Corporate report

The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2018 to 2019: Performance report

Published 1 July 2019

1. Overview

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

1.1 Our mission:

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

1.2 Our purpose:

• we keep people safe and provide peace of mind
• we protect and enhance the environment
• we use our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions
• we create value and minimise cost to the taxpayer

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

We contribute to the delivery of the government’s Industrial Strategy and the 25 year Environment Plan. By sharing our knowledge and expertise we can support them in their mission of a cleaner, greener country for us all.

As a public body that holds significant geospatial data we work with the Geospatial Commission to look at how, by working together, we can unlock significant value across the economy.

1.3 Our governance and strategy:

We’ve an independent board responsible for setting our strategic direction, policies and priorities. It ensures our statutory duties are carried out effectively. Our chair and members of the board have a wealth of experience in the areas in which we work.

Non-executive directors are recruited and appointed to the board by the Secretary of State for BEIS. Executive directors are recruited to their posts by the board and appointed to the board by the Secretary of State for BEIS.

1.4 Our values:

TRUSTED:

• we act with integrity
• we’re open and honest
• we deliver on our commitments

INCLUSIVE:

• we promote a culture of mutual respect
• we recognise that our differences make us stronger
• we work with others to achieve our mission

PROGRESSIVE:

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

2. The work we do

The work we do

3. Chair’s foreword

It’s a great pleasure for me to introduce our 2018-19 annual report. It has been a year of change both in terms of a number of new senior personnel and in how we do things. This includes working with others in a more confident and effective manner.Our newly revised mission, purpose and values is a good summary of our ambitions.

We’re increasingly realising opportunities from our mining heritage to create social value and real economic benefits to minimise costs to the taxpayer whilst continuing to manage issues from our mining legacy efficiently and effectively. This year we made our first commercial sale of ochre, the by-product of our treatment of contaminated water discharges from historic coal mines, to treat contaminated land and support land remediation. This reduces waste, delivers public good and provides income. We continue to invest in solar energy and to date have saved £79,000 in power costs and 311 tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere. Our Research and Development centre located at the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield is informing our innovation journey and we’re actively exploring opportunities to use water and heat from mines to provide low carbon and sustainable solutions to some national challenges which would help deliver the government’s Clean Growth Strategy and 25 year Environment Plan.

You’ll notice that our provisions balance, reflecting the future cost of resolving the impacts of past coal mining, has changed again this year, decreasing by £2.0 billion from £4.3 billion to £2.3 billion at March 2019. This balance is calculated by applying HM Treasury assumptions on the time-value of money to a forecast of cash flows at today’s prices. Our forecast of these underlying cash flows has increased by £0.3 billion to £2.2 billion, primarily reflecting an increase in the expected costs of building and operating mine water treatment schemes (although we expect our innovation and research programmes to help offset this in time). This is more than offset by changes to HM Treasury discount rates which decrease the provision by £2.3 billion.

To keep delivering our work – and to fully realise the challenges and opportunities ahead – we need to continue to develop and grow and be bold in our approach. Our people are essential to this and they are vital in enabling us to be a sustainable organisation for the future. We want to be seen as an employer of choice that offers exciting careers, invests in and develops its people and is diverse and inclusive. We’ve made good progress this year, launching our new people plan, including a new learning and development strategy, which sets out our commitment to value, support and invest in all our staff and their wellbeing. As part of this we’ve trained 16 mental health first aiders and all managers have attended mental health first aid training.

We’ve this year published our first gender pay gap report. We’re able to report some progress but we’re not satisfied. We’re committed to further reducing our gender pay gap which is larger than we would like mainly due to the fact that many of our staff were originally from the largely male coal industry. I’m pleased to say that we’ve seen an increase in the number of women joining us this year, including in more senior roles for example the appointment of our first female chief executive. We realise that we’ve a significant way to go but have a clear plan and a strong commitment to reducing the gap over the next few years.

You can read our gender pay gap report here

To enable us to do all this effectively, be a sustainable organisation and fit for the future, we need people from a wide range of backgrounds with a passion for making a difference. Our workforce is changing, with over half of our people new to the organisation in the last 3 years. We’re balancing these new skills and approaches with the important knowledge and expertise of longer serving staff and ensuring good knowledge transfer as the organisation continues to evolve.

