Corporate report

Mining Remediation Authority annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025: Performance report

Published 18 July 2025

1. 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.

2. Overview

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

2.1 Our mission

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

2.2 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 missions including kickstarting economic growth, make Britain a clean energy superpower and break down barriers to opportunity.

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.

2.3 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

3. The work we do

During 2024 to 2025, across the 3 nations we serve:

3.1 We kept people safe and provided peace of mind

10,554 mine entry inspections were carried out

1,000 mining hazards, subsidence claims and emergency calls were investigated and assessed

932 inspections on spoil heaps (tips) owned by the Mining Remediation Authority and our partners were carried out

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

126,700 mining reports delivered

1,491 permits issued to intersect coal

8,482 planning consultation responses provided

3.3 We protected and enhanced the environment

232 billion litres– the capacity we created or maintained to treat mine water

3,682 tonnesof iron prevented from entering water courses

2.5%of the ochre and iron solid waste we generate was all that was sent to landfill

3.4 We created value and minimised cost to the taxpayer

£10 millionof income generated through our advisory services

£196,000generated through by-product sales

10sites with additional social and environmental value were created through our work

4. Chair’s foreword by Jeff Halliwell

I’m delighted to introduce our first annual report as the Mining Remediation Authority.

This change of name underlines our real focus on looking to the future and continuing to adapt and stay relevant to meet the needs of the communities we serve across Great Britain.

Through 2024 to 2025 we have continued to enable growth and innovation through strong delivery and recognising the important contribution we can make to the economy across mining areas through our work, and continued to make clear progress towards the ambitions of our 2032 vision.

We celebrated 30 years of the Coal Authority on 31 October 2024 by recognising the vital work undertaken to keep people, drinking water and the environment safe from the legacy impacts of our mining heritage.

On 28 November 2024 we became the Mining Remediation Authority, which better reflects the organisation’s 24/7 role to manage the effects of historical mining in England, Scotland and Wales, and our work to seek low carbon and other growth opportunities from our mining heritage for the future.

The operating name change was approved by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and will be changed in legislation when there is an opportunity.

The new name also reflects wider work already delivered on metal mine pollution prevention and tip safety, an increasing focus on environmental remediation and mine water treatment, and work to find low-carbon opportunities for communities such as mine water heat from the nationalised assets.

As we look to the future and our work increasingly focuses on remediation, enabling growth and exciting low carbon opportunities such as mine water heating, it is appropriate to change our name to reflect the important work ahead.

Following the UK government elections in July 2024 we wrote to all elected MPs across mining areas to share details of our work in their constituencies, and to all relevant combined authority mayors.

We’ve continued to work closely with officials and ministers at our sponsoring DESNZ and were delighted to welcome Energy Minister Michael Shanks to visit our Mansfield office and a local mine water treatment scheme in September 2024.

Our work helps to deliver the UK government’s Plan for Change, in particular, the following missions.

Kickstarting economic growth through:

• our work to protect drinking water for existing and future housing from mine water treatment
• our work on public safety and subsidence and with our data and information mining reports and work with the financial sector to underpin confidence in the coalfield housing market
• our subsidence drainage work to protect homes, property and productive land from flooding
• our public safety and subsidence work to keep roads, rails and other major infrastructure operational
• our planning and permitting work to directly contribute to enabling growth and development in coalfield areas including enabling the development of 465,193 hectares of land in 2024 to 2025

Break down barriers to opportunity through:

• our work as an employer and through our apprenticeships in mining areas
• providing work for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in industrial heartlands
• enabling skills development and jobs through mine water heating opportunities
• enabling safe development for homes and jobs through our permitting and planning work in mining areas

Make Britain a clean energy superpower through:

• our mine water treatment work to protect clean water and nature
• supporting decarbonisation, clean power and warm homes through enabling mine water heating and our use of renewables on our sites
• improving resilience through our emergency response and business continuity work
• protecting nature through our sustainability work

We have continued to work closely with ministers and officials in the Welsh and Scottish governments, and with MSs and MSPs across mining areas.

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 are grateful to our supply chain and partners across each of the 3 nations we serve, who help us deliver outcomes in the most effective way.

Customers are at the heart of our work, our business plan and vision, and we were thrilled to be awarded ServiceMark Accreditation by the Institute of Customer Service in January 2025.

Our customer plan lays out our commitments and continued journey to listen and learn to continue to improve our customer experience across all areas of our work.

This includes continuing to embrace new technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital delivery to drive productivity, effectiveness and improved customer service, while ensuring that face to face meetings and telephone services remain efficient and accessible to those who prefer them.

Our data and information plan provides more information on our digital approach, and we continue to look for ways for our data and information to support the work of others to help them make good decisions and keep people safe.

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 Mining Remediation Authority to ensure that we truly are a great place to work.

This allows us to tackle the complex challenges we face and deliver the best service we can to communities across the mining areas of Great Britain.

2024 to 2025 has been another year of strong delivery and concludes our 3 year business plan 2022 to 2025.

I am pleased with the progress made against these ambitious objectives and of the learning taken through this period has informed our next business plan 2025 to 2028 as we continue to progress against the ambitions of our 10-year vision to 2032.

We have continued to consider the environmental and social value we can deliver alongside value for the taxpayer and how we work in partnership with others to maximise what can be achieved.

During 2024 to 2025 we determined a small number 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, while needing to comply with relevant legislation and guidance.

We continue to provide operational advice and information to government to help inform their policy judgements and are working to inform practical aspects of future legislation to support the proposed coal mining ban that was announced in November 2024.

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

When reading our accounts you’ll notice that our provisions balance, reflecting the future cost of resolving the impacts of past coal mining, has changed again this year, increasing by £0.1 billion from £1.6 billion to £1.7 billion at March 2025.

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 £0.3 billion to £4.1 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 continue to seek efficiencies, learning and partnership to offset costs and minimise these impacts wherever possible alongside innovation and the use of technology.

The operational increases this year are broadly offset by changes to the HM Treasury discount rates which decrease the financial provision by £0.2 billion.

You can find more information on this in the financial review and note 13.3 to the accounts.

We were formally reviewed twice during 2024. Our board effectiveness review took place over the summer, led by external reviewer, British businesswoman, experienced chair and non-executive director, Lesley Cowley OBE.

It concluded that ‘the authority’s board is effective and performs very well. The board is notably cohesive and aligned with trusting, supportive and positive relationships between all board members and attendees.’

All minor actions identified have been considered and progressed to support our learning culture.

Our public body review stage 1 report was published in November 2024 and concluded that ‘the authority is in good health and a full scale review is not needed at this time.’ Eight minor actions were identified which were completed by 31 March 2025.

These reviews have continued to demonstrate that we are a risk based, proportionate organisation that delivers value for money while delivering frontline work across the range of risks we manage and activities we are responsible for.

My thanks to the board for their leadership of the organisation over the past year. I would like to thank Naomi Stenhouse for her excellent contributions under the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Boardroom Apprentice programme between January and December 2024, and to welcome Carys Mills who joined us for a year under the programme in January 2025.

I look forward to working with the board and wider organisation in the year ahead.

5. Chief executive’s report by Lisa Pinney MBE

This year has been focused on strong delivery against our 2022 to 2025 business plan and planning and preparing for the 3 years ahead in the context of our 10 year vision to 2032.

This includes considering the increasingly complex challenges we face such as the legacy impacts of the large super mines in England which closed in the past 15 years and the continued impacts on incident response and other aspects of our work from climate change and extreme weather.

We have continued to listen and learn from our customers and the communities we serve, as well as our colleagues.

Our new name reflects feedback we have heard and explored over many years and will help us to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

We have continued to deliver efficient, effective frontline work and emergency response and to ensure value for the taxpayer along with maximising the opportunity to deliver social and environmental value for the communities we serve across Great Britain.

During 2024 to 2025 we’ve maintained and operated our 82 mine water treatment schemes so that we can treat at least 232 billion litres of mine water to prevent pollution of drinking water, rivers and the sea.

