Corporate report

The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024: Performance report

Published 25 July 2024

1. Overview

The Coal Authority is a non-departmental public body and partner organisation of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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 departments across UK Government to deliver on UK Government priorities including the transition to net zero, levelling up, national resilience, an improved environment and a sustainable economy.

We also contribute to the wider environmental, social and economic priorities of the Scottish and Welsh 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 have 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 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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 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 2023 to 2024, across the 3 nations we serve:

2.1 We kept people safe and provided peace of mind

10,465 mine entry inspections were carried out

896 mining hazards and subsidence claims were investigated and assessed

823 inspections on spoil heaps (tips) owned by the Coal Authority and our partners were carried out

2.2 We used our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions

126,513 mining reports delivered

1,620 permits to intersect coal issued

9,095 planning consultation responses provided

2.3 We protected and enhanced the environment

231 billion litres - the capacity we created or maintained to treat mine water

4,057 tonnes of iron prevented from entering water courses

3% of our ochre and iron solid waste we generate went to landfill

2.4 We created value and minimised cost to the taxpayer

£8.1 million of income generated through our advisory services

£196,000 generated through by-product sales

8 sites with additional social and environmental value were created through our work

3. Chair’s foreword

I am pleased to introduce our 2023 to 2024 annual report and accounts which summarise another year of strong delivery and innovative progress.

The organisation remains very aware of the need to continuously develop, improve and stay relevant and as we celebrate our 30th year we continue to evolve, develop new skills, systems and technologies and make strides towards the ambitions of our 2032 vision.

We’ve continued to work closely with officials and ministers at our sponsoring Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and were delighted to welcome Minister Graham Stuart to the Gateshead Council mine energy scheme in January 2024 to see first-hand the benefits the scheme is delivering for the people and economy of Gateshead since it went live in March 2023.

The scheme’s statistics and real life stories from the people using the scheme are equally powerful – with energy prices at least 5% below the cost of gas some residents are able to make choices on their heating and hot water now that they didn’t feel able to do previously due to electricity and cost of living concerns.

A local business – GB Lubricants – has reported significant heating cost savings alongside new business opportunities from being associated with the low carbon scheme.

We continue to work with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Welsh and Scottish government officials, local councils, local politicians, businesses and a range of other partners to make multiple low carbon mine water heat schemes a reality across mining areas of Great Britain.

To support this we’ve continued to work closely with the Geospatial Commission and other partners to develop effective mapping and information to help people to make informed decisions and choices.

This includes our collaboration with Ordnance Survey to develop heat demand maps across coalfield areas which complement our existing mine heat maps developed with the British Geological Survey.

View the Coal Authority’s map viewer

Together these will help local authorities, developers and businesses make decisions about the potential for schemes in their areas and where future housing and businesses could most sustainably and cost effectively be built.

Data and information has been a real area of focus and development over the past year and I was delighted to see our data and information plan published in March 2024.

Our information and the national archive we manage of Great Britain’s mining records underpin all of our work and play an important role in ensuring confidence in the coalfield housing market.

It’s important that this information is modernised and kept relevant and that we use the opportunities of technology and artificial intelligence across our work to ensure that we are as productive as we can be.

You can see examples of where this is happening – and how we will grow this important work in the future in our plan.

Throughout 2023 to 2024 we’ve continued to work closely with ministers and officials to demonstrate the frontline work of the Coal Authority in communities and the value for money we deliver across the range of risks we manage and activities we are responsible for.

We’ve worked closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Arm’s Length Body Review team and look forward to the outcome in due course.

We’ve also continued to work closely with the Welsh and Scottish governments in delivering across Great Britain.

You can read more about our work in Wales, Scotland and England in our case studies which include a range of examples of our work as well as specific statistics for each country.

We continue to contribute to levelling up, value creation and economic growth and development through our work.

Over the past year we have used our information, services and estate to support and enable an additional 260,000 hectares of regeneration and safe development for local communities across Great Britain’s former coalfield areas.

One case study shows how we are working with partners to develop a restoration plan and to support nature’s recovery for an area of previous ancient woodland at Hag Wood in County Durham.

During 2023 to 2024 we supported the inquest into the death of Christopher Kapessa, who drowned in the River Cynon at a site in South Wales in 2019. Our thoughts remain with Christopher’s family following his tragic death which was caused by him being pushed from a bridge at the site. We welcome the advice of the coroner on additional actions we can put in place across our estate in the future including bolstering our site specific risk assessments with a broader water safety policy. We have already taken action against these recommendations.

We continue to support and contribute to the ongoing pre-inquest process into the 2011 Gleision mine disaster. Our thoughts are with the families of the miners lost in this tragedy.

Through 2023 to 2024 we have continued to determine a small amount of coal mine license applications following the specific tests set out in the 1994 Coal Industry Act and taking account of policy from the UK and Welsh governments (for coal licensing) and the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments (through planning policy).

We recognise that this continues to be a politically and publicly sensitive area and aim to be as transparent as we can be whilst needing to comply with relevant legislation and guidance. We also continue to provide operational advice and information to government to help inform the policy judgements they need to make.

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, decreasing by £0.6 billion from £2.2 billion to £1.6 billion at March 2024.

This balance is calculated by applying HM Treasury assumptions on the value of money at various points in time in the future to a forecast of cash flows at today’s prices.

Our forecast of these underlying cash flows has increased by £0.4 billion to £3.7 billion, primarily reflecting increases in the cost of construction, operation and maintenance of our mine water schemes, and the ongoing trend over recent years of managing an increasing number of complex public safety incidents.

We expect the impacts of climate change adaptation to increase the provisions over time as we undertake more research.

We are also aware of the potential implications of the work we are currently doing to better understand the impact of saline water recovery in England.

We will continue to work to offset costs through efficiencies and further improvements through our innovation programmes wherever possible.

The operational increases included this year are small compared with changes to the HM Treasury discount rates, which decrease the financial provision by £0.9 billion. You can find more information on this in the financial review and note 13 to the accounts.

As we celebrate 30 years of the Coal Authority, I want to thank all our people, contractors and partners who have helped us to deliver so many outcomes for communities over that time.

The organisation has transformed during this period from one focused on managing liabilities and a still sizeable coal industry to one which is focused on protecting life and public safety, protecting drinking water and the environment.

We deliver mining remediation, sustainable opportunity from our assets and environmental and social value alongside value for the taxpayer.

We will continue to develop and grow new skills, systems and technologies as we evolve and continue to focus on supporting, valuing and developing our people and taking action to enable wellbeing and inclusion across the Coal Authority to ensure that we truly are a great place to work.

After 7 years of excellent service Steve Wilson left our board as a non-executive director in March 2024. Steve has chaired our safety, health and environment committee and latterly our environment and sustainability committee and provided invaluable support and advice on operational matters to the executive, championed health, safety, wellbeing and sustainability and ensured that we have considered Welsh perspectives, voices and partners in our work. I would like to thank Steve for his hard work and commitment on the board.

I am delighted to welcome Kate Denham to the board from 1 April 2024.

We are also entering our second year of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Boardroom Apprentice programme and I would like to thank Lisa Robson for her excellent contributions under the programme between January and December 2023 and to welcome Naomi Stenhouse who joined us for a year in January 2024. I look forward to working with the board and wider organisation in the year ahead.

Jeff Halliwell, Chair

4. Chief executive’s report

This year has been focused on delivering our 2022 to 2025 business plan to make a difference for the communities we serve across Great Britain.

