Originally published @ 12:01 am, Wed 10th Nov 2010
To Nottinghamshire County Hall for a training session on climate change adaptation and national indicator 188.
The aim was to see that councils had a plan that ensured coverage of climate change adaptation (increasing summer temperatures; increasing winter temperatures; decreasing summer participation; increasing winter participation; combined climate effects; and other indirect effects).
We discuss the change management implications of such a plan; not only identifying, quantifying and timing the risks, but then exploring how preventative action might be encouraged (including exploring the associations with emergency planning).
Of course, the ConDems in the name of localism, have dropped these indicators, so looking to councils to adapt is a matter of exhortation rather than expectation.
The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) has also been undermined by the ConDems.
This was is a new mandatory emissions trading scheme which started on 1 April 2010. It targets large public and private sector organisations and is intended to have a significant impact on reducing UK carbon dioxide emissions.
Anyone participating in this scheme must monitor energy use and report on their equivalent carbon dioxide emissions and then purchase allowances, sold by Government, to cover these emissions each year. If you do not meet your legal obligations under CRC you may be fined.
Changes to the CRC were announced as -
2.108 The CRC Energy Efficiency scheme will be simplified to reduce the burden on businesses, with the first allowance sales for 2011-12 emissions now taking place in 2012 rather than 2011.
Revenues from allowance sales totalling £1 billion a year by 2014-15 will be used to support the public finances, including spending on the environment, rather than recycled to participants.
Further decisions on allowance sales are a matter for the Budget process.
So in effect, rather than a scheme that charges the largest emitters of greenhouse gases and then rewards the best, it’s become a tax, a stealth tax, in the name of simplicity for business.
Meanwhile, more is becoming known about the scale of cuts Nottingham City Council might need to make.
The Nottingham Post reports that the councils has to find over £50 million extra next year, given a £27 million reduction in Government funding next year, almost half of the Government's four-year cuts in one year.
The Council’s spokesperson is reported as saying that about £20 million of the £29 million found so far will be in "efficiencies" including cuts in management, services and increasing fees and charges. It is thought most of the £22 million yet to be found will also come from these areas. A further £9 million could be found through a number of measures including, borrowing money from reserves and provisions which will not be needed next year, a saving on a National Insurance freeze, and by not paying £1.4 million into the pension shortfall fund, due to a change in conditions.
The Government announced in its October spending review that funding to councils would be cut by about 28 per cent, but because Nottingham City Council serves disadvantaged communities, it received a number of discretionary grants that are being withdrawn and so the council might expect that it will suffer more like a 33 per cent decrease over the four-year period.
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