ADD2586 High-level impact appraisal of the GLA’s environmental program

1.1. The GLA is seeking to commission a consultant to carry out a high-level appraisal of its environmental programme, providing estimates on carbon, jobs and other key impacts of its projects and policies. The purpose of the work is to provide the GLA with an overview of the impacts of its environmental programme, relative to the costs, in order to inform future budgeting decisions. It will be commissioned in accordance with the requirements of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code.

1.2. The main output of the work will be a summary document for the GLA to easily compare the impacts of environmental projects and policies, incorporating value-for-money metrics. While this is a high-level assessment providing “ready reckoner” estimates of impact, the analysis will note the general principles of the Treasury Green Book and guidance from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on valuing carbon impacts.

1.3. A summary table will be accompanied by a technical report explaining the analysis, including the underpinning assumptions, evidence, and any implications for prioritisation within the programme.

1.4. The work should provide a baseline for the GLA to carry out further assessment internally in future years. In doing so, the successful contractor should also make recommendations as to how to improve the robustness of our evidence base; and provide instructions on how to repeat the analysis internally in future years.

1.5. The successful contractor will need to engage with GLA officers to collate data on carbon, jobs and other impacts from the environmental programme, drawing on existing evaluation and appraisal evidence. Where data is not available, the contractor will need to provide indicative estimates of these impacts using external evidence and professional judgement.

1.6. Examples of direct and indirect impacts to be measured could include carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, jobs, resource consumption and health. These areas of focus would be confirmed and agreed with the Environment Unit before starting the work.

1.7. Examples of projects to be included in the impact assessment include:

• Future Neighbourhoods 2030
• London Community Energy Fund
• Solar Together
• Grow Back Greener
• London Climate Resilience Fund
• Better Futures
• Warmer Homes
• Local Energy Accelerator.

1.8. The contract for the delivery of the requirements is expected to run as per the indicative timetable. The budget is up to £50,000.

Objectives

2.1 The purpose of this work is to:

• provide an overview of the impacts of the GLA’s environmental programme, relative to costs, in order to inform future budgeting decisions
• identify any gaps in the GLA’s evidence, and get recommendations on how to improve the robustness of the GLA’s evidence base
• provide the GLA with guidance on how to deliver this type of high-level appraisal internally in future years.

Outputs

2.2 The key outputs expected to be delivered by this work are as follows:

• a high-level appraisal table:
  • the successful contactor should develop a table (using Microsoft Excel or an alternative) enabling the GLA to compare the impacts across the programme, relative to the costs, incorporating value-for-money metrics
  • the carbon and labour market impacts of the GLA’s environmental programme will be the key metrics that the GLA is interested in, but other impacts (including non-monetised impacts) may also need to be reported in the analysis.
• an accompanying technical report setting out:
  • how the estimates in the table have been derived, including data sources and inputs
  • the underpinning assumptions that inform the calculations such as the additionality and other adjustments
  • instructions on how the GLA should repeat the appraisal in future years internally
  • recommendations for improving the GLA’s evidence base.

2.3 Further details on the consultants’ deliverables include the following:

• Engagement with GLA officers – the contracted partner will be expected to engage with officers in the GLA Environment Unit and GLA Economics team in order to:
  • clarify the scope of the work
  • agree on the key impacts to be measured
  • understand the key policies and projects of the Mayor’s environmental programme
  • understand the key performance indicators and data collection processes already in place
  • agree the appraisal methodology and assumptions used for this project.
• Review of information and collation of data – the contractor will be expected to:
  • review a range of documentation, information and data associated with the policies and projects in scope; this might include documentation on concluded, live or planned business cases, appraisals and evaluations, and monitoring and performance data
  • collate the available data on carbon, jobs and other impacts, and establish the time profile of these impacts
  • set out any gaps in the GLA’s evidence; and identify proxies for impact metrics using external evidence from similar policies, impact evaluations or other evidence.
• Appraisal and impact analysis – the contractor should develop an Excel (or alternative) table listing the key elements of the programme; the gross and net carbon impacts after adjusting for additionality; job impacts; other impacts; costs; value-for-money metrics; and any other information that could be used to inform future prioritisation and future budget decisions.
  

3.1. Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Mayor and GLA are subject to the public sector equality duty and must have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not
• foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.

3.2. The “protected characteristics” are age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and marriage/civil partnership status. The duty involves having appropriate regard to these matters as they apply in the circumstances, including having regard to the need to: remove or minimise any disadvantage suffered by those who share or is connected to a protected; take steps to meet the different needs of such people; encourage them to participate in public life or in any other activity where their participation is disproportionately low. This can involve treating people with a protected characteristic more favourably than those without one.

3.3. The project will comply with the GLA’s policies on equality and accessibility and public sector duties; and it is not expected to have any negative impact on protected groups or others.

3.4. Unlawful discrimination will be avoided in the tender process through clear guidelines on how the contract is to be awarded.

Key risks and issues

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

4.1. As this programme of work is meant to evaluate the impact of the GLA’s environmental programme, it links directly to the London Environment Strategy and the Mayor’s ambition of achieving a net-zero London by 2030.

Impact assessments and consultations

4.2. This programme of work has been designed – and will be delivered – in collaboration with officers from the GLA Environment and Economics teams to ensure that the methodologies and results applied are robust and relevant.

4.3. Production of the outputs of this programme of work will be developed with consultation from key GLA teams who cover the issues and areas of focus for the appraisal. Specifically, GLA officers from the Environment Unit will be engaged to clarify the scope of the work and the projects and impacts to be appraised. The consultant will also be expected to work with the GLA Economics team to agree the appraisal methodology and assumptions used for this project.

Tender evaluation criteria

4.4. The evaluation process will be conducted to ensure that submissions are evaluated fairly to select the most economically advantageous offer. The quotation evaluation process will take account of the following:

4.5. The letting of the contract will be managed by the GLA’s Environment team and TfL Procurement, with advice provided by the Economics team on the project and research being commissioned. A contract will be granted after a competitive tender process.

5.1. Funds of up to £50,000 is required to commission a high-level appraisal across the Environment Unit’s programme.

5.2. A suitable contractor will be procured to carry out the appraisal and will cover the scope of work detailed above in section 2.

5.3. As this assessment will take place across various environmental projects, several will contribute towards the costs. Therefore, this expenditure will be contained within the Unit’s 2022-23 budget, and within projects that have overarching MD approval. Good practice is to allocate up to 10 per cent of project funding to monitoring and evaluation; to be conservative, no individual project will contribute more than 5 per cent of its City Hall funding to this evidence-gathering project. Funds will be taken first from those budget lines considered at highest risk of underspending in 2022-23