We’ve made strong progress in each of our 5 business plan themes and towards the ambitions of our 10 year vision to 2032 and we‘ve worked directly and with partners to solve the increasingly complex problems that mining legacy can pose and looked for opportunity to create social and environmental value, alongside value for the taxpayer in everything that we do.

Since gaining Category 2 status under revisions to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 in February 2023, we have worked closely with emergency partners to increase understanding of risks in mining areas and to support joined up emergency response.

We’ve continued to deliver customer focused 24/7/365 incident response and over the year we responded to 575 reported surface hazards, 321 subsidence claims and 34 additional emergency calls.

We have also delivered 420 hours of training and engagement with the 31 local resilience forums and regional resilience partnerships that cover the British coalfield to raise awareness of the work we do and advise on risks, hazards and response.

We’ve maintained and operated our 81 water treatment schemes so we have the capacity to treat 231 billion litres of mine water to prevent pollution of drinking water, rivers and the sea.

We had an extremely wet autumn and winter leading to significant flooding and difficult ground conditions and it is a credit to our teams and contractors that construction and maintenance has continued through this challenging period and that our assets have continued to work effectively.

We’ve progressed 7 further schemes into design and/or build with more planned for the future as monitoring shows they are needed. This is both for coal and for metals, where we continue to work closely with Defra and the Environment Agency in England and Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales in Wales to deliver tangible improvements to water quality by preventing metal mine pollution.

We’ve expanded our work on saline mine water recovery in England and established a new team to focus on this and work with partners to determine the options and infrastructure that will be needed to manage this for the future.

We’ve continued our work for Welsh Government as part of their coal tips safety taskforce to ensure that all higher risk sites have been regularly inspected and maintenance work prioritised for action.

We continue to support Welsh Government as they move towards the development of their Disused Tip Safety Bill and its future implementation.

Two years in we’ve made strong progress against each of the 5 themes of our business plan and we’ve published further underpinning plans and targets including our refreshed customer plan 2023 to 2026, mine heat opportunities framework 2024 to 2027, by-products opportunities framework 2024 to 2027 and data and information plan 2024 to 2027 alongside progress updates against our other key plans.

View all the Coal Authority’s key plans and progress updates

We published our sustainability plan in April 2023 and have been making clear progress against these targets – including progressing and publishing our natural recovery plan and working with Nottingham Trent University and Severn Trent Water to develop plans for renewable energy and sustainable urban drainage schemes at our Mansfield head office.

Our work is becoming increasing complex and requires some increasingly sophisticated solutions and the development and management of larger contracts and programmes.

We have also taken on additional funded work over the past few years which has caused the organisation to grow and evolve.

To support this and ensure that we can continue to develop efficiently and effectively, we will make some further structural changes in 2024 to help us bring in additional skills and further develop and support our colleagues.

We deliver a very wide range of activities and outcomes, managing and reducing complex risks for the 3 governments we serve and will continue to ensure that efficiency, value for money and multiple outcome delivery is embedded in every decision that we take.

This will be supported by further digital and system improvements to enhance accessibility and options for our customers and ensure our colleagues can work together – and with partners – effectively.

As Jeff says, our new data and information plan shows how we will further develop mapping, data and artificial intelligence opportunities to support this and ensure that our work remains productive and relevant for another 30 years.

I am constantly humbled by the commitment and passion of those who work at the Coal Authority, their dedication to make a difference for the communities we serve and their focus on problem solving, continuous improvement and innovation.

As we continue to evolve and tackle increasingly complex challenges and find opportunities it is important that we truly are a great place to work for everyone where people feel valued, supported, developed and included and that we are recognised as a great employer so that future colleagues also want to work for us.

We will continue to invest in our people and to listen and learn in order to do this. Thank you for everything you have delivered over the past year.

The Coal Authority has made a difference for 30 years. We have continued to evolve and adapt throughout this time whilst recognising that effective mining remediation is needed in perpetuity to keep people, drinking water and the environment safe.

We look forward to the future and will continue to do all we can to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas together.

Lisa Pinney MBE, Chief Executive

5. Our work to enable low carbon heating

We continually look to innovate and deliver opportunities for people and the environment in mining areas. This includes enabling the use of low carbon mine water heat from disused coal mine infrastructure.

In March 2023 the first large scale, multi-user mine water heat scheme became a reality when the Gateshead mine water heat network began operating.

Coal was mined from the Saltmeadows area of Gateshead for several centuries. The underground shafts and adits (an entrance or passage) that remain have filled with water which is warm because it is geothermally heated by the rocks it flows through.

In 2017 Gateshead Council commissioned a heat network powered by gas engines to produce electricity and heat for customers. In 2019 they decided to grow the size of their network but wanted to reduce carbon emissions rather than use more fossil fuels.

We worked with them and used our expertise to establish whether the mines 150m beneath the town centre could provide the additional heat required. Our investigations showed excellent potential for mine water heat.

We supported the council-owned Gateshead Energy Company and contractors to deliver a mine water heating scheme that feeds into the existing district heating network. It took just 3 years from the first discussions to the scheme going live and providing heat for local residents and businesses. Power for the mine water heat pumps is provided by an extensive solar farm which makes the scheme even lower carbon to operate.

The Gateshead scheme is now one of the largest in Europe and is delivering great outcomes for the local community. It provides secure, low-carbon heating to 350 homes, the Glasshouse (formerly Sage Gateshead), Gateshead College, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and several office buildings, and has the capacity to service more buildings and homes.

This project has an estimated saving of 72,000 tonnes of CO2 over 40 years which equates to savings of about 1,800 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

As well as the clear carbon-saving benefits, residents and businesses are now able to enjoy heating and hot water at costs lower than gas boiler prices. The first private business to join the heat scheme was GB Lubricants.

Managing director Paul Booth said: “Our company is nearly 150 years old and we always have to be looking forward and working to future-proof our business, so the switch had to make financial and business sense.

“Decarbonising our supply chain is really important to customers within our industry and this helps us meet those targets and also be part of a greener future, which as a parent, I’m grateful to be able to influence at work.

“My role is to steer the company in the best direction possible and have a strategy to ensure it continues to be successful for a long time to come. I believe this project not only enables me to do that but will be a fundamental cornerstone in achieving it.”

We know that mine water heat can make a significant contribution to decarbonising heating across large parts of Great Britain and we continue to work with governments, local authorities and public and private sector partners across the 3 nations we serve to develop it further.

6. Our work in Wales

There are more than 2,500 colliery tips in Wales and many of these sites are now in public or private ownership.

We take tip management extremely seriously and the 26 former coal tips in our ownership are subject to a rigorous inspection and maintenance regime to ensure the safety of the communities around them. We also provide services to other landowners and bodies.

The specification and supervision of maintenance and remedial works on our disused tip sites, including regular inspections, is carried out by our dedicated tips response team, supported by specialist consultants when required.

Tips may become insecure when water or ground conditions make them unstable. We keep them secure, monitor water drainage, construct tunnels and ponds to capture the water runoff and undertake a regular programme of maintenance.

In March 2020, the UK and Welsh governments asked the Coal Authority 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.

The number and location of disused coal tips in Wales has been made publicly available by Welsh Government through a series of interactive maps.

We’ve continued our work for Welsh Government as part of their tips taskforce to ensure that all higher risk sites are regularly inspected and that any maintenance work can be prioritised.

This includes our work in leading the remediation of a slip at Wattstown tip in Rhondda Cynon Taff, between October 2021 and January 2022, and our continued support of Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council at Tylorstown since 2020.

We are working with partners on technology trials in areas such as movement sensors and satellite capability to detect moisture content on coal tips. Innovation in this area will help us deliver effective monitoring of the tips to ensure public safety.

