the best way possible.

8.3 Work with others to create value

Value creation – financial, environmental and social – is key to our thinking at the Coal Authority and we are constantly looking for new innovations and efficiency to deliver better outcomes, new opportunities and/or savings for the taxpayer.

We’re passionate about past mining communities both on the coalfield and beyond and use our information, skills and expertise to give confidence to those who live and work in these areas and to enable opportunity and benefit where possible from our mining legacy.

8.4 Create a great place to work

Great people are at the heart of what we do and we can only deliver the important work we do to keep people safe, protect the environment and maximise opportunity if we can attract, recruit and retain them.

To do that we have to be a truly great place to work that attracts diverse talent across all parts of Great Britain and helps them to feel valued and respected with the opportunity to grow and develop.

We want to be an employer of choice that is vibrant, dynamic and modern and promotes an inclusive, wellbeing centred culture underpinned by our values.

8.5 Make us fit for the future

We’ve set out a high level of ambition through our vision and this first 3 year business plan. We have to enable these ambitions through effective and customer focused systems and approaches which support us to provide the core services that keep people safe, the opportunities we have to create value and the need to deliver environmental and social sustainability.

We will design and drive a digitally enabled programme from the perspective of our people and our customers to support a ‘One Coal Authority’ culture and make us easy to do business with.

8.6 Our business plan scorecard

We will measure and report our progress over the next 3 years using this scorecard

Deliver for the communities we serve

We improve our frontline delivery services for our customers so that we deliver more outcomes and are easier to do business with. By April 2025:

• we will treat an additional 13 billion litres per year of mine water to prevent pollution of drinking water, rivers or the sea by 2025 – an increase of more than 10% on current volumes (128 billion litres per year)
• we will resolve 90% of subsidence hazards and claims within 12 months
• we will use our information, services and estate to enable 300,000 hectares of regeneration and safe development for local communities in the former coalfields
• we will achieve Service Mark accreditation for our service standards from the Institute of Customer Service

Ensure sustainability

Make further clear progress on our journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 and to deliver wider environmental and social aspects of sustainability. By April 2025:

• we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our estate, operations and travel by 65% from our 2017-2018 baseline
• we will implement integrated reporting that uses evidence based and measured targets to show our commitment and progress on our sustainability goals
• we will understand and recognise the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on our estate and operations with a clearly defined adaptation plan
• we will have a nature recovery plan and will demonstrate how our estate and operations are being optimised for nature’s recovery

Work with others to create value

We will generate more value and deliver wider environmental and social benefit from our assets, services and work. By April 2025:

• we will influence and enable 4 large operational mine water heat schemes across Great Britain
• we will re-use or recycle 95% of the iron ochre and iron solids generated from our mine water treatment schemes to prevent disposal in landfill
• we will increase our service delivery to partners by 30% from our 2021 to 2022 baseline of £2.49 million/year
• we will assist the lending industry in making faster decisions for home buyers on the coalfields

Create a great place to work

We will be an employer of choice where our people feel they can belong. We’ll have an inclusive culture with a strong focus on wellbeing, learning and development. We take pride in delivering important work for the communities we serve and live our values. By April 2025:

• we will make demonstrable progress towards our workforce being more reflective of the diversity of the communities we serve across Great Britain
• we will support levelling up by taking action to improve social mobility and providing apprenticeships for individuals who live on the coalfield and have a family connection to mining
• we will achieve a 5 star rating in the British Safety Council 5 Star Health, Safety and Wellbeing Audit
• we will increase our employee survey engagement score by 10% against the 2019 benchmark of 67%

Make us fit for the future

We will develop modern, resilient systems and processes that are fit for the future, support our people and make it easier for our customers and partners to do business with us. By April 2025:

• we will update 100% of our strategic IT systems and run them in the cloud
• we will make our digital services and information more accessible, relevant and with increased self-serve options – 100% of services will be digital by default and 100% of our new transactional systems will follow GOV.UK service and design standards
• we will make demonstrable progress on implementing systems that allow simpler, improved collaboration within the organisation and with partners
• we will make demonstrable progress in improving our findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data self-assessment ratings.