We’ve undertaken work to better understand the mine water catchments relating to the largest English super mines and developed plans to further monitor and mitigate their anticipated mine water rise over the next few years.

To support this, we’ve reviewed the resilience of our procurement, programme and contract assurance teams to ensure we are able to work with our supply chain to face broader and more complex challenges together.

We’ve progressed 5 further schemes into design 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 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency (EA) in England, and Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) in Wales, to deliver tangible improvements to water quality by preventing metal mine pollution. You can read more on our work to tackle mine water pollution in our case studies.

We’ve continued to work closely with emergency partners across Great Britain. This year we responded to 683 reported surface hazards, 266 subsidence claims and 51 additional emergency calls.

We have also delivered 438 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 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.

During 2024 to 2025 we undertook 932 tip inspections across Great Britain. This includes the 26 tips we own and manage directly in England and Wales and the work we do to support other public bodies and landowners.

We continue to support Welsh Government as they progress the Disused Mine and Quarry Tip (Wales) Bill into law and to inform its future implementation.

We’ve made further progress in enabling mine water heat and in working with partners to demonstrate the clear benefits of it and the potential for it.

This year we’ve seen schemes at Seaham Garden Village (Country Durham, England), Lindsay mine water treatment scheme (Carmarthenshire, South Wales) and Creswell (Derbyshire, England) make tangible progress, and the Gateshead (North East England) mine water heat scheme continues to make a real difference for the community and will be expanded further.

A wider pipeline of schemes and feasibility studies are progressing. We were pleased to support the DESNZ with their heat network zoning and mine heat maps, Welsh Government with their mine heat opportunities mapping and to continue engagement with Scottish Government and partners to further develop understanding and potential scheme opportunities.

Delivering value for money, enabling value and generating income to offset costs to the taxpayer remains an important area of consideration.

This year we generated £10 million of income through our advisory services and £0.2 million through by-product sales.

We have continued to work closely with local authorities, developers and businesses to support and deliver growth in communities.

This work in 2024 to 2025 enabled 465,193 hectares to be safely developed for local homes, business and industrial use.

We continued to support confidence in the coalfield housing market through our work with financial lenders, insurers and with local residents buying and selling homes.

This year we delivered 126,700 mining reports and provided data to 6 third party report providers, supporting business and enterprise.

2024 to 2025 was the final delivery year of our current business plan and we’ve made strong progress in year and across the 3 year targets that we set across the 5 themes.

These targets were deliberately stretching and ambitious and where we haven’t achieved them in full we have taken learning to improve and inform our approach.

This includes aspects where we realised that fully achieving the ambition would drive ineffective outcomes or not be cost beneficial at this time.

You can see this in respect of the digital targets where we stepped back from moving to 100% due to our learnings and feedback from customers and colleagues.

The most challenging ambition to meet has been the reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions, where we aimed for 65% but achieved 27%.

We have much more to do and deliver during 2025 to 2028. A key factor for this was the need to work with government to develop more ethical procurement policies for solar, taking account of the concerns relating to modern slavery in this supply chain.

We have now made progress and will build 2 new renewable solar schemes in the year ahead, repair and replace damage and theft at other sites and take further steps to implement our renewables plan which has been developed.

We have made strong progress against other aspects of our sustainability plan and this will remain a key area of delivery for us.

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

We are very aware of the impact of climate change and extreme weather on our work and incident response.

We have made further progress this year in learning from others and better identifying and prioritising the impacts of climate change adaptation on our work.

This will be developed further in 2025 to 2026, with a clearly defined adaptation plan published.

Our new business plan for 2025 to 2028 keeps the 5 themes and continues the underpinning plans approach.

As Jeff says, the targets and commitments in this plan are again deliberately ambitious and stretching.

The importance of digital delivery, advancing technology and AI is a priority for us and we are already seeing the benefits of new approaches, working with partners to explore opportunities and continuing to trial ways of working, which improve productivity, accessibility and ease for our colleagues and our customers.

This year we’ve introduced and embedded new productivity tools to improve collaboration between colleagues and with partners, and we will continue to learn and work with others to maximise our effectiveness and the opportunities from our data and information in the year ahead.

As we celebrated 30 years of frontline delivery as the Coal Authority and then turned our eyes to our future as the Mining Remediation Authority, one of our values was very much in mind – that ‘we recognise that the past can help us shape the future’.

Becoming the Mining Remediation Authority better reflects the important work we do to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas across Great Britain and allows us to continue to attract great people to deliver the important work we undertake in managing coal legacy and beyond, including metal mine remediation, tip work and advice to many others through our civil contingencies work and recognised mining remediation expertise.

The statutory responsibilities of the organisation will not change as we continue to have primary responsibilities for managing the coal assets and legacy as defined in the Coal Industries Act 1994, including public safety and subsidence and informing safe development and growth across Great Britain.

We will continue to deliver the same frontline work to support mining communities, keep people safe from coal hazards, protect drinking water, rivers and the sea from pollution, inform development and conveyancing decisions and enable opportunities from the assets we manage, working closely with partners and the emergency services.

Our people are key to the great work we have and will deliver and I am so proud of their continued commitment to delivery and focus on making a difference for the communities we serve.

Our colleagues have done this for the past 30 years as the Coal Authority and I know will continue to bring this passion to help us continue to deliver for the future as the Mining Remediation Authority.

It is their hard work and expertise that enables us to solve complex problems, support customers with empathy and maximise what can be achieved effectively.

To support them and those who will join us in the future we continue our work to be a great place to work for everyone, where people feel valued, supported, developed and included.

This year we received our highest ever people survey scores, with a 75% engagement score which measures how engaged our people feel, how likely they are to speak positively about the organisation, their desire to stay with us and their willingness to go above and beyond.

We are not complacent and will continue to listen and learn, to evolve and stay relevant to the priorities of the communities we serve.

Thank you to each and every one of you for everything you have helped us to deliver together over the past year for the benefit of mining communities across Great Britain.

6. Our work to keep people safe

We respond to incidents 24/7/365, working with our emergency response partners. We deal directly with 800 to 1,000 mining hazards and subsidence incidents each year and are increasingly called upon by partners to support in wider emergency situations where our expertise is relevant and can help keep people safe.

A key aspect is preparation and we work closely with emergency and resilience partners across Great Britain to share information, undertake training and exercises to ensure we can safely and effectively respond to incidents together.

During 2024 we worked with Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS), the EA and other key partners to design our largest multi-agency emergency response training exercise to date.

Exercise Anthracite took place on 7 dates throughout 2024 and 2025, with 230 responders participating in total.

GMFRS’s training centre in Bury provided a realistic environment to rigorously test our preparedness and response arrangements for a serious residential property subsidence incident.

Exercise Anthracite simulated the complex challenges that can be caused by historical mining activity and included impacts on properties, wider disruption to the local community, vulnerable residents and potential mine water pollution of the local river.

This allowed partners and our staff to face a range of hazards in a high pressure environment and take learning to improve how we all respond to future incidents.

As a Category 2 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (as amended 2023), it is essential for us to work closely with other emergency partners across Great Britain.

We do this by providing information and training and attending local resilience forum meetings (and regional resilience partnerships in Scotland).

As well as incidents directly caused or related to mining legacy, we can also use our information, estate and expertise to advise on the safety of emergency responders and the community in wider incidents and use our sites to provide water or space for responders.

Examples include the 2024 Cleat Hill gas incident, the 2020 Morlais (South Wales) train derailment and support to blue light services searching for vulnerable individuals in mine workings.

This year we have investigated and assessed 949 mining hazards and subsidence claims, as well as 51 additional emergency calls.

We have also carried out 10,554 mine entry inspections and 932 inspections on tips owned by ourselves or other landowners.

We supported partners in South Wales at the major incident at Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, following extreme rainfall which led to a wash-out of material from the local authority owned coal tip.

We attended and advised emergency responders during the incident and have supported the local authority and Welsh Government through increased inspections and advice on remediation since, to ensure public safety and provide reassurance to the community.