We welcome Welsh Government’s proposals for a new regime as laid out in their Coal Tip Safety (Wales) White Paper and will continue to support them with the development of a bill on coal tip safety and its future implementation.

View information about coal tips owned and managed by the Coal Authority

View information about the satellite monitoring of disused coal tips

Our year in Wales:

• we carried out 2,377 mine entry inspections
• we determined 118 hazard and subsidence occurrences
• we delivered 8,679 mining reports
• we treated 16 billion litres of water
• we provided 1,205 planning consultation responses
• we prevented 378 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

7. Our performance

We are 2 years through our current 3 year business plan and we’re making clear progress against our mission of making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

Our plan is set against our 10 year vision, underpinned by our values and focused on delivering for the communities we serve. The following section shows the progress we have made in 2023 to 2024.

7.1 Deliver for the communities we serve

Scorecard outcome

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

In 2023 to 2024:

• we treated an additional 15 billion litres of water compared to our 2021 to 2022 baseline, so are currently on track to meet our 2025 target (learning through the business plan period has shown us that a better target is ‘creating the capacity to treat an additional 15 billion litres of mine water by 2025’, as this is not impacted by rainfall which affects the volume of water we need to treat each year, so we will measure this new target alongside our original target in all future reporting)
• we created the capacity to treat an additional 10.5 billion litres during the year, a cumulative 13.6 billion litres since the business plan started in 2022
• we resolved 72% of subsidence claims within 12 months and are on track to meet our 2025 target
• through our planning and permitting services, we enabled 260,000 hectares of regeneration and safe development for both environmental projects and community use and are on track to exceed our 2025 target
• we built on the feedback from last year’s customer survey and continue to deliver our plan to help communities access our services as easily and efficiently as possible – we are on track to meet our 2025 target

Business plan targets by April 2025:

• our original target is to treat an additional 13 billion litres per year of mine water to prevent pollution of drinking water, rivers or the sea by 2025 – this is an increase of more than 10% on our baseline of 128 billion litres a year (learning through the business plan period has shown us that a better target is ‘creating the capacity to treat an additional 15 billion litres of mine water by 2025’, as this is not impacted by rainfall which affects the volume of water we need to treat each year, so we will measure this new target alongside our original target in all future reporting)
• 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 ServiceMark accreditation for our service standards from the Institute of Customer Service

The Coal Authority is a practical 24/7/365 operational emergency response 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. 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 partners we provide a joined up response to maximise the outcomes 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’.

7.2 Ensure sustainability

Scorecard outcome:

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

In 2023 to 2024:

• we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions from our estate, operations and travel by 21% against our baseline (we now expect to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 40% against our baseline by April 2025 and will not achieve our 2025 target – the target has been impacted by the electric grid becoming more carbon intensive and challenges we have faced in sourcing solar panels that meet our social and environmental procurement commitments, so we will conduct a full review of our renewables approach during 2024 to 2025 and will prioritise progress in the years ahead)

• we built social and economic value into business cases, decision making and reporting and delivered a number of practical examples in local communities – see “Our work to enable social and environmental value” case study – so are on track to meet our 2025 plan target

• we continued work to understand and recognise the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on our estate and operations (by April 2025 we will agree an initial, high-level adaptation plan with further detailed actions to be developed beyond this business plan period, so our 2025 target will be partially met)

• we developed a nature recovery plan, which delivers on the ‘being nature positive’ priorities of our sustainability plan 2023 to 2026, and we are on track to meet our 2025 target

Business plan targets by April 2025:

• we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our estate, operations and travel by 65% from our 2017 to 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

We’re committed to becoming a more sustainable organisation and use our work to help deliver positive change in the communities we support.

We have continued to deliver our sustainability plan which includes real consideration of environmental and social value and have embedded this further into our thinking and decision making processes across the organisation.

We have continued to work towards further decarbonising our activities and to maximise opportunities for carbon sequestration on our sites. We are taking action to support resilient nature and wildlife by managing our sites and estate for nature’s recovery.

7.3 Work with others to create values

Scorecard outcome

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

In 2023 to 2024:

• we enabled a second large mine water heat scheme in North East England, which will be operational in 2024, and we’ve continued our wider work and influencing to increase visibility of mine water heat, develop and enhance the pipeline of future opportunities, develop opportunity maps and reduce barriers for heat network investment (we expect to enable 3 large operational schemes by 2025 and achieved further progress to support the sector – we expect this target to be partially met in 2025)
• we continued to make progress and ensure that less than 5% of the iron ochre and iron solids we generate go to landfill – this year 3% went to landfill and we are on track to deliver our 2025 target
• we increased our service delivery to partners by more than 50% from our 2021 to 2022 baseline and are on track to exceed our 2025 target
• we continued to work with the lending industry to develop new products to support faster decisions and are on track to deliver our 2025 target

Business plan targets by April 2025:

• we will influence and enable 4 large operational mine water heat schemes across Great Britain
• we will reuse 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 per year
• we will assist the lending industry in making faster decisions for home buyers on the coalfields

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 savings for the taxpayer.

We’re passionate about supporting past mining communities 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 from mining legacy.

We published our by-products opportunities framework in January 2024 and our mine heat opportunities framework in May 2024.

7.4 Create a great place to work

Scorecard outcome

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.

In 2023 to 2024:

• we continued to make demonstrable progress by delivering the actions outlined in our equality, diversity and inclusion and anti- racism plans and are on track to deliver our 2025 target
• we developed and implemented apprenticeship and work experience programmes and have taken practical action to better consider social mobility in our approaches and we are on track to deliver our 2025 target
• we benchmarked our health, safety and wellbeing approach using the British Safety Council Occupational Health and Safety Audit (achieving a strong 4 star rating) and are implementing the learnings and actions identified – we are on track to deliver our 2025 target
• we continued to engage with colleagues and take action together on the learning identified in our 2022 people survey and to undertake a pulse survey and sought other feedback to inform progress – our next people survey was in June 2024 and we believe we are on track to meet our 2025 target

Business plan targets 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 British Safety Council 5 Star Health, Safety and Wellbeing Audit rating
• we will increase our employee survey engagement score by 10% against the 2019 benchmark of 67%

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 drinking water and the environment and maximise opportunity if we can attract, recruit and retain them.

To support that we focus on being a truly ‘great place to work’ that attracts diverse talent across Great Britain and helps colleagues feel valued and respected in their work.

We invest in the skills of our people with many opportunities to learn, grow and develop. We are an employer of choice that is vibrant, dynamic and modern and promotes an inclusive, wellbeing centred culture underpinned by our values.

We continue to deliver against our health, safety and wellbeing plan 2022 to 2025, equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2021 to 2024 and our anti-racism plan 2022 to 2025. We will publish our next equality, diversity and inclusion strategy in 2024 in 2025.

7.5 Make us fit for the future

Scorecard outcome

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.

