DRAFT Response to initial response to scrutiny report on mitigating and adpating to Climate Change, chaired by co-Councillor Emma Dewinton.
The report refers to a hierachy of actions - reduce the use of resources, then re-use them, then separate them for recycling, then incinerate them for energy, then extract energy from landfill.
Gist of our approach on climate change is –
Cities are good for us; an implicit belief that if we improve the quality of life in the city through the strategic priorities, then we can encourage people to live nearer to where they work and choose local schools; (actually our approach to the hierarchy); (reduce)
an explicit statement within the strategic plan is that “sustainable development and environment” is one of our 7 main ways of working; that significant progress has already been made and we do as a result have some reputation in this area which would be a shame to lose; (reduce and recycle)
we are working with the Carbon Trust to take a step up in our effectiveness at a service level; and that we might be wanting to develop some like BS5888 (as an environmental equivalent to the Equality standard); (reduce and recycle)
the new technologies for sustainable living – local turbines, better insulation, heat pumping, solar plates, mini CHP – can contribute, could be a significant new commerce that Nottingham (through Science Cities and NDE) could take a lead in; and that measures to encourage higher minimum standards for new properties and minimum European / national standards should be encouraged, although the City Council is struggling with finance for such measures; (reduce); and that we explore further how materials separated for recycling are actually reused (re-use and re-cycling);
that we work with local government throughout Britain (Nottingham Declaration) and Europe (Presud) to make progress; looking to a new declaration that with stages to allow authorities to make progress to a further level; (set-up - whole hierarchy)
that we work with others, including the Green Partnership and County, in partnership, to maximise progress, checking such progress against external criteria such as corporate assessments might expect; and to moderate behaviour, encouraging less use and better re-use and re-cycling; (whole);
that we welcome and work with the scrutiny exercise, and seek to maximise their engagement, mindful that recommendations should recognise progress already made, and hoping that recommendations are presented having been taken beyond an initial idea, having undergone some kind of testing for significance (can be incorporated into a service plan, or can probably be negotiated into a service plan, or if not, be worthy of debate at group level);
Expanding, notes based on Portfolio Holder’s comments on the Scrutiny Review, 1/12/05
I was struck very much by the introduction to the report that calls for a change from the can’t do culture; and the wondering why it’s difficult to get change.
Cos in some way it strikes at the heart of the problem that we have. And it’s indicative of how we have a degree of frustration in the report. “Can’t people see?” “Won’t we all regret it if we don’t act.”
This kind of issue is taxing the best minds.
Take Tony Blair, who this week, to the dismay of many, has opened up the option of nuclear power again - his line used to be, if it’s so good, why not have one in your constituency!
Get some of his commitment from his 2004 speech.
He’s placed it as a top priority and tried to give it a profile at the G8 summit. What happened - the world focussed on aid; and the countries who don’t like Kyoto started to come up with alternatives based on new technologies and alternative trade arrangements.
So if there’s a frustration with our progress, we’re not alone. But why is it?
Part of it is that people don’t know the volume of work that we do. They might think of the tram, and then think of the excellent bus services, but will they even know of our travel planning work, that we are the eighth largest purchaser of renewable energy in the UK (16thin Europe), of our work on home energy conservation and how well we do an reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill.
We’ve also played an important political role. The Declaration. The Call. And our involvement in European inspection projects.
And yet the frustration exists. Can’t we do more? Why isn’t it obvious? Clearly the report makes a strong case for saying more must be done, but does not explore too much what the political reasons are for its relatively low priority.
It makes a simple call for requiring climate change to be a corporate priority without getting into why it’s unlikely to make it.
It bewails that we can’t do more recycling cos it costs too much.
We all know the story is much more challenging than that.
The Gov’t announces the financial settlement on December 5th. It appears that I will have to ask the public for a 5% Council tax increase to support the Govt’s aspirations for education, social services and youth; the costs of inflation and equal pay will have to be met and to do so I shall have to ask the Council to stop doing between £4 and £5 million of service that it is currently providing. And that is an optimistic assessment. We still have worries that the expectations of service delivery and the shake-up of NHS services may impact on us further.
So to then say we should do more recycling - which has been suggested at another scrutiny body prompts the question - how will the public react if that for an extra £400k; or an extra £800k. Would taxpayers happily agree to a further half a per cent increase, or a one per cent increase. I’m clear what the Tory party reaction will be to that; I’m less clear on the Lib Dems.
But I’d also ask colleagues to reflect on what has been the driver for change. It’s not been environmental concerns per se. Indeed, for a while, questions have been raised about the validity of separating waste for recycling when the market for goods made from recycled materials remains poor. The driver for recycling has been legislative requirements. The new drive for further recycling has been customer satisfaction.
I’m don’t mean to dismiss people’s passion for environmental causes by this. I run a stall at the Green Festival every year as part of my commitment. And politicians with a soul do have a responsibility to argue for a wider, fuller understanding of where our city, county, continent and planet needs to go.
But the reality of 21st century politics is that it’s still not much of a driver.
Take our corporate planning. Why is I that the environment figures so low? My suspicion is that in part the duties we have are more primarily social and then economic. Indeed many of the environmental functions that councils used to do have been taken over by public agencies and quangos. But that environment figures relatively low is true.