Personally I am particularly pleased with the progress in becoming ‘One Coal Authority’ in our approach which enables us to give better and more consistent customer service and to use our information and expertise holistically to deliver better outcomes, be more innovative and efficient. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all our staff for their continued commitment and delivery this year.

At the end of the year we said goodbye to Bob Spedding after 6 years’ service as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of our Audit committee. Bob added great value to the Coal Authority and was committed to helping us to be well managed but also pragmatic. I personally greatly valued Bob’s advice and would like to thank him for all his efforts. I am delighted to welcome Jayne Scott to the board as a successor to Bob. I am looking forward to working with Jayne.

This will be my final chair’s foreword as I am entering my seventh and final year as chair. I am pleased to have been part of the success of a vibrant and forward thinking organisation. I have learned a lot and that is due to all of our staff. I could not have hoped for a more welcoming, caring and hardworking group of people.

Thank you.

Stephen Dingle Chair

4. Chief executive’s report

I’ve always been passionate about making a difference and I feel very fortunate to be given the opportunity to lead the Coal Authority which does important work every day to keep people safe and protect the environment. I’m committed to working with our great people and with partners and customers to maximise what we can do to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

My 3 areas of focus this year have been to empower and support our people, listen to and work more with others and review our business plan and core processes.

We’ve engaged with staff and customers to shape our new people plan, learning and development strategy and mission, purpose and values. Our clearer focus on development, wellbeing and inclusion is a direct result of feedback from our staff and I’m delighted to see the people plan coming to life and helping us become a truly great place to work. In 2019-20 we will be working more closely with local communities, rolling out our new flexible working approaches and trialling more inclusive approaches to recruitment.

We’ve met a wide range of customers, stakeholders and partners across England, Scotland and Wales and explored ways that we can work better together to deliver more for the communities we serve. We’re using our expertise to help local authorities and national parks reduce risk from mine tips they are responsible for, working with major infrastructure providers including Network Rail and HS2 to inform risk based planning and exploring catchment approaches with water companies, environmental bodies and other partners. We’ve provided 293,043 coal mining search reports to help keep the housing market flowing and are continuing to encourage a more competitive market by licensing our data for others to use innovatively.

We continue to work with the Geospatial Commission, Geo6 founding bodies and others to join up our data and work together to simplify things for customers. Our Sustainable Urban Drainage tool with the Environment Agency in the North East is a good example of this. In 2019-20 we will continue this further.

The board reviewed our 5 year business plan in December and agreed that the ‘what’ remains fit for purpose with minor tweaks of emphasis and the incorporation of learning we’ve taken during our first year of delivery. The significant shift in ‘how’ we work is reflected in our new mission, purpose and values and our people plan. Our business plan priority areas are outlined on here. Throughout these changes our focus on delivering outcomes, keeping people safe and protecting the environment has been unwavering. I am especially proud of our incident response and emergency work at Eckington Colliery. Within 10 weeks, following sudden closure, we completed work to minimise the risks to public safety arising from pollution or subsidence of the railway line. This was a credit to staff across the organisation and to our supply chain.

In 2019-20 we will work with customers and partners to develop new customer standards and simplify internal and external processes to ensure we’re easier to engage and do business with. We will continue to be more visible through social and other media presence, updating our website and through improved signage and information boards at sites. We will further develop our commercial business by providing more expert services and advice and strengthen our opportunity pipelines for the assets and by-products (water, heat, ochre) we manage from our mining legacy. And we will continue to provide our core duties and 24/7 incident response and reassurance for anyone impacted by coal mining gas, subsidence or hazards.

The Coal Authority is a small organisation with a big remit and great people. I look forward to working with everyone to continue to make a difference in the year ahead.

Lisa Pinney MBE Chief Executive and Accounting Officer

5. Highlights in 2018-19

We’ve made sustained progress in delivering the outcomes from the first year of our 5 year plan. We’ve continued to invest in the future and innovation as well as deliver our core roles of keeping people safe, protecting the environment and providing good quality information to help others make informed decisions.