This is all part of our work to keep people safe. While scenarios on the scale of Exercise Anthracite are relatively rare, it’s vital that we and partners maintain understanding and response capability so we are ready to support residents and communities when needed.

A quarter of all homes and businesses across Great Britain are on the coalfield. The vast majority of people will never experience any problems from that, but for those who do we are here to help. We can be contacted 24/7/365 on 0800 288 4242.

7. Our work in Wales

Abandoned metal mines pollute around 700km of Welsh rivers with metals such as zinc, lead, cadmium and iron. We are working closely with Welsh Government and NRW to remediate and reduce this historical legacy.

We work closely with partners and communities to inform solutions and balance heritage, environmental and landscape considerations. This recognises important mining history while reducing pollution impacts for future generations in Wales.

The Wales Metal Mines Programme is a joint programme between NRW and the Mining Remediation Authority, and is funded by Welsh Government. It began in 2020 to understand and address the impacts of the estimated 1,300 abandoned metal mines across Wales.

There is no legal environmental duty on historical mines that were abandoned before 2000, so this programme is essential to remediate the problem in a cost-effective way and prioritise the mines which cause the biggest impacts.

This year we delivered an improvement project at the historic Mid-Wales Nantycreiau Mine in Cwmrheidol, Ceredigion. The mine closed in 1895 and has caused significant contamination of the Afon Mynach River from material scouring out from spoil heaps along the river during rainfall and high river flows.

Downstream sampling showed that the site was contributing 1,519kg of zinc, 32kg of lead and 5kg of cadmium to the river each year, which was impacting the river ecosystem and contributing to water quality failures in Welsh rivers.

During September 2024 we worked closely with NRW to design and deliver scour protection along the river. This included using pre-filled rock mattresses to stabilise an eroding bank and prevent more material entering the river.

The site was remote and within the Hafod Forest. We employed a local contractor and used approaches and materials that reduced construction impact, minimised the need for material to leave site, allowed safe working and could be deployed rapidly.

This allowed us to minimise environmental disturbance of this area, reduce our carbon footprint and deliver value for money.

We work with local contractors and SMEs wherever possible to support the local economy and to deliver social and environmental value alongside value for the taxpayer.

Heavy rainfall events are becoming more common as we see more extreme weather and wider impacts of climate change, which can increase the risk of this type of scour pollution.

The work was rigorously tested by extreme weather during Storm Darragh in December 2024 and demonstrated the importance of the robust and resilient solution, which will be used to inform future projects across Great Britain.

Projects like this make an important contribution to climate change adaptation in Wales and show the benefits of working in partnership in local communities to deliver real tangible benefits for current and future generations across Wales.

7.1 Our year in Wales

• we carried out 1,608 mine entry inspections
• we delivered 8,717 mining reports
• we treated 15 billion litres of mine water
• we investigated and assessed 171 mining hazard, subsidence claims and emergency calls
• we provided 1,274 planning consultation responses
• we prevented 322 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

8. Our performance

In the final year of our current 3-year business plan we have made 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 scorecards show how we measure and report on the progress we have made in 2024 to 2025.

8.1 Delivering 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.

Business plan targets by April 2025	Our achievements by April 2025
We will treat an additional 13 billion litres per year of mine water to prevent pollution of drinking water, rivers or the sea by 2025. This is an increase of more than 10% on current volumes (128 billion litres a year)	We treated an additional 13 billion litres of water (a total of 141 billion litres) in 2024 to 2025, compared to our 2022 baseline of 128 billion litres a year and met our target. Learning through the business plan period showed us that a better target is ‘creating the capacity to treat an additional 13 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. We have measured this new target alongside our original target in our reporting, achieving over 15 billion across the past 3 years
We will resolve 90% of subsidence hazards and claims within 12 months	We resolved 91% of subsidence hazards and claims within 12 months, which exceeded our target
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	Through our planning and permitting services we enabled more than 885,000 hectares of regeneration and safe development to enable growth, which exceeded our target
We will achieve ServiceMark accreditation for our service standards from the Institute of Customer Service	We achieved ServiceMark accreditation for our service standards from the Institute of Customer Service and met our target

8.2 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.

Business plan targets by April 2025	Our achievements by April 2025
We will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our estate, operations and travel by 65% from our 2017 to 2018 baseline	We have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from our estate, operations and travel by 27% from our 2017 to 2018 baseline and have not achieved our 2025 target. The target has been impacted by the electric grid becoming more carbon intensive and challenges we have faced with ethical solar panel procurement. We have worked with UK government to resolve this and will be rolling out the next phase of solar panel installation from summer 2025
We will implement integrated reporting that uses evidence based and measured targets to show our commitment and progress on our sustainability goals	We have increasingly built social and economic value into our business cases, decision making and reporting, alongside value for the taxpayer. We have delivered a number of practical examples of additional social value and benefit in local communities as shown in our operational case studies and embedded it in our procurement. We have begun clearer measurement through our programmes. Our 2025 target has been partially met
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 have discussed and agreed initial, high level adaptation considerations for our organisation but have delayed our adaptation plan until 2026 to allow us to undertake more work and engagement with partners. Our 2025 target has been partially met
We will have a nature recovery plan and will demonstrate how our estate and operations are being optimised for nature’s recovery	We have developed a nature recovery plan, which delivers on the ‘being nature positive’ priorities of our sustainability plan and have met our 2025 target

8.3 Work with others to create value

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

Business plan targets by April 2025	Our achievements by April 2025
We will influence and enable 4 large operational mine water heat schemes across Great Britain	We enabled 3 large mine water heat schemes, partially meeting our 2025 target. Alongside this we’ve increased understanding and visibility, enabled future opportunities, developed opportunity maps in Wales for Welsh Government and for 10 cities in England for the DESNZ and undertaken work to inform policy and support investors for heat networks
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	Less than 5% of the iron ochre and iron solids we have generated have gone to landfill. We have met our 2025 target
We will increase our service delivery to partners by 30% from our 2021 to 2022 baseline of £2.49 million a year	We have increased our service delivery to partners by more than 50% from our 2021 to 2022 baseline. We have exceeded our 2025 target
We will assist the lending industry in making faster decisions for home buyers on the coalfields	We have a programme of active engagement with key lending organisations, mortgage lenders, surveyors and estate agencies to provide knowledge of our work and support confidence in the coalfield housing market. We work with lending institutions and surveyors to help develop the best methods to access our data and provide interpretive services to help them make informed lending decisions. We have met our 2025 target

Value creation (financial, environmental and social) is key to our thinking at the Mining Remediation Authority and we are constantly looking for new innovations and efficiency to deliver better outcomes, new opportunities and savings for the taxpayer.

Read our by-products opportunities framework and mine water heat opportunities framework.

8.4 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.

Business plan targets by April 2025	Our achievements 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 made demonstrable progress in delivering the actions in our diversity and inclusion plan and our anti-racism plan and have met our 2025 target
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 developed and implemented apprenticeship and work experience programmes and have taken practical action to consider social mobility and provide opportunities for individuals who live on the coalfield or have a family connection to mining. We have delivered our 2025 target
We will achieve a 5-star rating in the British Safety Council 5 Star Health, Safety and Wellbeing Audit	We benchmarked our health, safety and wellbeing approach using the British Safety Council 5 Star Occupational Health and Safety Audit and achieved a 5-star rating. We have met our 2025 target
We will increase our employee survey engagement score by 10% against the 2019 benchmark of 67%	We achieved a 75% colleague engagement score in our 2024 people survey and have exceeded our 2025 target

8.5 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.