9. Strategic risks

9.1 Public safety

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)

9.2 Changing climate and extreme weather events

We are unable to adequately understand, adapt to and mitigate the effects of the changing climate and extreme weather events, impacting 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.

We are undertaking a review on the impact of climate change adaptation and extreme weather events on our estate and operations and this will shape our future programmes.

Relative rating

High (increasing)

9.3 Hyper saline mine water

Due to the hyper saline nature and central location of mine water within the Nottinghamshire Coalfield, potential solutions may be complex and require significant additional funding.

Update and mitigation

Recent analysis of our extensive monitoring of the Nottinghamshire coalfield demonstrates that the chemistry of the mine water is extremely challenging and will require additional treatment to that normally undertaken.
Detailed work is now underway to generate and evaluate options for treatment.

Relative rating

High (increasing)

9.4 Supply chain

An increasingly restricted and competitive labour market, inflation and other factors increases pressure on our supply chain leading to a lack of, or increased costs to, materials and contractors required to deliver our strategic objectives.

Update and mitigation

We have good visibility of pipeline work and engage early with our suppliers. We continue to monitor and work with stakeholders to maximise the attractiveness of our opportunities and the resilience of supply chains where possible.

We continue to work closely with BEIS to communicate and manage cost and funding pressures.

Relative rating

High (increasing)

9.5 Recruitment and retention

Economic pressure and uncertainty leads to difficulty recruiting and retaining sufficient capability to deliver our strategic objectives and leads to increased costs and delays to delivery.

Update and mitigation

We have developed and implemented our EDI programme and updated our People Plan and during the year we have continued to refine and develop our new ways of working, with the successful implementation of hybrid working.

During 2022 to 2023 we will develop an integrated plan to refresh our approaches to recruitment, resourcing and apprenticeships. Also please refer to supply chain risk mitigation above.

Relative rating

High (increasing)

9.6 Incidents

The scale or concurrency of critical and major incidents impact on the ability of the Coal Authority to achieve its strategic objectives.

Update and mitigation

We have taken learnings from the emergency incidents that we manage and created our new Community and Emergency Response Directorate, further strengthening our 24/7/365 incident response capability.

We have made the case that the Coal Authority should be a category 2 responder and continue to improve our stakeholder engagement.

Relative rating

High (stable)

9.7 Cyber security failure

World political climate, growing digital dependency, increasingly sophisticated and innovative means of attack leads to a cyber security failure resulting in financial or data loss, disruption to service or damage to reputation.

Update and mitigation

We continually improve our technical controls. We understand that a positive cyber security culture is key in maintaining an effective defence and we have continued to run training campaigns to promote awareness.

Relative rating

Medium (increasing)

9.8 Devolution

Further devolution and differing priorities of the three nations leads to increased policy differences between the UK, Scottish and Welsh Government in areas relevant to our work, causing inefficiency, uncertainty or reputational impacts.

Update and mitigation

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)

9.9 Data and information

Due to lack of resource or prioritisation of investment, we do not evolve our authoritative data quickly enough, leading to an inability to deliver against our strategic objectives and create value.

Update and mitigation

During the year we have begun a new data improvement programme which we will continue to develop.
We are building our fit for the future programme – and we will publish a detailed data and information plan in June 2023.

Relative rating

Medium (stable)

9.10 Public and partner awareness

Ineffective stakeholder engagement and communication strategy leads to stakeholders not having a clear understanding of our remit and activities leading to lost opportunities to improve outcomes on the coalfield and for communities.

Update and mitigation

We have made the case strongly that the Coal Authority should be a category 2 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to BEIS and Cabinet Office and this has been recommended by the Cabinet Office in their CCA04 post implementation report (2022).

We will continue to improve our stakeholder engagement to Local Resilience Forums and Regional Resilience Partnerships covering the coalfield, and further strengthen our Stakeholder Engagement plans, embedding these within project delivery processes.

Relative rating

Medium (stable)

9.11 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 cost savings and value creation.

Update and mitigation

We continue to identify innovative uses for our byproducts and generate operational efficiencies. We continue to undertake research and development, develop our licensing processes, and work with partners to progress opportunities for mine water energy schemes.

We collaborate with our sponsor department BEIS, British Geological Survey and other organisations to maximise our success.