We:

• carried out 10,984 mine entry inspections, repaired or rebuilt 117 homes and other properties, fixed 17 holes under roads or railways and 410 on other land and settled 544 claims as part of our 24/7 public safety and subsidence programme to keep people safe

• delivered mine water treatment capital projects across both coal and metal mines, continuing our research and development programme to protect drinking water, surface water and the wider environment by preventing mining pollution across England, Scotland and Wales

• enhanced our CON29M mining search report to further improve the information given to our customers and continued to work with other providers and data licensees to enable choice and competition in the conveyancing market

• generated commercial income of £5.5 million from our advisory services and through innovative use of by-products. This included the first commercial sale of ochre to treat contaminated land and to support sustainable land remediation

• improved our governance and core processes through our new teams in project management, legal and governance and customer insights to help drive efficiencies, remain compliant with all our legal obligations (including General Data Protection Regulation) and react better to customer needs and expectations

• continued to invest in our people through our new people plan, learning and development programme, and increased focus on diversity, inclusion, mental health and wellbeing

6. Outlook for 2019-20

Our mission is to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

To achieve this we will:

• continue to deliver our core work keeping people safe from subsidence, protecting their drinking water and environment from mine water pollution and providing timely and effective information to infrastructure providers, developers and the conveyancing market

• establish and publish new customer service standards, consult on and implement our customer strategy and improve our visibility so that our customers can better see the work we do in their communities

• innovate, maximising opportunity from our research and development initiatives and bring value from our by-products and mining legacy alongside providing advisory services on both a government-government and commercial basis to deliver value, generate income and reduce cost to the taxpayer

• refresh our main office using smarter working principles, make our IT and infrastructure more accessible and continue to simplify our systems and processes to make it easier for our people to work and easier for others to do business with us

• make progress with our gender pay gap and diversity and inclusion action plans, invest in our expertise through learning and development and ensure that the Coal Authority is a great place to work so that we can be an employer of choice and have the skills we need to deliver the government’s obligations for mining legacy into the future

7. Our performance

We launched our new 5 year business plan at the beginning of 2018-19 and set our strategic objectives and milestones. We’ve made good progress against the first year of our plan, reviewing how we do things, and setting the foundations to create a more sustainable organisation able to deliver our mission for years to come.

We’re developing our balanced scorecard against 4 areas: customers and stakeholders; internal processes; our people; and managing our money. Our achievements in these areas are outlined below.

7.1 Customers and stakeholders

During the year we’ve set up our customer strategy and insights team. This team have scoped a long term programme to improve our customer focus and are well underway in developing our strategy and measures.

As well as delivering our core public safety and environmental programmes we’ve increased our profile across wider government strengthening future opportunity for increased partnerships and established our position as 1 of 6 organisations supporting the government’s Geospatial Commission.

7.2 Internal processes

We’ve embedded our new finance and procurement systems across the organisation. These provide standardised processes, improved governance and better management information to help us run our business efficiently.

We’ve strengthened our legal and governance team so that we can continually improve and assure our processes as well as ensuring ongoing compliance to changing regulation.

Implementation of a new programme office structure will help us to more effectively prioritise and deliver our core work and improvement projects.

7.3 Our people

We launched our first people plan outlining how we can create a great place to work for all.

We’ve reviewed and increased our focus on diversity, inclusion, mental health and wellbeing through the creation of new working groups and policies.

Consulting with our colleagues we’ve developed and communicated our new mission, purpose and values.

We’ve introduced a learning and development team who have implemented a programme to drive the learning culture across the organisation.

We continue to build on our technical expertise, recruiting trainees in a number of specialist and technical roles, ensuring knowledge is transferred and maintained.

7.4 Managing our money

We’ve continued to work closely with BEIS so that they understand our financial risks and we managed our expenditure in line with our agreed control totals.

45% of our expenditure was funded outside of BEIS grant in aid during the year. We generated £5.5 million income from our advisory services and by-products, using our expertise to create opportunities from our mining legacy.

We’ve continued to develop our products and services and have re-designed and relaunched our CON29M mining report to ensure that we continue to earn a significant financial contribution.

8. Case study: Lynemouth mine water treatment scheme

You can read about our Lynemouth mine water treatment scheme here

9. Our business model

Our business model forms part of our business plan. The model supports how we’re going to deliver to our customers, invest in the future and build capabilities to enable us to achieve our goals and unlock our long term value.