Business plan targets by April 2025	Our achievements by April 2025
We will update 100% of our strategic IT systems and run them in the cloud	We took learning through this work and 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. This means that we have migrated 90% of our systems to the cloud and partially met our 2025 target
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 took learning through this work and listened to feedback from customers and colleagues which showed us that it is most cost effective and efficient to focus on systems and services that matter most to our digital customers and consider and protect other ways that some customers prefer to engage with us. This means that 83% of our services are now digital by default and that our 24/7/365 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. Our 2025 target has been partially met
We will make demonstrable progress on implementing systems that allow simpler, improved collaboration within the organisation and with partners	We have introduced and embedded new productivity tools, including a suite of Microsoft 365 products, to improve collaboration between colleagues and with partners. We have delivered our 2025 target
We will make demonstrable progress in improving our findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data self-assessment ratings	We published a data and information plan which describes how we are modernising and developing access to our data and information and continue to improve our FAIR assessment ratings for the benefit of our customers. We have delivered our 2025 target

9. Financial review

We have had another year of strong delivery. We’ve seen a continued increase in our incident response and public safety work to keep people safe and provide peace of mind, and we have increased our ongoing investment in our schemes 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 DESNZ to communicate the risks and sensitivities behind our funding requirements and have delivered in line with our forecasts.

Grant in aid received from the DESNZ in the year was £75.1 million (2023 to 2024: £67.1 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).

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

Revenue expenditure on our schemes has increased primarily because of our ongoing work to assess options to protect watercourses and aquifers from the issue of inland saline mine water in the most cost effective and cost beneficial way.

Our ongoing efficiency programmes will minimise the future cost of running mine water schemes by employing innovative uses for our by-products.

This includes extending the use of our ochre by-product in the anaerobic digestion market and generating other operational efficiencies led by our investment in renewables to reduce power costs and contribute to achieving our carbon reduction commitments.

We expect these activities to deliver an incremental £4.9 million over the next 5 year period.

9.1 How we used our money in 2024 to 2025

Our income from	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Mining reports	£6.6 million	£6.7 million
Advisory and technical services	£8.1 million	£10 million
By-products and other commercial innovation	£300,000	£200,000
Licensing and permissions indemnities	£700,000	£1 million
Data licensing and mining information	£1.7 million	£2.3 million
Property related	£800,000	£1.1 million
Other income	£100,000	£200,000
Working capital movement	-£800,000	£2.7 million
Grant in aid (DESNZ or Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)	£67.1 million	£75.1 million
Total income	£84.6 million	£99.3 million

Our spend on	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025
Operations: Public safety	£20.2 million	£24.5 million
Operations: Mine water treatment schemes	£24 million	£28.2 million
Operations: Subsidence pumping stations	£2.6 million	£2.9 million
Development: Planning, licensing, permissions and property	£4.9 million	£5.4 million
Data and information	£4.5 million	£5 million
Commercial	£9.8 million	£11.8 million
Innovation	£2.1 million	£2.5 million
Mine water treatment schemes (capital)	£13.6 million	£15.8 million
Subsidence pumping stations (capital)	£300,000	£700,000
Other (Capital)	£2.6 million	£2.5 million
Total spend	£84.6 million	£99.3 million

Income of £21.5 million per the statement of comprehensive net expenditure is the total of the income figures above, excluding grant in aid and working capital movements.

Our expenditure on public safety is reactive and can vary from year to year. 2024 to 2025 expenditure increased compared to previous years, reflecting the work we have undertaken to resolve a number of significant claims and incidents including projects to remediate mining features affecting rail infrastructure near Barnsley, South Yorkshire and properties in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire.

Our advisory and technical services work generated income of £10 million (2023 to 2024: £8.1 million), reflecting our continued success in working with others to deliver positive outcomes across government.

This includes mine water scheme delivery for Defra in England and NRW, and supporting Welsh Government with the safe management of tips.

Mining reports income of £6.7 million remains broadly in line with last year (2023 to 2024: £6.6 million). This reflects growth in the property market and volume of transactions, but is off-set by a small loss in market share as a result of our policy to make our data available and open up the market from a near monopoly position.

9.2 Financial statements

Our financial statements are dominated by the provisions balance of £1,709 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 2024 to 2025 financial year. This balance has increased by £98 million (2023 to 2024: reduction of £600 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 £59 million (2023 to 2024: reduction of £876 million)
• our underlying cash flows, on which the provisions balance is calculated, have been updated based on latest information and have increased by £327.4 million to £4,060.4 million (this recognises increases as a result 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 provisions balance by £157 million

9.3 Statement of comprehensive net expenditure

Comprehensive net expenditure for the year to 31 March 2025 was £170.7 million (2023 to 2024: net income £534.6 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 £35.5 million (2023 to 2024: £33.2 million), an increase of £2.3 million. The reasons behind this movement are outlined below.

9.4 Total operating income

Total operating income, which excludes grant in aid, was £21.5 million (2023 to 2024: £18.3 million) and reflects our ongoing strategy to work collaboratively with public sector organisations to support them in managing their risks, while 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 £1.9 million to £10 million – this is driven mainly through expanded metal mine programmes that we deliver for Defra and NRW
• a 16% year-on-year increase to the size of the market off-set by a loss of market share during the year has resulted in a £0.1 million increase in mining reports income to £6.7 million, while data licensing and mining information income has increased by £0.6 million to £2.3 million
• other increases in our income from 2023 to 2024 relate to the profit on disposal of property (£0.4 million increase) and minor changes in licensing and permissions indemnities, by-products, rental and other income (£0.2 million increase)

9.5 Expenditure

Staff costs of £28.2 million showed an increase of £5.1 million compared to the previous year. Pay award, at 5% in line with civil service pay remit guidance, accounts for £1.1 million. The remainder of this increase is driven by headcount needed to deliver paid for advisory services to our customers and deliver increased front line services for the communities we serve. This includes protecting the environment through the delivery of our mine water scheme programme and feasibility work to assess options to manage inland salinity.

Purchase of goods and services (not including front line costs provided in previous years) increased by £1.1 million to £13 million. Key drivers include a £0.5 million increase to information technology investment to ensure that our systems remain resilient and fit for the future and £0.4 million of supply chain costs that support the increase in our advisory and technical services income.

Depreciation, revaluation and impairment charges decreased by £0.7 million to £15.9 million. Key movements include a reduction in impairments of £1.1 million, driven by a prior year reduction in a right of use asset associated with a lease for a non-operational former colliery site, offset by of £0.2 million increase in asset revaluations driven by the valuation of head office buildings.

More information is available in notes 3 and 4, as well as notes 6 and 7 to the financial statements.

9.6 Statement of financial position

Net liabilities at £1,696.3 million increased by £95.8 million (2023 to 2024: net liabilities at £1,600.5 million). Key factors were:

• provisions against future liabilities have increased by £98 million as a result of the review in provisions outlined above. Further information is available at note 13 to the financial statements
• a £3.1 million increase in total non-current assets to £28.5 million (2023 to 2024: £25.4 million) is predominantly driven by 2 new mine water schemes that are under construction
• trade receivables have increased by £2 million to £6.2 million (2023 to 2024: £4.2 million), primarily due to the timing of payment from NRW for advisory and technical services in relation to their metal mine water scheme programme and VAT repayments due from HM Treasury
• cash and cash equivalents stand at £21.2 million (2023 to 2024: £15.6 million): see the section below on cash flow for details on movements.
• trade and other payables have increased by £8.7 million to £43.7 million (2023 to 2024: £35 million), with the main driver being accrued expenditure relating to increased public safety and mine water schemes expenditure

9.7 Cash flow

At 31 March 2025 we held £21.2 million cash (2024: £15.6 million). This includes £1.4 million (2024: £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 £5.6 million. Constituent parts of this movement were:

• the receipt of £75.1 million grant in aid from the DESNZ, an increase of £8 million (2023 to 2024: £67.1 million receipt) – the cash drawn down from the department covers working capital relating to 3 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 £50.8 million (2023 to 2024: £46.9 million) – we have spent £3.9 million more this year on our operations driven by our mine water programmes, including commencing our detailed work to generate and evaluate the most cost effective and sustainable options for future treatment of inland saline mine water
• a net cash outflow from investing activities of £18 million, an increase of £0.8 million on prior year (2023 to 2024: £17.2 million) – this primarily relates to the purchase of property, plant and equipment as part of our growing programme to develop, build and maintain mine water schemes and subsidence pumping stations, as well as ongoing investment in our information technology and systems

9.8 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 DESNZ. 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.