Relative rating

Medium (stable)

10. Our work in Scotland

We regularly review and refurbish our existing mine water treatment schemes to make sure they continue to protect drinking water aquifers, rivers and streams from pollution and enhance the environment and area for local people.

Over the past year, we’ve refurbished our mine water treatment scheme on the site of the former Polkemmet Colliery, near Whitburn in West Lothian. The scheme was originally built in 1997 and is a semi-passive scheme which means that the mine water is pumped to the surface and then flows by gravity through the scheme which consists of 3 lagoons and a reed bed. A small amount of hydrogen peroxide is then added to help settle out the iron solids before the water discharges into Cultrig Burn – the local watercourse.

The scheme manages rising water levels within the Polkemmet mining block (approximately 100km²) which is part of the West Lothian coalfield. Without our intervention the mine water would make its way through old coal workings and break out near the River Almond causing pollution and impact to local invertebrates, fish and other wildlife.

Over the past few years we have seen more extreme weather and higher rainfall in the area which has contributed to faster rises in mine water levels. To manage the risk of pollution we’ve had to increase pumping and treatment from 67 litres per second to 100 litres per second. This required a rethink to ensure the site can handle this effectively and be resilient for the impacts of climate change in the future.

Working with our partners, JBA Bentley, we designed a more efficient and sustainable scheme with almost 3 times the treatment capacity – making it fit for the future and more sustainable.

The design included modelling to reduce construction carbon and changed aspects of the plant to reduce chemical use – replacing the chemical dosing system with an aeration cascade that allows iron to be removed using more natural processes.

The area will be planted to encourage wildlife and to fit in with the local landscape.

10.1 Our year in Scotland

1,754 mine entry inspections carried out

59 surface hazard reports investigated

61,680 mining reports delivered

1,200 planning consultation responses provided

32 billion litres of water treated

798 tonnes of iron solids prevented from entering water courses

11. Financial review

We’ve delivered strongly over the year. 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 continued to grow our advisory services income as we support our partners to understand and manage their risks and provide information and services to help people make informed decisions.

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 £53.2 million (2020-21: £44.1 million) reflecting an increase in the net cost of our operations.

This is explained and 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).

11.1 How we used our money

Our spend	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021
Operations: Public safety	£21.1 million	£13.3 million
Operations: Mine water treatment schemes	£16.9 million	£14.4 million
Operations: Subsidence pumping stations	£1.4 million	£1.0 million
Development: Planning, licensing, permissions and property	£3.2 million	£4.1 million
Data and information	£3.9 million	£3.9 million
Commercial	£9.4 million	£8.9 million
Innovation	£0.8 million	£0.9 million
Mine water treatment schemes (capital)	£16.5m	£10.9m
Subsidence pumping stations (capital)	£0.5 million	£0.4 million
Other (capital)	£1.9 million	£2.4 million
Total	£75.6 million	£60.2 million

Our income	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021
Grant in aid (BEIS)	£53.2 million	£44.1 million
Mining reports	£8.4 million	£7.9 million
Advisory and technical services	£6.4 million	£6.0 million
By-products and other commercial innovation	£0.0 million	£0.2 million
Licensing and permissions indemnities	£0.8 million	£0.8 million
Data licensing and mining information	£1.5 million	£1.2 million
Property related	£2.9 million	£0.7 million
Other	£0.0 million	£0.1 million
Working capital movement	£2.4 million	-£0.8 million
Total	£75.6 million	£60.2 million

Income of £20.0 million per the statement of comprehensive net expenditure is the total of the income figures above excluding grant in aid and working capital movement.

As we have exited from COVID-19 restrictions we have taken learnings from the period to transition into our ways of working, alongside our suppliers, to improve delivery for our customers and the communities across the three nations that we serve.

Working with our partners we delivered our largest ever annual capital programme to protect watercourses and drinking water aquifers. We increased expenditure to ensure the effective operation of a growing and ageing number of mine water and subsidence pumping schemes. Our ongoing programmes will minimise the future cost of running these schemes by employing innovative uses for our by-products and by generating other operational efficiencies.

Our expenditure on public safety has increased significantly during the period reflecting the work we have done to resolve a number of significant claims and incidents and includes our support of the emergency response at Saltcoats, North Ayrshire and ongoing work to remediate mining features at Skewen, South Wales.