9.1 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 tax payer

10. Our business plan

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

10.1 Lead, support and develop our people:

• our leadership training inspires, motivates and helps staff achieve their full potential
• we’ve capability to deliver our statutory duties in perpetuity
• we promote diversity and inclusion
• our staff are empowered and engaged
• our staff reward mechanism is aligned to development

10.2 Pursue commercial opportunities:

• we provide advisory services to enable other organisations to manage their risks
• we create value from our mining legacy and by-products
• we develop products and services to create value from our information and data

10.3 Implement a customer strategy:

• we understand our customers
• we focus on customer needs
• our customer data is measured, understood and utilised to add value
• best practice ways of working are embedded

10.4 Invest in our governance and processes:

• risk management is refreshed and risk reporting is dynamic
• portfolio and programme offices support effective prioritisation and delivery
• governance is simple and empowers people within frameworks

11. Strategic risks

Risks	Mitigation	Relative rating
Public safety risk: Despite Coal Authority controls, a significant surface hazard caused by past coal mining or incident at a Coal Authority legacy site causes serious injury or fatality.	We’ve well established processes to manage our risks including proactive inspection and communication programmes and a 24/7 triaged response line. We adopt a proportionate response to manage this risk but it cannot be eliminated.	High (stable)
Recruitment and retention: Main office location and low awareness of Coal Authority purpose inhibits recruitment of talent and key skills impacting our ability to create a sustainable and diverse workforce.	We’ve launched our people plan which includes focus on leadership, equality, diversity and inclusion, job design, flexible working options and clear development opportunities. We’ve increased our social media presence and are widening our media visibility to highlight the breadth of our work and are developing more creative recruitment campaigns designed to reach a wider audience.	High (decreasing)
Disruptors in the information market: Due to limited resource and focus on core duties we fail to develop new products or services in the face of potential disruptors to the information market, leading to missed opportunity for Coal Authority and others to create value from our information and data.	We will continue to work closely with the Geospatial Commission, its partner bodies, and other organisations to identify opportunities to share our data and information. During 2019 we will review and develop our next information strategy. We’ve been successful in releasing our data and opening up the coal mining reports market. We remain the market leader and are concentrating on developing new products and routes to market and providing excellent service to our customers.	High (stable)
Markets: Due to external funding pressures and uncertainty, opportunities to provide advisory services to government organisations develop more slowly leading to lost financial contribution and missed opportunity to create value from mining legacy.	We’ve reviewed our markets and rationalised the by-products and advisory services we’re offering and the partners we’re engaging with. We’ve re-designed our business intelligence capability and focused our commercial activity in one directorate to strengthen our strategic focus.	Medium (stable)
Innovation: Due to funding constraints and the inherent risk in innovation, progress to develop new technology, processes and products may take longer than planned leading to delay in cost savings and value creation.	This programme is overseen by our Innovation board. Following a number of strategic reviews the team is focused on several key development strands. We will continue to collaborate with our sponsor department, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), British Geological Survey and other organisations to maximise our success.	Medium (stable)
Financial support: Sustained pressure on mine water treatment costs and the reactive nature of our public safety work leads to a short term funding gap causing us to slow or stop key strategic programmes.	We work closely and transparently with BEIS to share our plans and manage our financial risks. BEIS are supportive of our strategy which is designed to enable us to manage the UK’s coal mining legacy as efficiently as possible.	Medium (stable)
Exit from EU: Uncertainty in respect of timing and nature of exit from the EU may lead to impact on funding and policy for the Coal Authority and its partners. An un-managed exit may lead to disruption.	We continue to monitor the situation carefully. We’ve reviewed the elements of our business that may be affected in the short term by EU exit, for instance supply of chemicals to our mine water treatment plants, and have plans in place to manage these. Our business continuity plans have been reviewed and updated so that colleagues are clear on how to deal with minor disruption.	Low (increasing)

12. Financial review

This year we’ve made further good progress with our strategy of building a sustainable organisation that will continue to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

We work closely with the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to communicate the risks and sensitivities behind our funding requirements and have delivered in line with our expected control totals. BEIS grant in aid received in the year was £28.5 million (2017-18: £30 million). Operating income from our customers at £19.5 million was £1.7 million ahead of 2017-18 (£17.8 million). An increase in our advisory services income of £1.8 million to £5.5 million (2017-18 £3.7 million) reflects our success in delivering for other government organisations including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Network Rail and Natural Resources Wales. We continue to be the market leader in providing coal mining reports and during the year the success of our strategy to promote a competitive mining report market has seen our overall market share reduce broadly in line with expectation. This is partly reflected in a reduction of income from £12.1 million to £11.6 million. We continue to develop our products to meet market requirements and during the year we developed an enhanced version of our CON29M mining report which was released in April 2019.

