This report will deal with an electricity and gas flexible purchasing framework for 2012 - 2016

Resolved to:-

1)     Grant project approval to use LASER, the public sector specialist energy buying consortium for a further 4 years (2012-2016) to tender the Council’s energy requirements;

2)     Approve the energy purchasing route set out in section 6 of the report, and to use the LASER service to enter into new energy contracts based on Flexible Purchasing using the Purchase In Advance option.  This will enable the Council to manage the ongoing price/risk in a volatile energy market.  This is in line with the recommendations of the professional energy buying consortia;

3)     Support using the greenest available energy source whenever it is economically viable to do so;

4)     Delegate authority to the Executive Director City Services to enter into the new replacement energy contracts identified by the process as set out in resolutions 1, 2 and 3 above;

5)     Ask officers to bring the sites that are billed quarterly into the new service, as set out in paragraph 6.8 lf the report, as soon as possible;

6)     Note that the 25% reduction in the Council’s carbon footprint achieved over the last 3 years will result in reduced gas and electricity consumption resulting in cheaper bills than before the reduction; and

7)     Note that the Carbon reduction of 3-5% for future years will further decrease the energy consumption of the authority.