10. Our work in Scotland

In December 2024 we completed a £1 million refurbishment at our Pitfirrane mine water treatment scheme in Dunfermline, Fife, to ensure it can continue to effectively protect local people and their environment from mine water pollution.

The scheme was first commissioned in October 2009 and can treat nearly 18 million litres of water each day (20 Olympic sized swimming pools) to protect a tributary of the Firth of Forth from pollution caused by historical coal mines in the local area.

The mine water travels through a colliery drainage tunnel and emerges at a distinctive fountain structure which aerates the water, causing dissolved iron and other metals to solidify and settle out.

The water then passes through channels to 2 reed beds for further natural treatment before the cleaner water is safely discharged to the Lyne Burn.

This fully passive system uses no power or chemicals and removes 35kg of iron and 26kg of manganese each day.

The scheme is also a sanctuary for wildlife. The 18,000 square metres of reed bed provide habitat for a variety of plant and bird species.

In 2024, a community-led bird survey identified 29 species, including water rails and sedge warblers, and noted the site as a roosting haven for swallows and starlings.

The site sits within a wider landscape of broadleaved woodland.

The site is open for public access and we look for opportunities to work with the adjacent golf course and local community to maximise the benefits of the site for local people and their environment.

Reed beds work mainly by slowing the flow of the mine water and encouraging the solid iron ochre to clump and bind around their root system.

Over time the reed beds hold significant iron ochre which makes them less effective and they require maintenance.

During 2024 we cut and removed the reeds and excavated the reed beds to their original level.

30% of the original reeds are kept for replanting as this speeds up the recovery process and reduces cost and carbon from the works.

We removed 8,360 tonnes of reed and ochre material which was spread as a soil enhancer on local farmland which is a sustainable and beneficial use of the material, supports the circular economy, reduces waste to landfill and delivers financial savings.

£1.2 million of savings were delivered by this project by working this way.

We worked closely with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) throughout the project to design, deliver and monitor the benefits of the works.

This included enhanced sampling to monitor and mitigate any environmental impacts that have occurred.

The works have improved the flow of water through the site which ensures that it has the capacity to treat the necessary volume of mine water for the long term.

We continue to manage the reed beds through their aftercare period to ensure that the scheme can continue its vital role in protecting Scotland’s people and their environment for years to come.

10.1 Our year in Scotland

• we carried out 2,237 mine entry inspections
• we delivered 53,809 mining reports
• we treated 31 billion litres of mine water
• we investigated and assessed 123 mining hazard, subsidence claims and emergency calls
• we provided 1,124 planning consultation responses
• we prevented 782 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

11. Health, safety and wellbeing

We have delivered the majority of our objectives outlined in our 2022 to 2025 plan, and our progress has been underpinned by achieving a 5-star rating in the British Safety Council 5 star audit in February 2025.

We work with our partners and supply chain to prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues, contractors and the public to seek continuous improvement and best practice in the work we do.

Working in partnership to promote safety has remained core to our approach. We’ve continued to work with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Mines Inspectorate, the British Drilling Association (BDA) and other partners to raise awareness of safety risks associated with drilling in coal mining areas.

This includes collaboratively developing a new audit checklist and undertaking inspections to gather data and share insights into drilling standards to support future industry improvements.

We’ve continued our strategic relationship with the HSE, using our technical experience and expertise to provide advice on gas monitoring.

We worked to support the Bedfordshire Local Resilience Forum following the Cleat Hill natural gas explosion to provide advice on gas management and public safety, as a category 2 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (as amended 2023).

We presented a paper on managing public safety risks from legacy mining to the Midlands Institute of Mining Engineers annual safety seminar.

During 2024 to 2025 we’ve worked closely with our supply chain to learn and share best practice, improve reporting and ensure that we are easy to do business with.

We’ve trialled new ways of encouraging near miss and incident reporting and listened to feedback to evolve our approach.

We’ve undertaken thorough reviews and trend analysis of key areas including pump lifts and chemical use at mine water treatment schemes and developed new approaches that have reduced risks and improved safety for all involved.

We’ve continued to embed our new water safety procedure alongside our public site and safety processes and delivered updated training on public safety risk assessment for all site and property inspectors.

We substantially completed delivery of our 2022 to 2025 health, safety and wellbeing (HSW) plan and took learning to inform the 2025 to 2028 plan.

We remain committed to ensuring health and wellbeing are prioritised alongside safety.

This is supported by practical actions such as medicals and occupational health and our employee assistance programme, alongside enabling and empowering colleagues through our HSW, staff engagement and wellbeing groups to ensure colleagues play a full role in shaping and informing our approaches.

Our health, safety and wellbeing moments at the start of each meeting and focused information campaigns are good examples of how wellbeing is embedded across the organisation.

We have made progress in building behavioural safety approaches into our work but have more to do and will continue to build this approach into our delivery as part of our 2025 to 2028 plan.

Our 2024 people survey showed that 98% of colleagues would report a health, safety or wellbeing concern and 92% felt that the need to deliver work was balanced with the need to work safely.

We are not complacent and continue to keep awareness high and keep learning from others.

This year we’ve further refined our online health, safety and wellbeing management system to improve risk management, ensure actions identified are progressed with pace and to draw more trends data and analysis from the information, which helps us to focus our efforts where they will make the most difference.

Our 2024 to 2025 statistics reflect proactive reporting and a strong emphasis on positive observations which ensure preventative action or learning can be taken.

Our new HSW management system has allowed us to report HSW actions for the first time and ensure that we are taking action on the reports received.

These include findings from site inspections (previously recorded under observations), which means that there is an overall increase in observations or actions identified in 2024 to 2025 (2,304) compared with observations in 2023 to 2024 (2,123).

Inspections are lower this year due to a smaller scheme construction programme rather than any reduction in focus on inspections.

Accidents and incidents increased this year from 10 (2023 to 2024) to 14 (2024 to 2025), although with less lost time overall and during a period where our organisation has grown to deliver more services.

We aspire to zero accidents or incidents as we want everyone to stay safe and we take each one extremely seriously, with a full review undertaken and learning identified and embedded.

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrence Regulations (RIDDOR) reportable accident involved a contractor’s employee sustaining an ankle fracture caused by a short fall while descending a vehicle access ladder.

The root cause was identified as inadequate emphasis on ladder safety and overreliance on experience, with measures put in place to reduce the need for vehicle access ladders wherever possible in future.

Our 2025 to 2028 health, safety and wellbeing plan builds on our experience and learning, focusing on our most high-risk activities and where we can make the biggest difference to support the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues, supply chain and the people and communities we serve.

We will continue to use our management system alongside new technology and AI, where appropriate, to support and continuously improve our performance.

Proactive measures	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024
HSW observations – unsafe acts or conditions (staff and contractors)	1224	1624
HSW observations – good practice examples (staff and contractors)	486	499
HSW inspections (staff)	293	483
HSW actions (staff and contractors)	594	N/A

Reactive measures	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024
Accidents – no time lost (staff and contractors)	13	7
Accidents – lost time (staff and contractors)	0	2
Incidents – RIDDOR (staff and contractors)	1	1

12. Our work in England

We continue to take practical action to support safe growth and development and enable house building across Great Britain.

In March 2025 construction began at our Dawdon mine water treatment scheme in Seaham, County Durham, to build a mine water heat network from the site to provide heat and hot water for 750 new homes at the Seaham Garden Village development.

Seaham Garden Village is a sustainable development being built to the south of Seaham. It will feature 1,500 homes, a primary school, a village centre and innovation hubs which will create a vibrant new community on Durham’s heritage coast.

Our Dawdon mine water treatment scheme already plays a vital role by protecting the drinking water of 30,000 residents and the local environment by treating mine water to prevent pollution.

It has provided heat to our offices at the site for 14 years and will now also provide heat and hot water to these new homes.

Seaham is Great Britain’s first large-scale scheme to repurpose an existing mine water treatment scheme for community heating.