12.1 How we used our money in 2018-19:

12.2 Provisions

Our accounts are dominated by our provisions balance and associated movements. The rationale and methodology for calculating this are shown at note 12 to the accounts. As in previous years and in line with our accounting policy, the provision for resolving the impacts of past coal mining was reviewed at the end of 2018-19. As a result our provision has decreased from £4.3 billion to £2.3 billion.

Underlying pre-inflation cash-flows have increased by £0.3 billion from £1.9 billion to £2.2 billion driven by latest forecasts in respect of our mine water programme. Our increased experience of running schemes over a sustained period of time indicates that the operating life of certain components is lower than that originally expected and therefore future refurbishment costs are likely to be higher than previously provisioned. Similarly, sustained pressure on operating costs, including power and chemicals, indicates that operating cash flows will be higher than previously anticipated. The combined effect of these is an increase in predicted future mine water treatment costs, based on the previous number of forecast schemes, of £0.5 billion. Our innovation programme is designed to generate efficiency savings and deliver environmental benefits by reviewing new ways of delivering our core services. Because benefits from future innovation are uncertain and difficult to predict they cannot be taken into account for purposes of our provisions calculation.

This increase in forecast cash flows is offset by a reduction in the forecast cost of building new schemes. Mine water scheme build is dependent on cost/benefit analysis and the water framework directive, which has been transposed into UK legislation, includes the concept of disproportionate cost. The increase in predicted costs of running mine water schemes means that a number of schemes will not pass cost/benefit analysis and may not be built. The build and operating costs of 28 schemes, amounting to £0.2 billion, have been removed from the provisions forecast.

In line with accounting practice we adjust our cash-flows to reflect the time value of money based on assumptions and discount rates provided by HM Treasury. These rates have changed significantly during the year. This has had the effect of reducing the provision by £2.3 billion (being the difference between the £2.4 billion discounting effect at 2017-18 less the £0.1 billion discounting effect at 2018-19).

12.3 Cash flow

There was a net decrease in cash during the year of £3.8 million (2017-18: net decrease of £4.6 million). The constituent parts of this movement were:

• the receipt of £28.5 million grant in aid from BEIS (2017-18: £30.0 million)
• a net cash outflow from operating activities of £26.1 million (2017-18: £28.3 million). The decrease in cash outflow compared to previous year is a result of increased expenditure in 2017-18 on exceptional public safety claims, and is offset by increased salary costs (explained later)
• a net cash outflow from investing activities of £6.2 million (2017-18: £6.3 million. This relates to the purchase of property, plant and equipment as part of our ongoing programme to develop and build mine water treatment schemes and subsidence pumping stations. This increased investment of £8.8 million (2018: £6.2 million) is partly offset by £3.1 million of ‘clawback’ receipts (2017-18: £1.1 million) from the sale of properties previously owned by the Coal Authority or its antecedents

At 31 March 2019 we held £6.0 million cash (2018: £9.8 million). This includes £4.9 million (2018: £7.9 million) of ring fenced funds in respect of security called in from mining operators that have been liquidated. The movement in called in security is used to discharge these industry claim liabilities as part of our operating activities.

12.4 Statement of comprehensive net expenditure

Net income for the year to 31 March 2019 was £2,003.5 million as compared to net expenditure of £1,536.6 million in 2017-18. The main reason for this was the decrease in provision levels as explained previously. Excluding provisions movement, comprehensive net expenditure for the year was £7.6 million (2017-18: £8.6 million).