Mining reports income of £8.4 million reflects a £0.4 million increase on prior year, following previous market impacts as a result of COVID-19. Our advisory and technical services work generated income of £6.4 million (2020 to 2021 £6.0 million) reflecting our continued success in delivering with other government organisations. This includes mine water scheme delivery for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs in England and Natural Resources Wales, and supporting Welsh Government with the safe management of tips.

11.2 Financial statements

Our accounts are dominated by the provisions balance of £5,618.0 million. The rationale and methodology for calculating this are shown in our financial review.

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 (2021-22). This balance has risen by £3,102.0 million (2020 to 2021: increase of £223.0 million). In line with accounting practice we adjust our cash flows to reflect the time value of money based on assumptions and rates provided by HM Treasury. This year’s change in rates has led to an increase of £2,759.0 million (2020 to 2021: reduction of £15.0 million).

Our underlying costs have been updated to include 2 new preventative mine water schemes, recognise that continuing pressure on scheme operating costs, and reflects the trend of managing an increasing number of complex public safety incidents.

11.3 Statement of comprehensive net expenditure

Comprehensive net expenditure for the year to 31 March 2022 was £3,149.2 million as compared to £260.9 million in 2020 to 2021. The large difference between the 2 years is driven by the provisions movements outlined above. Excluding these provisions movements, comprehensive net expenditure for the year was £18.9 million (2020-21: £16.9 million), an increase of £2.0 million.

The reasons behind this movement are outlined below.

Total operating income

Total operating income, which excludes grant in aid, was £20.0 million (2020 to 2021: £16.9 million) reflecting our ongoing strategy 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.

Our 44% market share of the mining reports market (2020 to 2021 50%) demonstrates the success of our policy to make our data available and open up the market from a near monopoly position 7 years ago. A modest loss of market share during the year has been more than off-set by an increase in overall property market transactions (2020 to 2021 having initially been affected by COVID-19). Mining reports revenue increased by £0.5 million to £8.4 million, whilst data licensing and mining information revenue increased by £0.3 million to £1.5 million.

Our advisory and technical services income has risen, by £0.4 million, to £6.4 million. This is driven mainly by our work with Welsh Government to improve the safe management of tips.

The other change in our income from 2020 to 2021 relates to the sale of properties with increases of £1.0 million from ‘clawback’ arrangements and £1.1 million profit on disposal of investment properties (see note 4 to the financial statements) This income can be unpredictable as its timing is largely outside of our control.

Expenditure

Staff costs of £17.8 million showed an increase of £2.0 million compared to the previous year as we increased headcount in line with our plans to deliver increased front line services to the communities we serve. This includes delivering our largest ever mine water capital programme to protect the environment, providing more advice and technical services to our customers, and to enable the organisation to provide an even more resilient and effective emergency response capability as we deal with an increasing number of complex incidents.

Purchase of goods and services (not including costs previously provided) increased by £0.6 million to £9.1 million, including increases in supply chain costs that support delivery of advisory and technical services income and an uplift in travel and subsistence costs as we have returned to more normal ways of working post COVID-19 lockdowns.

Depreciation, revaluation and impairment charges increased by £2.6 million to £12.0 million, reflecting an increase of investment through our mine water treatment scheme programme and the completion of schemes, whereby our accounting policy immediately impairs schemes to nil net book value at the point they become operational.

More information is available in notes 3 and 4 to the financial statements.

11.4 Statement of financial position

The comparative figures for 2020 to 2021 have been restated in certain instances on implementation of the new accounting standard IFRS16: Leases. Detailed information on this standard and its effects on the financial statements are included in notes 1.18 and 14 to the financial statements.

Net liabilities at £5,607.4 million increased by £3,096.0 million (2020-21 restated: £2,511.4 million). Key factors were:

• provisions against future liabilities increased by £3,102.0 million as a result of the review in provisions outlined above. Further information is available at note 13 to the financial statements

• the increase in property, plant and equipment of £6.6 million to £25.8 million, is driven by investment in mine water schemes within ‘assets under construction’

• intangible assets have decreased slightly by £0.1 million reflecting an increasing trend towards use of cloud based technology and systems

• trade receivables have increased by £1.1 million to £4.7 million, as a result of the timing of invoicing and receipt of payment from one of our government customers

• cash and cash equivalents stand at £14.3 million (2020 to 2021: £10.8 million): see the section below on cash flow for details on movements.

