In July, we convened the Perseus Steering Group, co-chaired by the British Business Bank and Icebreaker One. 

The meeting aimed to provide members with an update on the progress of the programme as well as its finance and governance processes.

Meeting Aims

  1. Clear understanding on scope, progress, plan (programme, finance, governance)
  1. Endorsement of the direction of travel
  2. Commitment to support on funding conversations

Summary minutes

Date: 24th July 2024 15:00-17:00 BST
Location: online
Present: CDP, FSB, ICAEW, Innovate Finance, IoD, LSTDB, Open Banking, Startup Coalition, UK Finance
Apologies: British Chambers of Commerce, Cabinet Office, CBI, EAMA, IIGCC, Scale Up Institute, TheCity UK, UNEPFI, World Energy Council
Observers: ACCA, DESNZ, PCAF

Principal: Heather Buchanan, B4NZ
Co-Chairs: Tony Greenham (BBB); Gavin Starks (IB1)
Secretariat: IB1

Summary

  1. The Delivery Oversight Committee (DOC) noted that:
    • This function is in place to demonstrate to markets and funders Perseus is operating effectively, governance is in place around the whole project, and how Perseus’ decisions are made against objectives.
    • From the DOC point of view, Perseus is in good shape. For example, it has a risk register that moves and adapts, indicating it is doing the right things in the right manner.
  2. An overview of the risk register and changes to risks was noted, including:
    • Reduced risks stemming from political uncertainty following the general election
    • High risk of not hitting full funding but is manageable: planned re-scoping to mitigate this has taken place and is reviewed regularly.
    • Increased risk in formal alignment due to low advisory group attendance. Efforts are being re-doubled to ensure attendance and to make voting/endorsement easier so they are quorate.
  1. On political engagement, it was noted that:
    • The new government has a material focus on cross-party and cross-government engagement to enact change. They are working very hard to break down silo-driven decisions and work.
    • We have seen promising ambition and rapid progress in sustainability efforts by the new government
    • We have observed significant ambition in terms of SMEs as part of Net Zero and a focus on private investment. Perseus supports both of these goals
    • B4NZ have been intensively building relationships with incoming politicians with sustainability experience and cementing existing ones
    • The announcement of the National Wealth Fund may have an impact on Perseus, and may affect the role of the British Business Bank.
    • The King’s Speech announced the creation of the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) to replace the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) as the regulator for the audit and accounting sector. The ICAEW are pushing for standards to be made a priority for the ARGA.
    • The King’s Speech also announced the Digital Information and Smart Data (DISD), which has a material positive impact on Perseus as one of the few cross-sector smart data programmes in the UK. 
  1. Internal research was presented by Elise Katilov (British Business Bank), titled ‘Estimating financed emissions for UK SMEs, PCAF Working Group report on sector-based emissions factors’:
    • Due to the availability of corporate emissions data being overwhelmingly from large global corporates, they are a poor representation of SME emissions which are systematically overestimated (the paper explains why that is the case)
    • SME-focused financial institutions should still consider using PCAF5 in any case with an appropriate disclaimer as this provides an opportunity to discuss, in general terms, the carbon exposures in their portfolio at a sector or sub-sector level, and to explain the data challenges. (BBB have taken this approach although other SME lenders have decided not to use PCAF5)
    • Perseus will ultimately make such estimates unnecessary. It is important that SME stakeholder groups (including, potentially, DESNZ and ONS) collaborate with PCAF to develop better sector-based SME estimates.
  1. The Advisory Group (AG) co-chairs noted that:
    • AG1 (Market & User Needs) continued to hone in on the pilot use case, and has been working to identify and prioritise future use cases
    • AG2 (Technical Requirements) has built prototype services for the pilot and finalised core data format specifications
    • AG3/AG5 (Legal & Policy) has drafted a dispute resolution procedure and grant of permission, as well as a Data Protection Impact Assessment for the pilot
    • AG4 (Communications & Engagement) has prepared an announcement of new members, highlighted a profile of Perseus in The Times, and created a roadmap of comms opportunities for the rest of 2024

Next meeting: Q4 2024 (exact date TBC to align with COP) 

Formal records are maintained by the secretariat. These are confidential to the Steering Group Members.