The heat network project is supported by a grant from the DESNZ Heat Networks Investment Project.

The homes on the network are built by northern housing association Karbon Homes, in partnership with Esh Group.

The Mining Remediation Authority has played a pivotal role in developing this mine water heat initiative, working alongside Durham County Council, Karbon Homes and Vital Energi.

Vital Energi has been appointed to design, build and operate the low-carbon system, which will run the district heat network for the next 40 years.

This scheme builds on the success of previous borehole mine water heat projects in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear and at Lanchester Wines, Felling, County Durham, where heat networks are already working effectively to provide secure, home-grown heat and hot water to communities and businesses and support the UK government’s ambitions for the UK to be a clean energy superpower.

With 82 existing mine water treatment schemes and mine workings beneath 25% of homes and businesses across Great Britain, we are working with public and private sector partners to develop a pipeline of further schemes.

Current projects include Derbyshire and an additional site in Gateshead, as well as opportunities in Scotland and Wales.

We are supporting a wide range of feasibility studies for projects that could deliver low-carbon heat to hospitals, leisure centres, and both existing and planned heat networks.

During 2024 to 2025 we worked with Deloitte to produce a report on Mainstreaming Mine Water Heat, which provides a high-level analysis of the economic and physical opportunities and commercial challenges of using mine water heat in heat networks at scale across Great Britain.

This shows that there is huge potential and that there are practical, policy and financial levers that would help to further increase industry and investor confidence in the sector.

We will work with DESNZ and other public and private sector partners to take these forwards.

We also published a series of mine water heat opportunity maps for 10 English cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Greater Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent and Sunderland – which were included in the DESNZ Heat Network Zoning Opportunity Reports published in February 2025.

These demonstrate geographic opportunities for large heat projects that can repurpose Britain’s mining heritage for a cleaner, greener future.

12.1 Our year in England

• we carried out 6,709 mine entry inspections
• we delivered 64,174 mining reports
• we treated 95 billion litres of mine water
• we investigated and assessed 706 mining hazard, subsidence claims and emergency calls
• we provided 6,084 planning consultation responses
• we prevented 2,578 tonnes of iron solids from entering water courses

13. Our people

We’ve continued to recruit, develop and grow our people to ensure we can deliver our essential frontline services effectively, solve the complex challenges we face in 24/7/365 incident response, embrace new technologies and AI and develop new products and services and deliver great customer service.

Our continued focus on being a great place to work for everyone allows us to be an employer of choice and recruit and retain the skilled people we need to deliver our work in communities.

Our latest people survey in June 2024 was completed by 86% of colleagues. Our engagement score increased from 67% in 2022 to 75%, with positive improvements across almost all aspects of the survey.

For example, 91% of colleagues understand how their work contributes to our mission, purpose and values (up from 83%), 74% believe they get the information they need to do their job well (up from 67%) and 76% feel valued for the work they do (up from 66%).

We are not complacent and continue to focus on listening, supporting and engaging with colleagues and taking action in an effective way.

We work with a wide range of customers, communities, partners and supply chain contractors to deliver our work and to enable the priorities of the UK government, Welsh Government and Scottish Government, including safe growth and development, economic opportunity and making the UK a clean energy superpower.

To do this well we need a diverse workforce with a range of technical skills and a mix of experience and new perspectives to ensure we can keep taking practical action on the ground.

We’ve made further progress in building a representative workforce to better reflect the communities that we serve. Our job application system supports efficient recruitment and we made further savings in advertising and using third party providers, while advertising roles effectively across a range of platforms and using social media even more effectively.

We embedded a new tool, ReciteMe, which increases accessibility for applicants, improved inclusive hiring practices and are expanding our guaranteed interview scheme.

We recognise the importance of social mobility and engage with local schools and colleges to promote our work experience placements, paid internships and apprenticeships and encourage applications from those who live in former mining areas or have a family connection to mining.

We continue to take action to reduce our gender pay gap (mean and median pay gaps 16% in 2024) and to consider ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation pay gaps. You can read more in our pay gap report.

We’ve delivered our diversity, equality and inclusion plan and anti-racism plan and will launch a new inclusion plan for 2025 to 2028 this summer. We have continued to support our people and their wellbeing.

All of this helps to recruit and retain good people, drive sustainable high performance and deliver the best outcomes we can for the customers and communities we serve.

In March 2025 we launched Core Learning, a new learning management system, which pulls learning into one place and allows efficient tracking and reporting.

We are also using the Government Campus which allows efficient, value for money access to learning and development across the public sector and has allowed us to reduce the bespoke training packages we need to provide.

We have developed policies on AI use, rolled out new tools and systems and undertaken pilots to ensure that colleagues can inform our effective adoption of AI and new technologies across the organisation.

Over the past year our fit for the future programme has delivered further improvements to IT, systems and governance across the organisation which have been shaped, informed and developed through colleague feedback and which can improve productivity and our service to the customer.

We continue to focus on support and wellbeing and have further developed our approach to ensuring that colleagues are treated with respect, launching a new unacceptable behaviour policy in December 2024.

We provide support to colleagues through our mental health first aiders and our employee assistance programme.

We encourage engagement through our staff engagement group and networks and fortnightly all colleague calls where current frontline work is shared, key messages communicated and feedback heard and answered.

Colleagues shaped and developed the engagement and delivery plans related to our name change last November and their collective input contributed to the smooth transfer for customers and our operations.

Our people are key to our delivery across Great Britain. We will continue to strive to be a great place to work for everyone to ensure that we have people with the skills, confidence and empathy to support communities and solve the complex problems that we face on a 24/7/365 basis.

14. Our work to enable environmental and social value

Following storms and adverse weather, we’ve been part of an exciting, innovative multi-million pound flood resilience project to reduce surface water flooding in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

Working with Severn Trent Water, Mansfield District Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, our Mansfield site has been redesigned as part of a wider scheme to include sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) which also improve water quality and climate resilience for the local community.

SuDS are nature-based solutions that work by replicating natural processes to slow the flow of water and improve community resilience to climate change and extreme weather.

They help drains to cope by delaying surface water reaching our sewers and drains.

The measures installed at our site will store 220,000 litres of water during a storm event and include permeable paving and storage tanks under car parks and site roads, 5 bioswales (planted channels) which capture rain and runoff from the site and 4 downpipe planters to capture water from the office roof.

As we see more unpredictable weather and increased rainfall, these measures will help us and the community to adapt and mitigate against the impacts of climate change.

The scheme also helps improve the health of local rivers by preventing or slowing rainwater entering drains and the sewerage system.

This minimises pressure on sewerage infrastructure and reduces the risk of raw sewage being discharged into rivers and streams.

The scheme uses nature-based solutions and helps us to support the circular economy by reducing the amount of waste water we generate, and to boost biodiversity and habitat areas at our headquarters through the installation of the bioswales and planters.

These will be planted with species that are tolerant to drought, inundation and water quality, enhance the site and provide valuable habitat for bees and other pollinators.

This work supports the ambitions and targets in our 2023 to2026 sustainability plan.

The project across Mansfield is the largest of its kind in England. It will be able to store 30 million litres of surface water during storm events.

It cost £76 million, created 390 local jobs and was funded by Severn Trent Water through their Green Recovery Programme, with the aim of reducing flood risk, improving biodiversity and creating greener spaces for the community.

We’re pleased to have been part of this project which delivers significant social and environmental value to the Mansfield area.

Over the years ahead we will build on this work to improve the efficiency and sustainability of our Mansfield office in line with the UK Greening Government Commitments.