Other significant items in the year included:

• a £3.7 million increase in operating income to £22.6 million (2017-18: £18.9 million). This is due to the increase in revenue from contracts with customers, as outlined previously and an increase in clawback proceeds from previously owned properties sold (£3.1 million compared to £1.1 million in 2017-18)

• staff costs of £14.1 million increased by £1.6 million compared to the previous year (2017-18: £12.5 million). This was due to planned growth in workforce in order to support our strategy of creating a sustainable organisation and delivering increasing by-product and advisory service income to deliver for BEIS as efficiently as possible

• purchase of goods and services (not including costs previously provided) remained broadly flat at £8.3 million (2017-18: £8.6 million)

• depreciation, revaluation and impairment charges of £7.8 million rose from £6.4 million in 2017-18 due to impairments resulting from a review of mine water treatment schemes and the assets underpinning our subsidence pumping stations

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

12.5 Statement of financial positions

Net liabilities at £2,289.5 million reduced against 2017-18 (£4,321.5 million), mainly because of the change in discount rates provided by HM Treasury, for provisions against future liabilities. These provisions now stand at £2,297.0 million compared to 2017-18’s £4,326.0 million as explained earlier in this review.

Other significant balances/movements include:

• property, plant and equipment of £14.2 million (2017-18: £11.6 million) include assets under construction of £5.2 million (2017-18: £2.5 million) representing a change in the level of mine water treatment scheme construction at this period year on year. Intangible assets remain broadly in line with 2017-18 at £2.4 million (2017-18: £2.6 million)
• cash and cash equivalents stand at £6.0 million (2017-18: £9.8 million): see the section above on cash flows for details on the movements
• trade and other payables at £19.4 million have fallen by £4.1 million (2017-18: £23.5 million) driven mainly by the discharge of liabilities relating to industry claims

12.6 Going concern

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

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

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

13. Our people

Our people are at the core of all that we do in delivering for our customers and with our partners.

13.1 People plan

Following discussion and engagement our people plan was launched in October 2018 and is focused on greater empowerment and inclusivity for all. It outlines how we can create a sustainable highly skilled, diverse and motivated workforce that will enable us to deliver our business.

13.2 Engagement

As part of discussions, our staff asked for an engagement group to give them a stronger voice across the organisation. Our newly formed Staff Engagement Group was set up in October 2018 and has been helping to drive forward important projects such as the design of our office refurbishment, wellbeing initiatives and 25 year celebration plans.

13.3 Equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)

Our EDI action plan benchmarks us across diversity strands and shows the action we will take to become more diverse and inclusive. This year we’ve focused particularly on gender, taking part in various activities and training and also setting up various network groups.

The action plan balances corporate leadership in areas such as EDI and unconscious bias training, recruitment policy and tackling the gender pay gap with empowering colleagues and enabling everyone to have a voice.

Colleague led networks have developed and include our women’s network (with a specific ‘women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)’ branch – see case study), our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender+ rainbow network, a vegan and vegetarian group and a men’s network. We’ve also run several faith and black, Asian and minority ethnic inclusive events, including interfaith weeks on Sikhism and Advent and promotion of religious festivals such as Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. We will build on this in the year ahead.

Our gender pay gap is a particular area of focus and we’re committed to reducing it. Created from a largely male coal industry we’ve made progress but are not complacent and have clear plans to improve. You can read more in our gender pay gap report at www.gov.uk/coalauthority.

13.4 Wellbeing

We’ve made good progress against our health and wellbeing plan. All staff have attended awareness training facilitated by Mental Health First Aid England. This has helped them to gain a better understanding of what mental health is and how we can help ourselves and others in managing it. We’ve 16 trained mental health first aiders across the organisation and all managers have received formal training.

We’re a Campaign Against Living Miserably company and have run a number of events to raise awareness and challenge the stigma of mental health.

Our wellbeing group has facilitated a range of activities and events from lunchtime walks, massages and tips to improve sleep to creating our new wellbeing gardens group transforming previously unused verges into a productive allotment.

13.5 Learning and development

To support our learning and development commitments we’ve established a dedicated team who will deliver development and skills for all alongside a dedicated leadership development programme and a focus on apprenticeship opportunities.

13.6 Values

A review of our mission, purpose and values saw excellent engagement levels from colleagues with workshops held to understand how we engage and identify with our mission, purpose and values. This has provided great insight and has been driven and developed by all.

14. Case study: Women in STEM

You can read about our women in STEM here

15. Health, safety and wellbeing

We put people’s health, safety and wellbeing at the heart of what we do.

Our core aims for health, safety and wellbeing (HS&W) are to:

• ensure that all those working on behalf of the Coal Authority go home safe and well
• effectively manage risks to the public from the legacy of coal mining for which we’re responsible

Our health, safety and wellbeing performance remains good, and our last safety climate survey returned extremely positive results. The survey did highlight the need for us to talk more about safety, which we’ve done with our supply chain as well as introducing health, safety and wellbeing discussions at the start of our larger internal meetings. It’s great to see that our education and awareness drive across the workforce has raised awareness of the need to report potentially unsafe acts. This shows we’re developing a culture that will help stop accidents before they occur.