In 2023 to 2024:

• we updated 70% of our strategic IT systems to run in the cloud delivering resilience and sustainability benefits (we have taken learning through this work and have re-phased the programme where it would be more efficient not to migrate a few back office systems – for example where we are moving to a new supplier or system and it would be inefficient to migrate a system that will shortly be redundant – so this means that we now expect to migrate 90% of our systems to the cloud by 2025 and this target will be partially met)

• 78% of our services are now digital by default and 99% of our transactions with customers – no new transactional services were built in the year (we have taken learning through this work and listened to feedback from customers and colleagues which has showed us that it is most cost-effective and efficient to focus on the systems and services that matter most to our digital customers and to consider and protect other ways that some customers prefer to engage with us, so this means that 89% of our services will be digital by default by 2025 and that our 365/24/7 phone line will remain the primary method of logging incidents and getting emergency support and response – 100% of our new transactional systems will follow GOV. UK standards and this target overall will be partially met in 2025)
• we introduced and embedded new productivity tools, including a suite of Microsoft 365 products, to improve collaboration between colleagues and with partners. We are on track to deliver our 2025 target
• we published a data and information plan 2024 to 27 which describes how we will further modernise and develop access to our data and information and continue to improve our findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) assessment ratings for the benefit of our customers – we are on track to deliver our 2025 target

Business plan targets 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 FAIR data self-assessment ratings

We set out a high level of ambition through our vision and our 3 year business plan which need to be enabled through effective and customer focused systems and approaches.

These support us to provide the core services that protect life, drinking water and the environment and allow us to maximise opportunities to create social and environmental value alongside value for the taxpayer.

Our digital programmes and improvements are informed by feedback from our customers, partners, contractors and colleagues to support collaboration and make us easy to do business with.

Our data and information underpins every piece of work we do as an organisation and helps others to make informed decisions – including conveyancing with confidence on the coalfield. We published our data and information plan in April 2024.

8. 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 mine water schemes will enable us to treat mine water and protect the environment into the future.

We’ve 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 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to communicate the risks and sensitivities behind our funding requirements and have delivered in line with our forecasts.

Grant in aid received from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in the year was £67.1 million (2022 to 2023: £58.0 million) reflecting an increase in the net cost of our operations as outlined below.

This is explained and illustrated by the following table (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).

8.1 How we used our money in 2023 to 2024

Our income from	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024
Mining reports	£7 million	£6.6 million
Advisory and technical services	£6.8 million	£8.1 million
By-products and other commercial innovation	£100,000	£300,000
Licensing and permissions indemnities	£800,000	£700,000
Data licensing and mining information	£1.6 million	£1.7 million
Property related	£2 million	£800,000
Other income	£0	£100,000
Working capital movement	£0	-£800,000
Grant in aid (The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero or Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)	£58 million	£67.1 million
Total income	£76.3 million	£84.6 million

Our spend on	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024
Operations: Public safety	£15.9 million	£20.2 million
Operations: Mine water treatment schemes	£20 million	£24 million
Operations: Subsidence pumping stations	£1.6 million	£2.6 million
Development: Planning, licensing, permissions and property	£4.2 million	£4.9 million
Data and information	£4.3 million	£4.5 million
Commercial	£8.7 million	£9.8 million
Innovation	£2 million	£2.1 million
Mine water treatment schemes (capital)	£16.6 million	£13.6 million
Subsidence pumping stations (capital)	£1.2 million	£300,000
Other (Capital)	£1.8 million	£2.6 million
Total spend	£76.3 million	£84.6 million

Income of £18.3 million per the Statement of Comprehensive Net Expenditure is the total of the income figures above excluding grant in aid and working capital movements.

Working with our partners we delivered a significant annual capital programme to protect watercourses, drinking water aquifers and prevent flooding.

Operating expenditure on our schemes has continued to increase as a result of continued high levels of inflation, primarily affecting power costs, as well as in relation to the work we have commenced to assess options to protect watercourses and aquifers from the issue of inland salinity.

Our ongoing programmes will minimise the future cost of running these schemes by employing innovative uses for our by-products. By generating other operational efficiencies, we have completed our first full year of deliveries of our ochre by-product to be used in anaerobic digestion. This has performed in line with our expectation and this initiative is expected to reduce our net cost by at least £1 million over a 5-year period.

Our expenditure on public safety is reactive and can vary from year to year. 2023 to 2024 expenditure increased compared to previous years, reflecting the work we have completed and are currently undertaking to resolve a number of significant claims and incidents including significant projects to remediate mining features at Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester and Falkirk, Scotland.

Mining reports income of £6.6 million shows a £400,000 reduction compared to prior year. This reflects a slow-down in property transactions, as well as our policy to make our data available and open up the market from a near monopoly position.

Our advisory and technical services work generated income of £8.1 million (2022 to 2023: £6.8 million), reflecting our continued success in working with others to deliver positive outcomes across government.

This includes mine water scheme delivery for the Environment Agency and Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England and Natural Resources Wales and Welsh Government in Wales as well as our support to Welsh Government with the safe management of tips.

8.2 Financial statements

Our financial statements are dominated by the provisions balance of £1,611 million. The rationale and methodology for calculating this are shown at note 13 to the financial statements.

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 2023 to 2024 financial year. This balance has reduced by £600 million (2022 to 2023: decrease of £3,407 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 a reduction of £876 million (2022 to 2023: reduction of £4,467 million).

Our underlying cash flows, on which the provision balance is calculated, have been updated based on latest information and have increased by £383 million to £3,733 million.

This recognises increases as a result of high rates of inflation, particularly affecting the construction, operation and maintenance of our mine water schemes, as well as reflecting the trend over recent years of managing an increasing number of complex public safety incidents. This change in underlying cash flows, after adjusting for the time value of money, has the effect of increasing the provision balance by £276 million.

8.3 Statement of comprehensive net expenditure

Comprehensive net income for the year to 31 March 2024 was £534.6 million (2022 to 23: £3,347.5 million). 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 £33.2 million (2022 to 2023: £34.4 million), a decrease of £1.2 million.

The reasons behind this movement are outlined below.

8.4 Total operating income

Total operating income, which excludes grant in aid, was £18.3 million (2022 to 2023: £18.3 million) and reflects 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 data and information to make informed decisions.

Our advisory and technical services income has risen by £1.3 million, to £8.1 million. This is driven mainly through expanded metal mine programmes that we deliver for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Natural Resources Wales.

A 6% year-on-year reduction to the size of the market, due to the effect of the prevailing economic conditions on the number of property transactions, combined with a small loss of market share during the year, has resulted in the reduction to mining reports income. Mining reports revenue has reduced by £400,000 to £6.6 million, whilst data licensing and mining information revenue increased by £200,000 to £1.7 million.

The other change in our income from 2022 to 2023 relates to the sale of properties with a reduction of £1.3 million profit on disposal of investment properties and proceeds from clawback arrangements relating to the historic sale of land (see note 4.2 to the financial statements). In particular, income from clawback arrangements can be unpredictable as its timing is largely outside of our control.

Minor changes in by-products, rental income and other income account for the remaining increase of £200,000.

8.5 Expenditure

Staff costs of £23.1 million showed an increase of £3.2 million compared to the previous year. Pay award at 5% in line with civil service pay remit guidance, accounts for £900,000.

The remainder of the increase is driven by headcount, needed to deliver increased front line services to the communities we serve. This includes protecting the environment through the delivery of our mine water scheme programme, undertaking feasibility work to assess options to manage inland salinity and providing more advice and technical services to our customers.

Purchase of goods and services (not including front line costs previously provided) increased by £1.2 million to £11.9 million. The key parts of this are primarily a £800,000 increase in external legal fees to 2 inquests, and £400,000 of supply chain costs to support the increase in our advisory and technical services income.

Depreciation, revaluation and impairment charges decreased by £5.7 million to £16.5 million. This reflects a reduced level of investment through our mine water treatment scheme programme and the timing of scheme completion. Under our accounting policy we immediately impair our schemes to nil net book value when they become operational.

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

8.6 Statement of financial position

Net liabilities at £1,600.5 million reduced by £601.4 million (2022 to 2023: net liabilities at £2,201.9 million). This is driven by provisions against future liabilities, which has reduced by £600 million as a result of the review in provisions outlined above.

