If you want to know what an organisation plans for the year ahead are, there is no better document to read than their Management Plan.
DG Environment note that the management plan is a look at the year ahead.
2020 is different. The 2020 Management Plan, published on 19 November 2020, is a look at what happened in the past. It came out last week, and I just read it, thinking it would look at what they planned to do. I was wrong. Instead, they provided a annual report of what they did in 2020.
They’ve been busy.
- Specific Objective 1- Circular Economy
- Specific Objective 2– Biodiversity
- Specific Objective 3-Zero Pollution
- Specific Objective 4-Integration:
- Specific Objective 5-Governance
- Specific objective 6- International
I am looking forward to reading their Annual Plan for 2021. I am sure it is sitting in someone’s desk draw ready to be published on their website on Xmas Day. This report, published in November, is not so much an annual plan, but an annual report of what they did in 2020.
They did a lot.
A busy 2020
And, the annual report in 2021 will be a lot fuller.
Later on, they’ll publish their strategic plan, and that’s going to detail what they plan to do for the remainder of this Commission (ending 1 November 2024).
There are no surprises. The annual plan mirrors the Commission’s prirotities, Green Deal, and Work Programme. And, as they have not changed, what they do in 2021 is going to be similar.
This Commission Department as at the centre of delivering this Commission’s Green Deal. It looks like it going to have to do a lot more with no extra staff. The real question is how can this department deliver so much without any extra manpower.
As they note :
“As an important number of senior colleagues with broad expertise approach their retirement, measures have to be put in place to keep their in-depth knowledge and ensure it is transmitted to other colleagues across the DG ” (page 15).
It is hard to see how the DG can deliver so much. Political incarnations of faith to the “Green Deal” won’t help proposals be researched, drafted, and passed. For anyone who has really worked on developing policy, passing legislation or implementing law, it benefits working together in close knit teams. Solutions don’t mysteriously appear from the ether, but are drawn from speaking with experienced colleagues. That’s hard to do by Zoom.