Measure	2018-19	2017-18
HS&W observations - unsafe acts (staff and contractors)	3,226	2,391
HS&W observations - good practice examples	147	109
HS&W inspections	379	215
Accidents - no time lost	3	5
Accidents - lost time	0	1
Incidents - Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR)	0	1

Our focus for 2019-20 is to:

• develop a long term health and safety plan to complement the people and wellbeing plans
• carry out a further safety climate survey to help us better understand our safety culture and identify where we can continue to improve
• identify a web based system to help us more effectively manage the data we collect to improve outcomes and develop an implementation plan
• continue to raise awareness of mental health and implement initiatives aimed at improving wellbeing

16. Sustainability and the environment

We want to make sure we not only protect the environment from the effects of historic mining but also protect the public, enhance the environment and encourage biodiversity through our work.

Our sustainability plan (www.gov.uk/coalauthority) sets out ambitious goals for the next 5 years to help us play our part in tackling global sustainability issues. It sits within a wider context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UK Industrial Strategy, Clean Growth Strategy, and 25 year Environment Plan. We’ve worked hard to make the plan simple to follow to send a clear message to all of our staff and external stakeholders on what sustainability means for us and core objectives. It also closely aligns with our existing 5 year business plan and complements our people plan.

16.1 Review of performance

We’re pleased with the improvements we’ve made this year and continue to look for innovative ways to do even better. The biggest improvements this year (greenhouse emissions and carbon reduction) have been due to our solar electricity generation, the diversion of waste from landfill and significant composting of plant waste from our reed beds.

Sustainability drivers	2018-19	2017-18
Greenhouse gas emissions (tonnes)	3,001	8,375
Carbon emissions from mine water operations CO2e (tonnes)	4,435	7,779
Carbon emissions from head office CO2e (tonnes)	322	412
Carbon intensity - business travel (tCO2e/100,000km)	14.2	14.5
Water usage m3	1,199	1,242

We continue to encourage staff to use public transport for business travel or to eliminate it entirely by use of teleconferencing and other technology.

We remain committed to meeting the government target of 33% spend with small and medium enterprises (SME’s) by 2022. In 2018-19 our SME spend was 25.6%. We continue to develop our procurement and other processes to offer opportunities to smaller businesses.

17. Case study: Solar installation

You can read about our solar installations here

18. Social responsibility

18.1 Access to information and complaints

As a public body, we’ve a duty to answer requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).

A total of 73 requests (FOIA, EIR and Subject Access Requests) were received during the year, all of which were answered within the required deadlines, therefore meeting the standards set by the Information Commissioner’s Office. No requests went to appeal.

We received 19 letters from Members of Parliament, 2 from Members of the Scottish Parliament and 3 from Welsh Assembly Members with concerns on coal mining legacy issues.

We also received 23 complaints from members of the public and other stakeholders. They were all dealt with under our complaints procedure and all were resolved by our staff at varying levels within our procedure with none being referred to the Ombudsman. Our complaints procedure is published on our website www.gov.uk/coalauthority.

We’ve continued to monitor, review and evaluate our responses and actions to information requests, letters from elected representatives, and complaints with the aim of improving customer service by meeting the expectations of government and customers.

18.2 Anti-bribery, anti-corruption and whistleblowing

We’re committed to adherence to our policies for both anti-fraud, which incorporates bribery and corruption, and whistleblowing. Each policy provides clear guidance to staff and all are communicated as part of induction. Both policies are reviewed on an annual basis for relevance and clarity, before being re-briefed to all staff and published on our intranet.

Assessment of activity and feedback confirms that policies are well understood, effective and easy to use. The board is particularly committed to ensuring that staff feel empowered, supported and protected should they need to raise any areas of concern.

18.3 Social, community and human rights policies

We do not have specific social, community or human rights policies, but always aim to work to the highest principles in these areas.

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

Lisa Pinney MBE Chief Executive and Accounting Officer 13 June 2019

19. Accountability report

You can read our accountability report here

20. Financial statements

You can read our financial statements here