Further information is available at note 13 to the financial statements.

8.7 Cash flow

At 31 March 2024 we held £15.6 million cash (2023: £13.2 million). This includes £1.4 million (2023: £1.4 million) of ring-fenced funds in respect of security called in from mining operators that have been liquidated.

There was a net increase in cash during the year of £2.4 million. Constituent parts of this movement are explained below.

The net receipt of £66.5 million from financing activities. The main part of this movement is the receipt of £67.1 million grant in aid from the Department for Energy and Net Zero (2022 to 2023: £58 million). The increase, which is the major movement in our cash balance year on year, is drawdown from the department to cover working capital relating to three main areas – the operation of our mine water schemes, managing public safety claims and incidents and the delivery of our capital programmes.

A net cash outflow from operating activities of £46.9 million (2022 to 2023: £39.9 million). We have spent more this year on our operations, particularly as a result of the continued inflationary cost pressures in relation to the operation of our mine water schemes, on the emergency response to a burning tip at Beever Lane, Barnsley, in relation to a number of significant public safety claims and incidents, and an increase in external legal fees, as explained above.

A net cash outflow from investing activities of £17.2 million (2022 to 2023: £18.7 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, as well as a reduction of £400,000 of income (2022 to 2023: £1 million) from the sale of properties owned or previously owned.

8.8 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, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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 financial statements on a going concern basis.

9. Our work in Scotland

In March 2023 the Fire and Rescue Service contacted us about a ground collapse on an area of road and grassland on Thornwood Avenue in Ayrshire.

The collapse was secured to ensure public safety. Due to its location in a busy residential area, the project manager quickly made contact with the local community to tell them what had happened and what the nature of our work would be.

Within the Coal Authority this was considered a high priority incident. A bespoke webpage was created to help keep people up to date with the progress of the works on Thornwood Avenue and this information was shared with the residents through hand delivered newsletters as well as on our social media channels.

Other key stakeholders within the local community, including local authority, as well as local councillors, were updated about the works due to the potential disruption to residents whilst the project was completed.

Local media regularly contacted us for updates on the works which helped us increase public understanding of who we are and what we do and shared our updates to a wider audience.

To investigate and treat the shaft, we installed a steel platform over the site to allow the works to be safely completed.

Parts of Thornwood Avenue had to be closed at various times throughout the project. The project team ensured that residents received timely updates through hand-delivered newsletters and face to face conversations.

Work was completed in 2023. We continue to engage with the community while monitoring and final landscaping takes place.

Our year in Scotland:

• we carried out 1,831 mine entry inspections
• we determined 74 hazard and subsidence occurrences
• we delivered 54,659 mining reports
• we provided 1,052 planning consultation responses
• we treated 31 billion litres of water
• we prevented 747 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

10. Health, safety and wellbeing

We have continued to make strong progress towards the objectives set out in our 2022 to 2025 health, safety and wellbeing plan.

We have acted on the learning from the British Safety Council 5 star audit undertaken in February 2023 and implemented a practical action plan to further drive improvements across our health, safety and wellbeing system.

We have refreshed our behavioural safety approach and continue to drive our positive culture, promoting safe behaviours.

Our new mobile health, safety and wellbeing management system is now fully embedded into our ways of working.

Over the past year colleagues have been able to report positive behaviours and safety, health and wellbeing concerns, wherever is most convenient for them, leading to more efficient and timely reporting.

We can review trends and gain targeted reporting through improved data collection. This means that we can further reduce risk and enable good practice.

We promote an inclusive, wellbeing-centred culture across our organisation. This year we launched a new wellbeing plan, with key actions to support the physical, mental and emotional, social and financial wellbeing of our people.

We regularly talk about health and wellbeing issues on colleague engagement calls and run focused information campaigns. Our November 2023 colleague pulse survey showed that 87% of our people believe that we provide good support for employee health, wellbeing and resilience.

Our staff engagement groups and colleague networks enable timely action and feedback to be given.

We work closely with contractors and partners to ensure site operations are carried out safely. We monitor and report on performance and raise areas of concern in a timely manner. We require incidents and near-misses to be fully reported and investigated promptly with actions implemented to agreed deadlines.

We share learning and good practice with contractors and partners to reduce risk across the sector. As our programmes grow and become more complex we will maintain and strengthen this engagement.

We’ve worked closely with the Health and Safety Executive Mines Inspectorate and partners such as the British Drilling Association to raise awareness of safety risks associated with drilling in coal mining areas. This improves knowledge and understanding and has allowed us to seek feedback to improve our permitting processes.

In January we supported the inquest into the tragic death of Christopher Kapessa on our site at Abercwmboi, South Wales in 2019. We have taken action since 2019 and put in place additional learning from the coroner’s prevention of future deaths report following the inquest. This includes a new water safety procedure to sit alongside our public sites and safety processes.

Our 2023 to 2024 statistics show good levels of proactive monitoring and a reduction in our accident rate. There have been fewer unsafe acts and good practice examples reported overall, which is related to there being less projects in construction than the previous year.

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrence Regulations (RIDDOR) reportable accident involved a contractor’s employee sustaining a lower leg fracture caused during a lifting operation. Root causes of the accident were found to be inadequate risk assessment and method statement and inadequate supervision of the activity. These issues were addressed by reviewing the documentation and providing refresher training to operatives. We have shared the learning with our supply chain.

There has been a significant increase in health, safety and wellbeing inspections, which reflects our culture, the ease of reporting through our new online system and an increased number of colleagues across the organisation.

Proactive measures	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024
Health, safety and wellbeing observations – unsafe acts (staff and contractors)	1,962	1,624
Health, safety and wellbeing observations – good practice examples (staff and contractors)	574	499
Health, safety and wellbeing inspections (staff)	322	483

Reactive measures	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024
Accidents – no time lost (staff and contractors)	11	7
Accidents – lost time (staff)	1	2
Incidents – RIDDOR (staff and contractors)	2	1

We are proud of our health, safety and wellbeing performance, but we are not complacent and continually strive to improve. We recognise that proactive monitoring provides the best opportunity to identify risks and take preventative action. Where accidents do happen, we are committed to ensuring they are investigated, lessons are identified and actions taken to prevent a future recurrence.

Over the coming year we will be developing our next 3-year health, safety and wellbeing plan to continue to further strengthen our culture and performance.

11. Our work in England

On the 2 August 2022 we were made aware of an underground coal seam fire in the Gawber area of Barnsley, Yorkshire. Coal seam fires are extremely rare, especially in residential areas.

This fire was several metres underground in the coal pillars left from coal mining carried out in the 1890s and was caused by the burning of waste on an adjacent piece of land.

Our project team worked closely with South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service who reported the fire. We worked to establish the scale and severity of the underground fire and used our historical mining records and thermal imaging drones to understand how the fire was spreading.

Our work revealed that the coal seam fire was slowly spreading underground beneath several gardens and towards a residential property and we worked in partnership with fire service colleagues to agree the best way of managing the fire.

We worked with the local community to agree the best response for everyone. The family in the property closest to the fire were keen to remain in their home to minimise disruption to their children’s schooling and daily routine.

We worked with them to keep them safe and plan the extensive works needed around their schedule. Regular thermal surveys ensured that the family’s safety was monitored and we planned work to minimise risk and had contingency plans in place in case they were needed.

All the families impacted were supported by our customer service team and the project managers involved to ensure that they were kept up to date and were able to inform and agree garden reinstatement work to their satisfaction.