15. Strategic risks

	Strategic risks	Update and mitigation	Relative rating and in-year trend
Public safety	A significant surface hazard caused by past coal mining or an incident at a Mining Remediation Authority legacy site causes serious injury or fatality	We have established processes to manage our risks which include proactive inspection and communication programmes and a 24/7 emergency 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 continue to develop our understanding of the impact of climate change adaptation and extreme weather events on our estate and operations and will use this to inform our future work and programmes	High (stable)
Saline mine water from inland coalfields	There is a risk that without remediation action, untreated saline mine water will have a detrimental impact on the environment	Analysis of our monitoring of England’s inland coalfields demonstrates that the chemistry of the mine water is extremely challenging and in the long term will require additional treatment to that normally undertaken. Our survey and inspection work to understand the scale and extent of this issue is on target, and we are working with partners to develop sustainable options to manage the risk	High (stable)
Incidents	The scale or concurrency of critical/major incidents impact on the ability of the Mining Remediation Authority to achieve its strategic objectives	We actively work to maintain our resilience and emergency response readiness and work with local resilience partnerships and regional resilience partnerships across Great Britain to ensure we can respond to emergencies and incidents that happen on the coalfield. We proactively raise awareness of historic mining hazards and train and exercise with customers and partner organisations. This includes our Mine Safe program	High (stable)
Cyber security failure	World political climate, growing digital dependency, increasingly sophisticated and innovative means of attack leads to a cyber security failure resulting in financial or data loss, disruption to service or damage to reputation	The cyber-threat continues to remain stable but heightened due to the global risk landscape. We continue to focus on promoting a strong cyber aware culture, maintaining strong technical controls, and ensuring we have robust incident response procedures in place	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 closely with governments and partners in the 3 nations we serve to deliver our work in a way that supports their priorities and plans and to maximise the delivery of UK and national outcomes	Medium (stable)
Data/information	Due to lack of resource or prioritisation or the slow adoption of new technologies such as AI, we are unable to evolve our data and information to meet our own business and stakeholders’ needs, leading to an inability to deliver against our strategic objectives and create value	Our data and information plan, published in 2023 to 2024, outlines how we will work with partners to maximise the social and environmental value of our data alongside value for the taxpayer. A pipeline of data improvement work is under way which will keep our data fit for purpose. We are running AI pilot projects to investigate how AI may be able to help us manage our data and information more efficiently and effectively	Medium (stable)
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 and/or assets	We continue to prioritise people’s health, safety and wellbeing and have robust and proactive processes and procedures in place. We have successfully completed the British Safety Council 5 star audit programme, demonstrating our commitment to and effective management of health, safety and wellbeing	Medium (stable)
Innovation	Due to limited internal resources or internal and/or client processes, product or service development/delivery may take longer than planned, leading to delays in value creation and/or cost savings	We continue to maximise opportunities to leverage our estates and by-products to deliver on the government’s priorities. We have made further progress in enabling mine water heat opportunities, working closely with the DESNZ, British Geological Survey (BGS) and other public and private sector partners	Medium (stable)
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 frameworks in place and recognise the need for these to continue to evolve with the pace of organisational change. We continue to develop and improve our internal processes, including our programme and contract management assurance capabilities to manage the increasing size and complexity of our programmes. See our governance statement on for further detail	Medium (decreasing)
Public and partner awareness	Ineffective stakeholder engagement and communication strategy leads to stakeholders not having a clear understanding of our remit and activities, leading to lost opportunities to improve outcomes for the environment and for the mining communities we serve	We continue to improve our stakeholder engagement to local resilience forums and regional resilience partnerships covering the coalfield. We are seizing the opportunity presented by our name change and the development of our next business plan to promote a better understanding of our work and maximise opportunities to work with partners to improve outcomes for the communities we serve.	Low (stable)

16. Our work to enable growth

Much of our work is focused on enabling safe growth and development across the coalfield areas of Great Britain.

This includes our work as a statutory consultee, through permitting and licensing, ensuring confidence in conveyancing on the coalfield, using innovation such as mine water heat to enable new housing and more.

We offer bespoke services and approaches that allow us to work proactively and appropriately with developers, partners, major infrastructure and local authorities on larger and more complex projects to help ensure that their plans are safe and effective for the long term.

In April 2024 we were asked by the UK government’s Office for Investment to advise on the site for a multibillion pound investment in a new AI data centre in Cambois, North East England, by US-based alternative asset manager, Blackstone.

The data centre will be one of the biggest in Europe and contribute significantly to local and national economic growth by creating 1,600 jobs and wider opportunities through supply chains and the UK digital economy.

The site is located above the historical mine workings of Cambois Colliery. There were concerns that mining legacy or future subsidence could pose a risk to the development and the sensitive equipment the data centre will contain.

We provided information, guidance and expertise to help the developer understand the risks associated with the site and inform the permits needed to enable construction to proceed safely and efficiently on the former industrial site.

Through our collaborative work with the developer, we were able to provide permits to drill 48 site investigation boreholes across the 253 hectare site. These were at various depths between 50 metres and 108 metres.

Because of the early engagement we were able to determine the permit applications within 5 working days which helped the project keep to time and ensured that relevant mining risks and considerations were fully reviewed and addressed.

While the ground investigation works were under way we carried out inspections to advise on safety and environmental standards and to hear feedback on our new permit conditions, which were released in May 2024, following sector engagement.

The developer used the information from the ground investigation to inform their planning application and we were able to respond promptly to the local authority as a statutory consultee because we were familiar with the complex site and the work undertaken.

The development was granted planning permission by Northumberland County Council in March 2025, with construction due to commence in summer 2025.

We will continue to work closely with Blackstone, Northumberland County Council and UK government colleagues to inform the safe and effective development of the site and support the UK government’s Plan for Change.

17. Our work to improve public safety through our data and information

We hold a unique and extensive collection of data that details Great Britain’s mining legacy and its impacts on the environment.

We believe that wider, innovative use of this information can transform how we and others succeed in making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

Many public sector organisations use our data to support their frontline work, enable growth and development and effectively manage their assets.

Last year we launched our 2024 to 2027 data and information plan and included a commitment to supply this data free of charge for projects and activities funded by the taxpayer.

Since then 51 public sector organisations have signed licences with us and more are in discussion. Once signed up partners can freely access 22 key datasets which are regularly updated and refreshed.

Alongside this we released a new data service for planning authorities. This streams our mining data directly into the systems planning authorities use and integrates our information with data from other sources.

This helps them to make better and joined up decisions and helps us all work more efficiently together by clearly identifying when we must be consulted on a high risk planning application and where standing advice can be used instead.

This ensures that effort is focused where it can make the most difference and supports safe growth and development across Great Britain.

An example of how sharing our information supports safe planning and development across the coalfield can be seen in North Lanarkshire Council.

The council here are using our data to assess potential risks from mine gases through a web-based tool, developed in partnership by BGS and professional services firm WSP.

By integrating this information into their planning processes, the council is able to provide more consistent, informed and efficient responses to planning and building standards applications for new or extended homes and buildings, ensuring that the risks associated with coal mine gases are appropriately considered.

In addition to our work to support safe planning, we have worked with our emergency response partners through the local resilience forums in England and Wales and the regional resilience partnerships in Scotland to develop local reports that show the nature and extent of mining legacy and our current management assets such as mine water treatment schemes and monitoring points.

This allows emergency partners to make more informed decisions when responding to incidents to keep themselves and the community safe.

We recognise that our information not only underpins our operational activities but also holds significant value for a wide range of users. We are committed to continually exploring new ways in which our data can be shared and applied to support broader understanding, enable more informed decision-making and contribute to meaningful outcomes for the communities we serve.

18. Sustainability and the environment

We’ve made further progress against the priorities in our 2023 to 2026 sustainability plan and against the UK government’s Greening Government Commitments.

Where our ambitions are challenging we are developing innovations, taking learning and working with others to share best practice and influence wider change.

During 2024 to 2025 we’ve worked with colleagues across government to influence new best practice guidance for ethical solar procurement and used this to procure 10,000 solar panels which will enable us to replace damaged and stolen panels and install new solar schemes at operational sites during 2025 to 2026.

We’ve developed our renewable energy plans which will support us in taking continued action towards decarbonising our energy use, reducing energy bill costs and supporting the UK to become a green energy superpower.

Our total emissions have remained broadly in line with those we reported last year, and we’ve continued to make wider progress towards reducing our emissions as you can see in the key successes section and the detailed tables below.