• trade and other payables have seen a significant increase of £5.1 million, with the main driver being an increase in accruals of £7.2 million for public safety expenditure and capital expenditure on mine water schemes, offset by; a reduction of £1.1 million in the security balances carried to discharge liabilities relating to industry claims; £0.6 million reduction relating to the timing of payment of trade creditors; and other movements of £0.4 million

11.5 Cash flow

There was a net increase in cash during the year of £3.5 million. Constituent parts of this movement were:

• the receipt of £53.2 million grant in aid from BEIS (2020 to 2021: £44.1 million) – the increase, which is the major movement in our cash balance year on year, is drawdown to cover working capital relating to two 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 £35.7 million (2020 to 2021: £27.9 million) – we have spent more this year on our operations, particularly; the emergency response at Saltcoats, North Ayrshire; ongoing work to remediate the mining features at Skewen, South Wales; and a number of other significant public safety claims and incidents

• a net cash outflow from investing activities of £13.5 million (2020-21: £10.5 million) – this relates to the purchase of property, plant and equipment as part of our ongoing programme to develop, build and maintain mine water schemes and subsidence pumping stations, and in the ongoing investment in our information technology and systems, and the increased investment is partly offset by £3.0 million of income (2020 to 2021: £0.9 million) from the sale of properties owned or previously owned

• at 31 March 2022 we held £14.3 million cash (2021: £10.8 million) – this includes £1.4 million (2021: £2.2 million) of ring fenced funds in respect of security called in from mining operators that have been liquidated, and the movement in called in security is used to discharge these industry claim liabilities as part of our operating activities

11.6 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.

12. Our people

2021 to 2022 has been another year where everyone working at the Coal Authority has had fresh challenges to meet at work and at home.

We have continued to focus on the delivery of services to partners, customer and communities across the three nations in which we work whilst supporting our people and their wellbeing.

We have continued to learn from the changing phases of the pandemic and move forwards towards our ‘new normal’, are supporting those concerned about rising cost of living pressures and recognise the direct and indirect impacts on our people of global events such as the invasion of Ukraine.

We have encouraged the use of our employee assistance programme, continued to prioritise staff engagement, encouraged volunteering and taken practical action where possible such as providing free sanitary products to help address period poverty.

Further investment in our IT infrastructure has allowed our people to use our information and expertise to support customers and deliver services from the office, out on site or at home. We have become used to working remotely while recognising the opportunities and benefits of spending time together and have been creative in bringing people together safely in the office, out on site and with customers and partners.

We worked with colleagues to develop and roll out a new hybrid working framework with categories relating to role type. This recognises that we have always had a remote workforce which allows us to undertake 24/7 emergency response across Great Britain and seeks to strike the balance between flexibility, presence and collaboration – something we know is important to our people and is relevant to any organisation recruiting in the current competitive market. This approach has increased our ability to recruit from communities across the coalfield areas of Great Britain which improves our front line response and engagement.

We’ve taken learning from the past year’s ‘on-boarding’ programme for new starters and developed it further to give colleagues the best start to life at the Coal Authority, whether they are predominantly field based, office based or hybrid.

This has been supported by continued focus on learning and development through formal leadership programmes, coaching and mentoring, technical training and continued professional development.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion continues. In 2021 we published our latest equality, diversity and inclusion plan, A Great Place to Work for Everyone, which sets out the action we will take between now and April 2024 to ensure we can attract people from all backgrounds to work with us, enhance our inclusive and wellbeing centred culture and deliver effective and empathetic services for the diverse communities we work with.

As part of this we have listened to colleagues and voices across our business and sector and worked with partners such as the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment diversity network of organisations across the environment sector to develop and publish our anti-racism plan.

This will challenge us to continue to improve our policies, processes and approach to be a more actively anti-racist organisation and help us to attract and retain more people from ethnically diverse backgrounds who are currently under represented in our organisation.