We worked closely with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and the wider community to minimise road and pavement closures and disruption and ensure access to the nearby school and nursery.

Together we sent regular messages to the local community, the local MPs and other key stakeholders. Working closely with those affected and listening to feedback was essential to make this complex incident response a success.

Coal seam fires are challenging to extinguish as the coal provides a constant fuel source that continues to smoulder. Our work focused on preventing the spread of the fire and reducing its air supply by drilling multiple holes in the ground and filling them with a grout material. Where coal was close to the surface we also dug out and removed some of the burning coal pillars.

Once the fire was extinguished we continued to monitor the area using thermal drone surveys. These showed no further ‘hot spots’ over a period of 6 months and we are confident that our response and approach has been a success.

Our year in England:

• we carried out 6,257 mine entry inspections
• we determined 704 hazard and subsidence occurrences
• we provided 6,838 planning consultation responses
• we delivered 63,175 mining reports
• we treated 96 billion litres of water
• we prevented 2,932 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

12. Our people

We have continued to evolve to reflect the increased growth of the organisation and increased frontline services that we are providing.

We’ve transformed our approach to recruitment and onboarding and continued to focus on learning and development, colleague engagement and wellbeing to be an employer of choice.

This ensures that we have people with skills, confidence and empathy to support communities and solve the complex problems that we face on a 24/7/365 basis.

In November 2023 we held a pulse survey and we are pleased to report that 90% of colleagues completed the survey with:

• 74% of colleagues satisfied with our total benefits package, an increase of 18% from our previous survey
• 80% of colleagues saying they achieved a good work life balance
• 90% of colleagues saying they were treated with respect

We continue to hold colleague engagement events on key themes to build on learning from our people surveys and to use our staff engagement group, staff networks, fortnightly all colleague calls and annual all colleague event to listen and discuss ways to make us an even greater place to work, and more able to deliver the important work we do across the 3 nations we serve. We have seen employee turnover reduce during the year to 10.1% compared to 18.4% in 2022 to 2023.

We’re reaching more candidates through our approach to recruitment and seeing high numbers of excellent applicants for most roles – including a 50% increase in ethnically diverse candidates.

All our hiring managers have attended our ready to recruit training and we have continued to embed more inclusive approaches to allow everyone to give their best through the application process, including our guaranteed interview scheme for ethnically diverse and disabled candidates. 5.29% of our colleagues now share that they are from an ethnically diverse background which is a 3% increase since we launched our anti-racism plan in 2022.

Our pay gap report shows that our gender diversity is increasing over time. 45% of our colleagues are female compared to 39% in 2018 and we’ve seen a 2.62% increase since last year.

Our gender pay gap is steadily closing over time. Since we started collecting data in 2018 our mean pay gap has reduced from 28% to 16% and our median from 26% to 17%. This reporting year our mean gender pay gap has widened slightly by 2% and our median gender pay gap reduced by 1.35%. This is largely driven by having more male than female colleagues and specifically more men than women in senior leadership and technical roles that attract higher levels of pay.

We are working to close this and already have more women in leadership positions – with 6% more women in the upper quartile this year. This includes women joining us in senior leadership positions and women progressing into more senior roles.

The report also shows ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation pay gaps and how our action plans will help us make further progress over time. We know we have more to do and are continuing to improve.

Social mobility remains important to us and we continue to encourage applications from former mining areas and those with a family connection to mining. We have 4 current apprentices and have redeveloped our work experience policy in partnership with a school local to our head office in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire ready to pilot new work experience placements in 2024 to 2025.

We continue to invest in learning and development and have refreshed our approach to include rolling out access to the Government Campus training platforms to more effectively access accredited learning and development opportunities from across the public sector.

As we continue to grow and deliver increased services, further innovation and embrace AI and new digital technologies, we know that we need to continue to develop our skills and expertise to maximise the opportunity and value that we can deliver for the taxpayer.

During the year we launched our wellbeing plan which builds on the progress we’ve already made to support and empower colleagues to manage their own wellbeing and support the wellbeing of others. Mental health support and an understanding of the financial pressures that our people can face coupled with life pressures and global uncertainty makes support more important than ever.

We continue to train and support our mental health first aiders, promote our Health Assured employee assistance programme for employees and their families, provide access to medicals and discounted health care provision, free flu jabs and a range of discounts from the UK’s most popular retailers and service providers through our employee benefits platform Edenred.

We also continue to develop our ‘best in public sector class’ people policies and continue to offer role appropriate hybrid working and encourage flexible working to promote work-life balance for the individual, while maintaining the ability to deliver for the people and communities we serve across Great Britain.

We will continue to work over the year ahead to ensure that we truly are a great place to work for everyone, where people feel valued, supported, developed and included and that we are recognised as a great employer so that future colleagues also want to work for us. This makes us more able to invest in our people and listen and learn in order to do this.

13. Our work to enable environmental and social value

During 2023 to 2024 we worked with Durham Wildlife Trust and Scottish Woodlands to develop and implement an ecological restoration plan for an area of previous ancient woodland at Hag Wood in County Durham to support nature’s recovery and deliver environmental and social value for the local community and area.

Hag Wood is a 46 acre woodland near Chester-le-Street in County Durham. The area was previously classified as ancient woodland which means that it was covered in native trees since at least the 1600s. In the 1960s most of the native woodland was cleared to enable conifers grown for commercial use to be planted in their place.

We bought the site in 2004 to treat mine water pollution that flows into the Cong burn which flows through the woodland. Our monitoring showed that the site was naturally treating the mine water due to the natural terracing of vegetation in the burn which means that the iron and other metals in the water settle out from the water and the mine water meets water quality standards when it leaves the wood.

This shows the power of nature and how it can remediate pollution with the right support. We manage the area carefully to ensure that this natural treatment can continue and that it happens in a way that does not damage the wider woodland environment.

In the past few years we have been taking advice from experts in woodland management and considering how we best restore Hag Wood to its previous native woodland and support ancient woodland indicator species. We’ve developed an ecological restoration plan for the area to inform the action we should take to achieve this.

During 2023 we felled the non-native conifer trees on the site and supplied the timber to local mills under the Forestry Stewardship Scheme which assures that the timber products come from responsibly managed forests which provide environmental, social and economic benefits.

Throughout, we have taken learning from the adjacent wood managed by Durham Wildlife Trust and worked with Scottish Woodlands Ltd to manage the project and seek the necessary permissions to enable the trees to be felled and the woodland restored to native broadleaves.

Our felling work has created the dappled sunlight conditions necessary to restore the diverse woodland flora characteristic of ancient woodland. We have already identified 15 ancient woodland indicator species which have clung on under the dark conifer canopy and can now flourish again.

We’ve carefully planted native broadleaf species and encouraged natural regeneration from existing native species on the site such as oak, beech, holly and hazel trees which will grow on to restore the site and promote a more diverse ecosystem.

Our work supports our ambition of being nature positive which is a key theme of our sustainability plan and will create environmental value for the area. We are working with local partners and the community to improve access and create social value from the site for current and future generations.

New permissive footpaths will be developed to complement existing public rights of way through the wood and we will provide interpretive boards explaining the history of Hag Wood, the important role it plays and how it sits as part of the wider North East Community Forest project, which is a 30-year, multi-million pound project by a range of councils, charities and partners to plant trees and create liveable, sustainable communities which help to tackle climate change and biodiversity collapse, support regeneration and provide opportunities for relaxation and leisure.

