Agenda item

Report of the Service Manager (Asset Management, Building Repairs and Climate Change) on the Climate Change Emergency UK Scorecards.

Report of the Service Manager (Asset Management, Building Repairs and Climate Change) on the Climate Change Emergency UK Scorecards.

This report sets out an explanation of the assessment that all UK councils have undertaken around climate change last year which was Round One.  The council is now moving into Round Two and the details of that are set out in the report.

It will be hard to benchmark against last year because this year the assessment criteria has changed. Assessment of these criteria takes the form of FOIs, volunteer research and national data. The council have already had some information requests coming through and should receive the result of the scorecard around Autumn 2023.

Following the Senior Management restructure, there is now a Service Director and Service Manager in place focussing on Climate Change. There is also a Climate Change Officer in the structure and this is currently being recruited to.

The council have now reviewed their action plan, with some external support and it has been published on the council website.  There are some case studies on the website. 

Officers believe the council are in a stronger position for the assessment this year, but there is still much to do.

The following points were noted:

·         Members noted the collaboration and engagement is now rated in the new scoring which was something the council were heavily criticised for in the previous assessment. Members stated that looking at the action plan, quite a few of the engagement actions have not been started and members were concerned that this will impact on the score for this year, especially since the responsible person was listed under the Corporate Strategy Engagement Manager.  Members asked what is being done to address this as the engagement actions should progress now without the Climate Change Officer in post. Officers stated that the team were doing more work around collaboration engagement. The Assistant Director (Regeneration and Economic Development) was working on engagement with local businesses in the area. There were lots of projects in the pipeline and the team are building up resource capability so that once an officer is in post they can start these projects. 

·         Members asked if officers could tell them more about the Director of Climate Change and when the Climate Change Officer is expected to be in post. Officers said that the Director for Climate Change is the Service Director (Property Maintenance and Climate Change) and has been in post for a few months. There is also a Service Manager with Climate Change in the responsibilities.  The Climate Change Officer is a new role and it was advertised but was unsuccessful in recruiting to the post. The council will be continuing the recruitment and widening the advertising to hopefully find the right candidate.

·         Members asked if the council have actually done enough in the 18 months to prove that the council are moving forward with climate change.  One of the criticisms before was the lack of plans for action. Members felt that the council had not moved forward enough to make a big difference to the assessment.   Officers stated it was a fair reflection but are moving forward with climate change. There has been work on commercial buildings, improving energy efficiency and looking at housing stock.  The council have been promoting case studies on the website as there have been good things happening within the borough. Momentum will increase once the Climate Change Officer is in post.

·         It was noted the action plan now includes target dates and the action plan will come back to the group to look at in the future.

RESOLVED:

(unanimous)

Members agreed to note the report.