This year we published our third gender pay gap report and we can now compare data across 3 years which shows we are moving in the right direction overall with the mean gender pay gap reducing by 1.97% since 2018 to 2019 and the median by 5.28%.

Progress this year has slowed with our mean gender pay gap reducing by 0.04% and the median reducing by 0.28%. This was impacted by reduced recruitment during the pandemic. We are pleased to have seen more women progressing through our grades and into more management and senior roles – a 6.63% increase of women in the upper middle quartile. Our gender pay gap for 2021 is a mean of 19.93% and a median of 26.21% and the report shows how we will continue to take action to reduce this.

This year our pay gap report also includes ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation information. The accuracy of these calculations are impacted by low representation in our organisation and by low self-disclosure rates (which we are working on) but we believe that the information is still useful and that greater transparency will help us to make stronger progress.

We have continued our work in response to the last full people survey we conducted in 2019 with particular focus on improving work life balance, tackling bullying and harassment and creating a clearer narrative for our people following change in a number of areas since 2018.

The next full survey takes place in 2022 but we undertook a pulse survey during 2021 with 87% of colleagues responding. This showed improvements in many key areas including work life balance and clearer line of sight between individuals and the organisation’s objectives. We continue our focus on understanding and addressing bullying and harassment in all its forms and ensuring that everyone feels safe to report any concerns.

We are reviewing all of our people policies on a planned basis and this year focused on our ‘family friendly’ policies, working with our colleague networks and seeking best practice across the public sector to make them as clear, inclusive and supportive as possible.

We have also increased our support to colleagues by providing the new EdenRed benefits portal which provides health and wellbeing discounts and money off at a range of retailers.

13. Our work in England

2021 saw great progress in the remediation of a complex site in Cumbria so that the site can now be used for the benefit of the local community.

This follows several years of work with homeowners and the local community which was impacted by delays caused by lockdowns and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In November 2018, a local homeowner called Allerdale Borough Council to report a dip in the living room floor of their property. After removing some of the floorboards, the council found a large void and due to the area being well known for its coal mining past asked us in to investigate. Our records showed a recorded mine shaft more than 100 years old in the local area.

Ground investigations found that the void inside the property was the recorded mine shaft. The mine shaft opening was approximately 20 metres below ground level with soft, sandy unstable gravel material between ground level and the shaft opening which threatened the stability of several properties on either side of the one initially reported.

We worked closely with the homeowners affected to provide support and arranged to purchase 7 properties at full market value so that the residents could move forwards with their lives while we undertook our work. These properties were carefully demolished to minimise impact to adjacent properties. The surrounding and adjacent properties were constantly monitored throughout the demolition phase to provide reassurance that they were not being affected by our works.

The site was very compact with narrow streets and close community engagement was essential throughout the project. We worked closely with Mark Jenkinson, the local MP, the Parish Council and Allerdale Borough Council to keep everyone updated. We also held a public meeting and issued 6 newsletters throughout the project.

Once the homes were demolished the priority was to stabilise the mine shaft and the ground around it. To do this safely we worked with our contractors to install a 27 metre long safety platform across the mine shaft and the area around it. This allowed us to drill and confirm the exact location and dimensions of the shaft to inform the final design for the repair work and showed that the shaft was 120 metres deep.

The mine shaft was repaired by drilling and injecting 517 tonnes of cement grouting material directly into the mine shaft. To stabilise the sandy gravel material above the mine shaft we injected 2,300 litres of resin and cement grout material to make sure the ground was fully stabilised.

The mine shaft and surrounding area are now permanently secured and safe for the future.

We are in discussions with the MP and the councils about the future use of the site to ensure that it can be used in the best way possible for the needs of the local area.

13.1 Our year in England

5,985 mine entry inspections carried out

331 surface hazard reports investigated

119,332 mining reports delivered

7,567 planning consultation responses provided

81 billion litres of water treated

2,713 tonnes of iron solids prevented from entering water courses

14. Health, safety and wellbeing

We worked proactively to respond to changes in COVID-19-safe guidance across the 3 nations we serve and ensure that we were able to continue to undertake front line work safely in communities and give customers and partners confidence in working with us in their homes or on site.