14. Strategic risks

Risks	Updates and mitigation	Relative rating
Public safety risk A significant hazard caused by past coal mining or incident at a Coal Authority legacy site causes serious injury or fatality.	We have 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.	High – stable
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.	Our significant capital build and refurbishment programmes are designed to ensure that our schemes mitigate and prevent pollution and flooding. We are continuing to develop our understanding of the impact of climate change adaptation and extreme weather events on our estate and operations, and this will help to shape our future programmes.	High – stable
Saline mine water from inland coalfields Due to the saline nature and location of mine water within the central coalfields, potential solutions may be complex and require significant additional funding.	Analysis of our extensive monitoring of England’s inland coalfields demonstrates that the chemistry of the mine water is extremely challenging and will require additional treatment to that normally undertaken. We are continuing our work to understand the scale and distribution of this issue, and working with our partners are making good progress to develop sustainable options to remedy the risk.	High – stable
Incidents The scale or concurrency of critical or major incidents impact on the ability of the Coal Authority to achieve its strategic objectives.	The Coal Authority maintains its category 2 responder status, underlining our significant role in the response to emergencies and incidents that happen on the coalfield. We proactively raise awareness of historic mining hazards with partner organisations including through our Mine Safe programme.	High – stable
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 objective.	We have good visibility of pipeline work and engage early with our suppliers. We liaise with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero commercial team and have regular conversations with our supply chains. External factors influencing this risk are currently relatively stable.	Medium – decreasing
Cyber security failure World political climate, growing digital dependency, increasingly sophisticated and innovative means of attack leads to a cybersecurity failure resulting in financial or data loss, disruption to service or damage to reputation.	We continue to monitor the global risk landscape and continually maintain and improve our technical controls. We understand that a positive cybersecurity culture is key in maintaining an effective defence and promote training to raise awareness with all colleagues.	Medium – stable
Government policy Policy and legislation changes in areas relevant to our work, including increasing differences in priorities across the 3 nations caused by further devolution, cause inefficiency, legal challenge, uncertainty or reputational impacts.	We continue to work with the 3 nations in delivering our work to maximise the delivery of UK and national outcomes.	Medium – stable
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.	We have built a “fit for the future” programme structure which will be embedded during 2023 to 2024. We published our detailed data and information plan in 2023 to 2024.	Medium – decreasing
Health, safety and wellbeing We fail to identify and properly manage health and safety risks resulting in fatality, injury, ill health or poor wellbeing to anyone affected by our activities or assets.	We prioritise our people’s safety and wellbeing and have robust and proactive processes and procedures to manage our health, safety and wellbeing risks. We adopt a proportionate response to manage this risk but it cannot be eliminated.	Medium – stable
Innovation Due to limited internal resources or internal or client processes, product or service development/delivery may take longer than planned, leading to delays in value creation or cost savings.	We rolled out the use of our ochre in anaerobic digestion to generate operational efficiencies and prevent waste going to landfill. We have made good progress in developing a mine water energy opportunities pipeline, collaborating with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, British Geological Survey and other organisations to maximize our success.	Medium – decreasing
Governance Failure to adequately evolve our internal governance frameworks at the pace of increasing organisational growth and complexity leads to breaches of control which impact reputation and external confidence.	We have governance control frameworks in place and recognise the need for these to continue to evolve with the pace of organisational change. We are developing our programme and contract management assurance capabilities to manage the increasing size and complexity of our programmes.	Medium – decreasing
Public and partner awareness Ineffective engagement and communication leads to public and stakeholders not having a clear understanding of our remit and activities resulting in lost opportunities and adverse impacts on outcomes.	We continue to improve our stakeholder engagement to local resilience forums and regional resilience partnerships covering the coalfield. We have introduced new stakeholder engagement processes and held engagement events in each of the 3 nations we serve over 2023 to 2024. Further events are being planned for the coming year.	Low – decreasing

15. Our work to unlock value from our data and information

We manage the Great British archive of underground coal mine workings with our earliest record dating back to 1690.

Coal mine workings sit beneath 25% of properties in Great Britain and our data and information is used daily to support our operational work – for example in responding to mining related incidents and emergencies, identifying hazards, designing mine water treatment schemes that prevent mine water from polluting drinking water, rivers and the sea and in providing reports to support the property market.

Our data is also used extensively by others and is essential to making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

In April 2024 we published our data and information plan which outlines how we will continue to develop and update our data and information over the next 3 years to meet the needs of our business and customers.

Running throughout the plan is our commitment to make our data more accessible by others. We have made our data free of charge for projects and activities funded by the taxpayer in recognition of the important role of the public sector in funding and delivering work for public safety, infrastructure and environmental protection.

We are exploring how our data can be used for new and innovative work – for example to enable the take up of mine water heat across Great Britain. Over the past year we worked with Ordnance Survey to understand the types of buildings and the demand for heating and cooling in Great Britain’s coalfields.

These new maps work especially well alongside the mine heat maps we developed in 2020 with the British Geological Survey which show the heat potential across our historic mine workings. The maps show that there are more than 6 million homes and 300,000 offices and businesses above abandoned coal mines that could benefit from mine water heat schemes.

Both sets of maps are available on our free to use map viewer and we are encouraging their use by local authorities, housing developers, businesses and other partners in their decision making about future developments and the decarbonisation of existing buildings.

We continue to support the understanding and take up of mine water heat schemes through research. In 2023 to 2024 we set up a “living lab” to monitor the operational mine water heat scheme in Gateshead. The data will help us to clearly demonstrate the thermal and hydraulic behaviour of mine water heat schemes and the monitoring data is provided on an open access basis.

Alongside our projects, we continue to invest in our systems and digital infrastructure to ensure it is fit for the future. In 2023 to 2024 we successfully moved more than two-thirds of our digital systems from office-based servers to a new resilient and secure cloud environment.

This allows us to efficiently store and process complex datasets and build and deploy online data services that support our people and make us easier for our customers to do business with us. We will make further improvements and continue to improve the accessibility of our customer facing services in the year ahead.

16. Sustainability and the environment

We’ve made progress against our 2023 to 2026 sustainability plan which embeds our commitment to be a more sustainable organisation and is a core theme of our business plan and 10 year vision.

We have set ambitious targets and whilst we have made clear progress on several priorities (nature positive, supporting the circular economy, enabling social value and empowering sustainable change in particular) we have made less progress than we hoped against our greenhouse gas emissions and plans for adapting to climate change. We have taken learning and will increase our efforts in the year ahead.

We have seen a rise in our emissions this year due to the extremely wet winter which means that we have had to use more energy pumping and treating mine water to prevent pollution.

We’ve assessed the renewables potential and priorities across our estate but have faced delays in our solar panel installation due to procurement challenges. Practical implementation of our renewable energy programme is a key priority in the year ahead.

We’ve continued to make progress in other ways on our emissions as you can see in the key successes section and the detailed tables below. We’ve completed an initial review of the wide range of considerations for our climate change adaptation plan and will produce an interim plan by the end of 2024 to 2025.

We’ve made strong progress on our nature recovery priorities and continued progress on our other priorities – supporting the circular economy, enabling social value and empowering sustainable change. This includes increasing the amount of recycling of our wastes – especially waste from desludging and reedbed refurbishment of our mine water treatment works with less than 3% of our ochre and iron solid waste now going to landfill.

Our information and services have enabled 260 hectares of regeneration and safe development for coalfield communities to support social value and levelling up and we’ve created additional social and environmental value at 8 sites

We’ve published our nature recovery plan and undertaken biodiversity baselining. We’ve developed sustainability informed cost benefit tools for use by our operations teams and embedded social value and sustainability metrics into our new contracts.

