The UK Climate Change Act (2008) is the legally binding framework for climate change mitigation and adaptation. One of the Act’s requirements is for the Government to commission a UK-wide Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) every five years.

The first NAP report was published in 2013 for the period up to 2018 and contains a list of 31 objectives across seven policy themes, each with underlying objectives and associated actions. The
NAP report states the need for a monitoring and evaluation framework that will ‘identify whether the actions and policies contained in the Programme are making a difference to our vulnerability in the near-term’. The Act also provides the statutory basis for M&E of the NAP, through setting up the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change (ASC).

To fulfil the M&E statutory duty, the ASC has developed a framework to monitor and evaluate the progress made in implementing the NAP.

The potential target users of the system include decision-makers and planners on climate change issues at regional, national, and local levels; technical staff and researchers and other organisations that implement climate change adaptation activities in the LMB.