Our Mansfield office remained open for those who had any concerns about working safely from home and we ensured that high standards for site offices and welfare facilities were in place. 74.4% of colleagues agreed that we provide good support for Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HSW) in our 2021 pulse survey.

We worked with colleagues and partners to develop and publish our new HSW plan that builds on our strong health and safety record and sets out the actions we will take to April 2025 to support our people, our supply chain and the public.

Next year we will roll out a new online health, safety and wellbeing management system to support this approach, which will improve our use of data, allow us to take timely, informed action to further reduce risk and simplify reporting for our people, partners and supply chain.

Our 2021 to 2022 statistics reflect the increased amount of operational work we’ve been able to do compared with the more severe impacts of lock downs in 2020 to 2021. This has led to increased numbers of site inspections and increased reporting of health, safety and wellbeing observations – both those potentially unsafe (which facilitate learning and reduce accidents) and good practice which can be shared and celebrated.

We have seen a small rise in accidents, including one Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) reportable accident, related to the accidental release of hydrated lime at Wheal Jane mine water scheme. These have been thoroughly investigated with the root cause identified and action taken and shared with our supply chain to prevent a recurrence.

Measure	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021
HSW observations – potential unsafe acts (staff and contractors)	2,407	959
HSW observations – good practice examples (staff and contractors)	281	320
HSW inspections (staff)	218	140
Accidents – no time lost (staff and contractors)	7	6
Accidents – lost time (staff)	1	0

15. Our work to enable community benefit

We work with others across Great Britain to enable the regeneration of coalfield areas for the benefit of local communities.

One example of this is our work with Scottish Government, Midlothian Council and Shawfair LLP to support the development of a ‘new town’ on the former Monktonhall Colliery in Midlothian, Scotland which will have a focus on sustainability and community identity.

The former Monktonhall Colliery and surrounding brownfield land, south-east of Edinburgh has been in our ownership since the colliery closed in 1997. In 2018 we joined a local land forum to look at how the land could be repurposed to benefit the local community.

The proposed new development will create 4,000 new homes, commercial space, amenities including a school and offices as well as a network of cycle and walking paths to help bring the community together. The new venture will have excellent links to Edinburgh with Edinburgh Waverley station 15 minutes away.

We are transferring some of our land to enable necessary infrastructure to be built. Our approach allows us to demonstrate value for the taxpayer and to support the development of a new community where it is needed.

We’ll continue to work with project partners to see where our remaining land could be of benefit and to encourage the use of mine water heat which would be a low carbon, sustainable, cost effective and secure heating resource for homes and businesses across the new town and provide a clear link with the heritage of the site. This would use the Shawfair District Heat Energy Project.

16. Sustainability and the environment

We’ve made further progress on our journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 by baselining our emissions and identifying particular challenges which need further investigation. We’ve focussed on identifying and improving our data collection, monitoring and measurement so that we fully understand our impacts and are able to take action to minimise them.

As part of this we have evolved our reporting to better show our progress and align with the UK Greening Government Commitments. These are baselined at 2017 to 2018.

Sustainability is a key theme in our new business plan and has clearly shaped our thinking for the next three years as well as our 10 year vision which is included in the plan. To underpin this we are finalising a new sustainability plan which we will be publishing this autumn and shows how we will take action to deliver our wide ranging sustainability goals for people, nature and the climate.

16.1 During 2021 to 2022 we have:

• reduced the carbon of our business travel including using more vehicles that are zero or ultra low emissions
• reduced the carbon intensity of our operations by using less gas and oil for generators
• recycled 86% of our waste
• further increased the composting and agricultural use of our reedbed and wetland residues with 90% now avoiding disposal
• baselined our single use plastic reporting so that we can develop plans to reduce and eliminate their use
• used our renewable power generation for more of our own use and to export decarbonised energy to the grid
• improved the water efficiency of our Mansfield Head Office
• developed a new sustainable procurement policy which includes social value principles and commits to 30% of contractual spend with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
• published our modern slavery statement

16.2 Our greening government commitments

The UK Greening Government Commitments (GGC) are actions UK government departments and their agencies will take to reduce their impacts on the environment.