We are continuing to improve our data collection, analysis and reporting in line with the UK Greening Government Commitments.

During 2023 to 2024, key successes include:

• increasing the zero or ultra-low emission vehicles in our fleet to 75%
• reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the direct use of fossil fuels by 16%
• undertaking sub-metering to better understand our energy profile at our Mansfield office
• reusing or recycling 97% of our waste ^{[footnote 1]}
• selling iron ochre for use in anaerobic digestion (supporting the circular economy and reducing waste to landfill)
• reducing single use plastics at our Mansfield office by 90%
• implementing our ecological restoration plan for Hag Wood site
• completed high level biodiversity baselining at 77 sites as part of our nature recovery work
• published our nature recovery plan

17. Our greening government commitments

The greening government commitments set out the actions UK government departments and their agencies will take to reduce their impacts on the environment in the period 2021 to 2025.

2017 to 2018 was our baseline year.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Power generated through our direct use of fossil fuels (kWh)	996,740	1,137,505	4,151,179
Total Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e)	245.01	290.94	1,141.29
GHG emissions head office from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e)	8.46	5.89	13.7

This relates to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) purchased for our Mansfield office for heating and diesel fuel oil used in generators at operational sites. We’re using less diesel fuel oil on sites as we’ve switched to grid connections for pumping tests where possible. There has been an increase in the LPG purchased and stored for use at our Mansfield Office.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Purchased electricity (kWh)	30,482,157	26,478,211	20,494,016
Total GHG emissions from purchased electricity (tCO2e)	6,858.16	5,588.76	7,878.51
GHG emissions head office from purchased electricity (tCO2e)	243.09	239.7	364.94

Energy use has increased as we have pumped 17% more mine water at our operational sites during the year. This is predominantly due to wet weather creating more mine water to pump. We have also added 1 new treatment scheme.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Renewables generated (kWh)	984,540	932,282	189,966
Renewables used (kWh)	671,502	725,954	165,501
Renewables exported to the grid (kWh)	313,037	206,328	24,465

We’ve generated more energy from our solar installations due to increased sunshine over the summer months. We’ve not been able to use all the increase as it hasn’t happened when we’ve needed power the most (wet winter) so more has been exported to the grid. This helps to support electricity grid decarbonisation.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Carbon intensity (kgCO2e/kWh)	0.221	0.207	0.364

Overall the electricity grid has become more carbon intensive. This has increased our carbon intensity as we’ve needed to use more electricity from the grid at peak pumping times which have been when our solar energy produces less energy.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Total head office power related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	251.55	245.59	378.64

Small increase as a result of increased occupancy at our Mansfield office increased the LPG purchased and stored for use.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Total power related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	7,112.17	5,879.70	9,019.80

Emissions have increased due to our increased demand for pumping and an increase in the carbon intensity of the electricity grid.

Power	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Total expenditure on energy use	£8,433,478.84	£6,345,257.46	£4,348,855.17

Expenditure has increased due to our increased demand for pumping and higher energy costs through this period.

Fugitive emissions	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Refrigeration and aircon (tCO2e)	6	46	6

A leak in the Mansfield office air conditioning was detected and repaired in 2022 to 2023 which resulted in the higher emissions.

Business related travel	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Kilometres (km) travelled	1,504,063	1,340,761	1,799,174
Number of flights	0	4	73
GHG emissions (tCO2e)	207.66	201.42	305.9
Intensity (tCO2e/100,000km)	13.81	15.02	17
Total expenditure on travel (domestic and international)	£455,631.29	£302,932.96	£354,537.00

We have travelled further this year responding to incidents and undertaking our work and partnership engagement but we have reduced the intensity of our emissions from travel by reducing the emissions of our fleet and using more public transport.

Business related travel	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
% fleet vehicles that are ultra low emission or zero emission vehicles (hybrid or full electric)	75.00%	54.10%	0%

We’ve taken action to change the composition of our fleet. Figures are at 31 March 2024.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Total waste (tonnes)	30,895[footnote 2] (26,950[footnote 3])	20,237[footnote 2] (17,621[footnote 3])	1,417[footnote 4]
Mansfield office waste recycled (tonnes)	4.49	3.55	12
Waste recycled (tonnes)	26,015	15,756	0
Wheal Jane Waste (tonnes)	3,945	2,616	Not recorded
Mansfield office waste to landfill (tonnes)	0.04	0	7
Waste to landfill (tonnes)	926	1,859	1,405
Waste incinerated (energy from waste) (tonnes)	4.1	2.26	0

Since 2022 to 2023 we have included waste from the Wheal Jane metal mine we manage for Defra in our annual figures. We show the numbers without Wheal Jane in brackets for closer comparison with the baseline. Wheal Jane waste goes to a mining waste facility at the site with potential for future resource recovery subject to technology and economic conditions.

Our mine water treatment wastes have increased from the baseline year as we more accurately measure this waste, carry out more desludging and reedbed refurbishment and build more schemes. Quantities vary annually depending on our refurbishment programme and how much mine water needs to be treated each year (related to rainfall). We continue to focus on maximising alternative uses for our waste to turn them into useful products and minimise waste to landfill. We aspire to reach 0% waste to landfill.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
ICT waste	0	0	0

We reuse, repurpose or recycle our ICT equipment.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
% head office waste to landfill	0.9%	0%	37%

Improved reporting has identified that a small residual amount of ash from our Mansfield office incinerated waste goes to landfill.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
% waste to landfill[footnote 5]	3.00%	9.20%	99.2%

We’ve continued to focus on work to minimise the percentage of waste which goes to landfill.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Total expenditure on waste disposal	£8,157.00	£6,220.14	£3,175.71

This relates to the costs of waste disposal from our Mansfield office waste in line with greening government commitment guidance.

Waste	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Number of items of consumer single-use plastics (CSUPs)	11,210	110,341	Not Recorded

We’ve continued to focus on reducing single use plastics at our Mansfield office in line with the plan we developed last year.

Resources - water	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Water use (m3) – Mansfield office	932	819	1,910
Mine water sites (m3)	15,969	15,820	3,075[footnote 6]:
Total expenditure on water	£54,840.43	£22,582.52	£65,259.32

Water use at our Mansfield office increased in 2023 to 2024 as more people returned to office working. Usage remains down from 2017 to 2018 due to improved water efficiency measures and continued hybrid working.

Water is used in the chemical process on some of our mine water treatments sites. We have improved our systems to collect data on usage which is more accurate than the original estimated baseline and we will work to make reductions from here, including using smart metering to get better understanding of use and more accurate billing.

Resources - paper	2023 to 2024	2022 to 2023	2017 to 2018
Paper use (reams A4 equivalent)	305	246	718

Paper usage has increased as more people attend the office.

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

Lisa Pinney MBE, Chief Executive and Accounting Officer, 15 July 2024

1. This includes all waste from our Mansfield office and all waste from our mine water treatment schemes with the exception of our metal mine scheme at Wheal Jane, Cornwall which goes to a specialised mining waste facility for potential future recovery when technological and economic conditions allow. ↩

2. Includes all mine water treatment scheme wastes including Wheal Jane. ↩ ↩²

3. Includes all mine water treatment scheme wastes but excluding Wheal Jane for closer comparison to baseline ↩ ↩²

4. Includes waste from active mine water treatment schemes (Dawdon and Ynysarwed) but excludes other mine water treatment scheme and Wheal Jane wastes. ↩

5. Excludes Wheal Jane, which is stored in a mining waste facility and stored ochre for reuse. ↩

6. Estimated from average usage ↩