I don’t know what the Overview and Scrutiny said on the draft community plan. But I reviewed the lists of tasks on the spider diagram and made a quick evaluation on where the tasks were social, economic and environment. In essence, I found for every task that concerned itself with environment, there were twice as many concerned with economic development and 6 times as many on social. I’m happy for people to do their own assessment and come up with their own figures but I did a similar exercise for our Corporate Plan that was published I think in 2000 - 50 or so major tasks - and the ratio was 1 environmental, to 2 economic to 4 social. And I think I was the only member to remark upon it at full Council when it was discussed.
Again, I don’t mean anything by that about colleagues’ priorities. It’s more to say that these priorities are a real reflection of the way we think our city is. Cities are good for us - they are the wealth generators and yet we have such social deprivation and too many of our people fail to reach their full potential. Our top priority is to get that fixed. And the report suffers for not facing up to that - or indeed even trying to describe how we are trying to tackle the issue - it is much more than a matter of will and change in individual’s lifestyle.
I heard our corporate plan described recently about tackling crime and education. It’s not an accurate or a full description, but in the context of the waste hierarchy it is pertinent.
Cos the fundamental thing we need to do to reduce use is to encourage people to live nearer to where they work and to choose local schools. Really why plan for 60 miles in a car each day? And we all notice the difference to the rush hour when it’s a school holiday.
But it underlines what we have to do most to make people feel secure about city life.
So the waste hierarchy can work for us. Reduce first is a good idea. Again, difficult to place too much emphasis on it because we have very few powers or obligations. Possibly transport has the most scope but even then our desire to manage supply of parking and subside public transport still further via the Workplace Parking Levy has been frustrated by national government placing the decision in the context of a public inquiry. Getting radical proposals through the legal system tricky at best and if you want to know why London made progress, part of it was they didn’t have to go through a public inquiry.
So what is the City’s approach? We should acknowledge the waste hierarchy. Then I think the gist of our approach on climate change is –
Cities are good for us; an implicit belief that if we improve the quality of life in the city through the strategic priorities, then we can encourage people to live nearer to where they work and choose local schools; (actually our approach to the hierarchy); (reduce)
an explicit statement within the strategic plan is that “sustainable development and environment” is one of our 7 main ways of working; that significant progress has already been made and we do as a result have some reputation in this area which would be a shame to lose; (reduce and recycle); and I think there are merits in the suggestions that climate change should be explicitly recorded in that element of the new version of the Corporate Plan; but the real progress will be made through mainstreaming our work - and by having devices to know that the work has been mainstreamed; (note the most recent peer review - you may have received a presentation on it yesterday) has questioned again whether we have too many priorities and the capacity to support them);
we are working with the Carbon Trust to take a step up in our effectiveness at a service level; and that we might be wanting to develop some like BS5888 (as an environmental equivalent to the Equality standard); (reduce and recycle); what we will then need a system to ensure that mainstreaming in this way is not a matter of forgetting about it;
the new technologies for sustainable living – local turbines, better insulation, heat pumping, solar plates, mini CHP – can contribute, could be a significant new commerce that Nottingham (through Science Cities and NDE) could take a lead in; and that measures to encourage higher minimum standards for new properties and minimum European / national standards should be encouraged, although the City Council is struggling with finance for such measures; (reduce); and that we explore further how materials separated for recycling are actually reused (re-use and re-cycling);
that we work with local government throughout Britain (Nottingham Declaration and Nottingham Call) and Europe (Presud) to make progress; looking to a new declaration that with stages to allow authorities to make progress to a further level; (set-up - whole hierarchy)
that we work with others, including the Green Partnership and County, in partnership, to maximise progress, checking such progress against external criteria such as corporate assessments might expect; and to moderate behaviour, encouraging less use and better re-use and re-cycling; (whole); annual reporting;
that we welcome the report from scrutiny and explore how scrutiny can evaluate and monitor our progress; (whole)
I would though like to stress that what we need to make progress is a sense of ideas, excitement, capacity, momentum and pace, rather than longer lists of tasks to do and exhortations to do it; and I do have some doubts about creating new methodologies for measuring progress. We can’t measure CO2 emissions. We can’t directly track our progress against such emissions. So targets on such emissions are tricky. Better I think to explore reducing energy use through more effective way of reminding people of the bill and comparing and contrasting their record against similar functions and establishments. And the footprint methodology - whilst trying to tell a story - is even more difficult to measure and it is also harder to judge what incremental impact you’re having. The proxies for progress may well be cost-saving, as energy prices have risen. So what new ideas could we latch onto. First and foremost - Science City. It is clear ... offer of a tour of London and Woking (not Holland) to explore what we can learn about London strategic approach and Woking applications, with a view to developing Science City, either as the conurbation or as the 3 cities; ask EMRA for interest and support; Second - planning - we should get very clear quickly on scale of ambition for planning; (what is our view on whole life costing) Third - measuring progress on wider quality of life issues - Bristol report. Partnership. Fiurth - we do need to find a profile for this work. I admire the work of Nottingham in Bloom and wonder if there’s something to be done here in recognising its wider work and getting people to care more for their local environment. There’s also an issue on timing. The Carbon Trust projects finishes at around the time that we’re expected to report back on the recommendations in full. I think therefore we should explore adopting a Climate Change strategy at full Council at the first full opportunity after that - in June. But I think we should expect significant elements of what is being said on environmental working into the statements of accountability for this March - Corporate Directors should be ready for this, having been to this cttee. to explain their way forward
[Based on notes from 2005-12-13; last reviewed 2006-05-31; still not ready for full publication]
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