Power	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Power generated through our direct use of fossil fuels (kWh) [footnote 1]	1,337,849	2,476,541	4,151,179
Total Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e) [footnote 2]	341.08	633.431	1,141.29
GHG emissions head office from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e) [footnote 2]	12.49	11.9	13.7
Purchased electricity (kWh) [footnote 3]	27,009,063	28,385,841	20,494,016
Total GHG emissions from purchased electricity (tCO2e) [footnote 3]	6,242.33	7,187.01	7,878.51
GHG emissions head office from purchased electricity (tCO2e) [footnote 3]	257.61	267.38	364.94
Renewables generated (kWh) [footnote 3]	1,359,417	1,362,719	189,966
Renewables used (kWh) [footnote 3]	883,224	835,100	165,501
Renewables exported to the grid (kWh) [footnote 4]	476,193	527,619	24,465
Carbon intensity (kgCO2e/kWh) [footnote 4]	0.225	0.247	0.364
Total head office power related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	270.1	279.281[footnote 5]	378.64
Total power related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	6,583.41	7,820.44	9,019.80
Total expenditure on energy use	£5,497,513.14	£4,902,496.84	£4,348,855.17

Fugitive emissions	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Refrigeration and Aircon (tCO2e)	34	New system installed	6

Leak in aircon detected and rectified in 2021 to 2022, but resulted in additional emissions.

Business related travel	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Kilometres (km) travelled	1,372,251	2,201,861	1,799,174
Number of flights	0	0	73
GHG emissions (tCO2e)	229.06	385.63	305.9
Intensity (tCO2e/100,000km)	16.69	17.51	17
Total expenditure on travel (domestic and international)	£305,191.76	£236,317.00	£354,537.00
% fleet vehicles that are ultra low emission or zero emission vehicles (hybrid or full electric)	26.3% (average) 37% (year-end)	28%	0%

We’re updating our travel policy to better integrate sustainability and directly support a reduction in emissions. We are travelling more after the pandemic but our carbon intensity is less as we use lower carbon forms of transport.

We are changing our fleet policy and mix to fully transition to zero emission vehicles by 2027.

Resources – water use	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Water use (m3) – head office	484	478	1,910
Mine water sites	3,435	3,075 (estimate from average usage)	3,075 (estimate from average usage)
Total expenditure on water	£46,068.02	£15,851.14	£65,259.32

A leak at Frances mine water treatment scheme increased water use in 2021 to 2022. We have improvements to make in data gathering to support our water management and reduction plans.

Resources – paper use	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Paper use (reams A4 equivalent)	348	60	718

Paper use has more than halved during remote and hybrid working. More work is needed to maintain progress and further reduce paper use.

Waste	2021 to 2022	2020 to 2021	2017 to 2018 (our baseline year)
Total waste (tonnes)	30,383	-	1,417
Head office waste recycled (tonnes)	2.88	-	12
Waste recycled (tonnes)	27,325	-	0
Head office waste to landfill (tonnes)	0.45	-	6.9
Waste to landfill (tonnes)	3,058	-	1,405
Waste incinerated (energy from waste) (tonnes)	0	0	0
ICT waste	0	0	0
% head office waste to landfill	14%	-	37%
% waste to landfill	10.10%	-	99.20%
Total expenditure on waste disposal	£4,264.71	-	£3,175.71

Waste data is not readily available for 2020 to 2021 owing to changes in systems.

We reuse, repurpose or recycle our ICT equipment.

Our reedbed and wetland maintenance wastes are mostly composted, reused or recycled. We have challenges with ochre materials from our lagoons and chemical dosing treatment plants and more to do on our office and operational wastes.

This performance report has been approved by the chief executive and accounting officer, Lisa Pinney MBE, 5 July 2022.

1. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and fuel oil ↩

2. We are using less fuel oil (diesel for generators on site) following a switch to grid connections for our pumping tests. ↩ ↩²

3. We are using more energy from pumping more water at additional locations. GHG emissions are lower overall due to lower grid GHG intensity and because we are using more of our own renewable power. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. We are supporting grid decarbonisation through export of green energy. The grid is cleaner through the use of more green energy. ↩ ↩²

5. Value from 2020 to 2021 amended from that reported in last year’s annual report and accounts owing to better data gathering and using average grid carbon intensity in accordance with GGC, rather than that from our lower carbon intensity supplier. ↩