We’ve continued to look for opportunities to maximise social and environmental value, alongside value for the taxpayer, in delivering our work.

Over the past year we have delivered more social value through our supply chain, increased or improved public access at 4 of our sites and worked with partners to create additional social and environmental value at 10 sites.

Our wider work to enable safe growth, housing and development across the coalfield has enabled 288,881 hectares to be developed for the benefit of local communities and businesses.

We embedded sustainability and social value more thoroughly in our procurement and project management policies and processes, established a new colleague environment and sustainability group and engaged colleagues in delivering our sustainability plan as part of our empowering sustainable change priority.

Our organisation has continued to grow over the past year as we have delivered additional services and programmes, which led to additional water and paper use.

Our efficiency measures continue to be effective and we have made significant progress from our original baseline and over the past year on a per head basis.

We strive to keep improving and will review and take further action where we can over the year ahead.

We’ve made further progress with our nature recovery work by embedding this into operational guidance, completing biodiversity baselining across our mine water treatment scheme estate and carrying out detailed mapping and management plan development at priority sites.

Nature recovery is a long-term process and understanding the ecological condition of our natural assets in this way will allow us to work in partnership to manage them most effectively for the long term.

We’ve continued our work on climate adaptation and resilience, producing a one-year plan to inform our work this year and enable us to publish our first climate change adaptation plan in 2026.

We are embedding learning and improvements into our operational work as we progress the wider plan, for example, ensuring that climate adaptation is considered at the outset of all projects and plans, such as considering the impact of increased rainfall at our mine water treatment schemes, and continuing to work closely with Welsh Government to inform their planning on the management of mine tips in the long term.

During 2024 to 2025 key successes include:

• ethical procurement of solar panels to allow us to roll out renewable energy at scale on our operational sites
• increasing the proportion of zero or ultra-low emission vehicles in our fleet to 97%
• completing geographic information system (GIS) habitat mapping exercise at all 82 mine water treatment schemes
• undertaking detailed habitat mapping at 22 mine water treatment schemes and 6 tip sites and developing 2 detailed management plans on a prioritised basis
• working with our supply chain to improve the reporting and data tracking of raw materials and carbon using a carbon data capture tool for the construction of a new mine water treatment scheme

We are continuing to improve our data collection, analysis and reporting in line with the UK Greening Government Commitments. Our baseline year is 2017 to 2018.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Power generated through our direct use of fossil fuels (kWh)	1,141,616	996,740	4,151,179
Total greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e)	291.45	245.01	1,141.29
GHG emissions head office from the direct use of fossil fuels (tCO2e)	8.53	8.46	13.70

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 are replacing generators with grid connections at some of our operational sites and will see the benefits of this in the next financial year.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Purchased electricity (kWh)	28,056,826	30,482,157	20,494,016
Total GHG emissions from purchased electricity (tCO2e)	6,322.61	6,858.16	7,878.51
GHG emissions head office from purchased electricity (tCO2e)	217.91	243.09	364.94

Energy use has reduced as we have pumped less water at our operational sites due to drier weather than 2023 to 2024.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Renewables generated (kWh)	935,694	984,539	189,966
Renewables used (kWh)	639,940	671,502	165,501
Renewables exported to the grid (kWh)	295,754	313,037	24,465
Carbon intensity (kgCO2e/kWh)	0.222	0.221	0.364

We’ve generated less energy from our solar installations due to theft, and wear due to delayed maintenance.

Now that we have agreed an ethical procurement route with UK government we will be able to replace and maintain these sites during 2025.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Total head office power-related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	226.44	251.55	378.64

Emissions have reduced but remain relatively consistent.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Total power-related GHG emissions (tCO2e)	6,614.06	7,112.17	9,019.80

Emissions have reduced as we have needed less pumping due to drier weather.

Power	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Total expenditure on energy use	£8,546,812.21	£8,433,478.84	£4,348,855.17

Expenditure is higher due to increased energy costs.

Fugitive emissions	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Refrigeration and aircon (tCO2e)	9	6	6

A leak in one of the chillers at our Mansfield office was detected and repaired this year which resulted in slightly higher emissions.

Business-related travel	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
km travelled	1,435,054	1,504,063	1,799,174
Number of flights	4	0	73
GHG emissions (tCO2e)	184.69	207.66	305.9
Intensity (tCO2e/100,000km)	12.87	13.81	17
Total expenditure on travel (domestic and international)	£536,652.56	£455,631.29	£354,537.00

Carbon intensity has reduced slightly due to further fleet decarbonisation and sustainable travel choices.

Two return flights were approved for colleagues to attend and present at the International Mine Water Association Conference in the USA.

Business-related travel	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
% fleet vehicles that are ultra low emission or zero emission vehicles (hybrid or full electric)	96.9%	75%	0%

We have taken further action to decarbonise our fleet.

Waste	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Total waste (tonnes)	30,871 (26,375.92)	30,895 (26,9502)	1,417
Mansfield office waste recycled (tonnes)	5.54	4.49	12
Waste recycled (tonnes)	28,651.12	26,015	0
Waste composted/food waste (tonnes)	0.076	Not recorded	Not recorded
Wheal Jane Waste (tonnes)	3,483	3,945	Not recorded
Mansfield office waste to landfill (tonnes)	0.06	0.04	6.9
Waste to landfill (tonnes)	730.38	926	1,405
Waste incinerated (energy from waste) (tonnes)	6.44	4.1	0
Waste incinerated (without energy recovery) (tonnes)	0	0	0
Mansfield office hazardous waste (tonnes)	0	0	0

Since 2022 to 2023 we have included waste from the Wheal Jane metal mine we manage for Defra in our annual total waste figures. We show the numbers without Wheal Jane in brackets for closer comparison with the baseline.

The total waste figure for 2017 to 2018 includes waste from active mine water treatment schemes (Dawdon and Ynysarwed) but excludes other mine water treatment and Wheal Jane wastes.

Site waste volumes vary annually depending on our refurbishment programme and how much mine water needs to be treated each year.

We continue to focus on maximising alternative uses for our waste to turn them into useful products and minimise waste to landfill.

At our Mansfield office we continue to increase re-use and recycling rates and minimise disposal.

Waste	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
ICT waste (tonnes)	0.43	0	0

We reuse, repurpose or recycle our ICT equipment. In 2024 to 2025 0.41 tonnes was provided to a charity who reuse or resell the items and 0.02 tonnes went for recycling.

Waste	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
% head office waste to landfill	0.5%	0.9%	37%
% waste to landfill	2.2%	3%	99.2%

We continue to reduce waste to landfill (this excludes Wheal Jane, which is stored in a mining waste facility and stored ochre for reuse).

Waste	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Total expenditure on waste disposal	£8,146.68	£8,157	£3175.71

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

Waste	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Items of consumer single-use plastics (CSUPs)	1,641	11,210	Not recorded

We’ve continued to focus on reducing single-use plastics at our Mansfield office.

Resources – water use	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Water use (m3) – Mansfield office	1069	932	1,910
Mine water sites (m3)	7,046	15,969	3,075 (estimated from average use)
Total expenditure on water	£77,351.06	£54,840.43	£65,259.32

We’ve used more water at our Mansfield office as our headcount has grown to deliver additional services and more people are routinely using the office.

Our water efficiency measures continue to be effective.

Water is used in the chemical process on some of our mine water treatment sites.

The increased cost, despite reported lower usage, relates to reconciliation of estimated and actual bills at mine water treatment sites between financial years, as well as a 20% increase in water costs.

In the coming year we continue to focus on improving the accuracy of usage data which will help us to improve efficiencies and reduce site water use.

Resources – paper use	2024 to 2025	2023 to 2024	2017 to 2018
Paper use (reams A4 equivalent)	470	305	718

We’ve used more paper as headcount has increased and more people are routinely using the office, although this remains well below baseline. We will take steps to monitor and seek to further reduce this during 2025 to 2026.

This performance report has been approved by the chief executive and accounting officer, Lisa Pinney MBE, 7 July 2025