Cllr Gant, Chair of the Scrutiny Committee presented the report.

Cllr Tanner, Board Member for A Clean Green Oxford agreed with all of Scrutiny’s recommendations.

The Manager of Environmental Sustainability has submitted a report to approve the next five year phase of the Council’s Carbon Management Plan (CMP) 2017-2022. The current five year phase of the CMP concludes at the end of March 2017.

Recommendations: That the City Executive Board resolves to:

1.    Adopt the new Carbon Management Plan as detailed in Appendix 1;

2.    Note that now straight-forward and accessible carbon reduction measures have been implemented through use of the Salix and Salix Plus funds, there will be the need to make financial bids for external support for larger capital projects, additional match funding requests or innovative approaches of using community funding models with shared financial advantages;

3.    Endorse the phased development of an Energy Management system (ISO 50001) over the next 5 years across all key significant energy use areas at the Council (e.g. Offices, Depots, Leisure Centres, Fleet fuel consumption).

The Manager of Environmental Sustainability submitted a report to approve the next five year phase of the Council’s Carbon Management Plan (CMP) 2017-2022. The current five year phase of the CMP concludes at the end of March 2017.

Cllr Tanner, Board Member for A Clean Green Oxford said the Council had been very successful at reducing its carbon emissions by 5% each year.  This plan commits us to continue this approach; however we will need to borrow to bring forward modernising projects to continue the work.

The Service Manager for Environmental Sustainability said there are several transformation schemes planned. The Council plans to invest in renewable energy efficiency measures in leisure facilities such as installing heat pumps and installing a canopy over the car parks.

The Energy management project is a prescribed framework with set measures. It means we can compare ourselves against other organisations that use the same framework.

The City Executive Board resolved to:

1.    Adopt the new Carbon Management Plan as detailed in Appendix 1

2.    Note that now straight-forward and accessible carbon reduction measures have been implemented through use of the Salix and Salix Plus funds, there will be the need to make financial bids for external support for larger capital projects, additional match funding requests or innovative approaches of using community funding models with shared financial advantages;

3.    Endorse the phased development of an Energy Management system (ISO 50001) over the next 5 years across all key significant energy use areas at the Council (e.g. Offices, Depots, Leisure Centres, Fleet fuel consumption). 

The Energy and Natural Resources Team Manager introduced the report and said that it set out in detail how the Council aims to meet its ambition to reduce carbon emissions by 5% per year. 

The Committee questioned the level of Salix funding available to the council and whether this was a limiting factor.  The Committee heard that the council has achieved a Salix revolving loan fund of £605k, 50% of which was provided by the government - who take a cautious approach to allocating Salix funding. This translates to c.£100k-£150k per year to spend on carbon reduction measures in buildings with a payback of 5 years or less .  The council had been able to reach this level of funding by building good business cases and demonstrating that additional funding allocated to the council would be spent.  The Committee suggested that the Council could release revenue from the transformation budget to fund invest to save carbon reduction schemes.  The Council could also consider prudential borrowing where schemes would generate a good return.

The Committee noted the wider options for carbon reduction (listed on page 19 of the Plan) and suggested that there was an opportunity to influence the development of the Local Plan review and to factor carbon reductions into future planning policies, for example in relation to the designing of new homes and infrastructure, spatial planning and tree planting.  The Energy and Natural Resources Team Manager said that he would be contributing guidance and best practice to the Local Plan review and the Committee wanted to support this with a recommendation.

The Committee also had a wide ranging discussion covering opportunities to use bio-fuels in fleet vehicles, emissions at leisure centres, ‘load shifting’ to reduce energy costs and the possibility of switching void council-owned properties to alternative energy suppliers such as Robin Hood Energy, which is wholly owned by Nottingham City Council.

The Scrutiny Committee made the following recommendations to the City Executive Board:

Recommendation 1 – That consideration is given to releasing revenue from the transformation budget and prudential borrowing in order to fund carbon reduction schemes, subject to robust business cases.

Recommendation 2 – That guidance and best practice in relation to carbon reduction measures are taken into account during the Local Plan review and influence future planning conditions on new developments.