UK EITI Compliance subgroup meeting note, 9th January 2024

Mike Earp                                         Mark Russell                 Martyn Gordon                

Mark Burnett                                   Dr Pat Foster                  Hedi Zaghouani                

Helen Day                                         Helmi Ben Rhouma      Mike Nash (Chair)

Update on actions from meeting on 8^th November 2023:

Requirement 2.1

• Link to “Powering up Britain” policy paper added to the UK EITI website.
• A further column added to the compliance tracker to highlight where the onus lies to meet each requirement e.g. the MSG, UK companies etc.
• Data on UK ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) added to UK EITI website websites.

Requirements 3.2 and 3.3

• A discussion paper highlighting the practicalities of providing the data for this requirement in process of being drafted for the MSG to consider.

Requirement 4.10

• HMRC to provide the international secretariat with concerns and key issues around disclosing the tax information requested. 

Requirement 5.2

• NTSA currently looking at how figures for Northern Ireland are calculated and to ensure that procedures and the methodology being followed is correct.
• Link to subnational payments for Scotland added to UK EITI website. 

Requirement 6.3

• Some of this employment data is available, still checking what data is currently available.

Requirement 6.4

• The contract and licence matrix has been uploaded onto the contract and licensing section of the UK EITI website.
• BDO have carried out some initial desk research to find out what is currently available from implementing countries and reporting companies on environmental, social and gender impact assessments, monitoring reports, permits, and licenses that are mandated by law or contract, are publicly accessible in practice. 
• BDO searched the websites of UK extractive companies that participated in the 2022 Reconciliation exercise. 
• BDO also searched the Web, particularly using the words social, gender and environment. 
• They did not contact companies directly.

Main findings: 

• 18 out of 46 companies (39%) disclosed information about their social, gender and environmental management and impact in their annual / Sustainability reports. 
• 40 companies (87%) disclosed information about their environmental management and impact mainly through their Environmental statements. 
• 6 companies did not disclose such reports; however, their websites include some information about social, gender and environment. 

Recommendation:

• BDO suggest asking companies to provide a link to their environmental, social and gender impact assessments during the next reporting exercise.
• It was agreed that this proposal should be discussed in more detail at the Reconciliation subgroup meeting taking place on 1^st February 2024 along with the other new provisions and the scope of the 2023 process.

Discussions:

• The EITI Board still need to approve the new Terms of Reference for reporting in light of the new Standard. This is expected in March, so any timetable for publication needs to be considered in this.
• Looking at the encouragements of the new Standard it was agreed that data on exploration activities, production data and green house emissions should be relatively simple to provide. Although much of the data is not available at project level it was agreed that the information was useful even if not available at project level.
• The new provisions around beneficial ownership need to be discussed in detail by the MSG.

Next steps and plan of action required for each requirement

• It was agreed that Mike Nash would add a column of proposed actions and circulate to the subgroup for comment before the MSG on 11^th January 2024. (Action: Mike Nash to circulate the latest version of the tracker with proposed actions for comment).