CURRENT
GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS:
SOME OPPORTUNITIES
AND THREATS
We would like to draw the Committee's attention
to elements of the "Modernising Local Government" proposals
(particularly the Best Value regime and the concept of Community
Planning) and the proposals for Regional Development Agencies.
Modernising Local Government
The current series of Government Consultation
Papers on this theme, particularly those on "Improving local
services through Best Value" and "Local democracy and
community leadership" provide important opportunities for
making connections with sustainable development. The Environmental
Audit Committee will, no doubt, be keen to see sustainable development
ingrained within the Best Value regime and for co-ordination to
take place during any debate about core indicators with a parallel
debate in the context of the National Sustainable Development
Strategy.
The paper on "Local democracy and community
leadership" discusses the concept of community planning.
It will be important for this concept to be seen as a process,
under-pinned by a set of core principles, rather than as a product
(a single community plan) if confusion with existing plans and
strategies—particularly Local Agenda 21 strategies so recently
endorsed by the Prime Minister—is to be avoided. One of
the key principles of community planning should be that the process
should work towards sustainable development—providing a
way of reconciling any tensions between economic, social and environmental
objectives and maximising benefits to communities by integrating
policies and actions. The relationships between Local Agenda 21
and community planning should be a matter for local determination
in the light of the area's chosen approach to community planning.
A new duty on local authorities "to promote
the economic, social and environmental well-being of their areas",
discussed in the same consultation paper, would obviously provide
local authorities with a vital tool to promote and encourage sustainable
development.
Regional Development Agencies
The Local Government Association (and others)
have some concerns about the current proposals for Regional Development
Agencies and the place of sustainable development in this debate.
The current position can be summarised as follows:
— Regional Development Agencies will
be obliged to contribute to sustainable development—but
there is no coherent explanation as to what mechanisms can help
ensure that this happens;
— there is no reference to the regional
dimension in the Government's draft sustainable development strategy;
— the Government has made proposals
for broader, partnership based, Regional Planning Guidance which
would include sustainablity appraisals;
— Ministerial statements indicate that
the Government favours a "basket" approach to strategies
at a regional level (each strategy would be prepared in parallel
having regard to the content of the others, relying on good communications
and local mechanisms) rather than an hierarchical approach (where
strategies would nest within an over-arching regional framework);
— notwithstanding the previous point,
in a section on regional solutions (paragraph 57) the DETR household
growth white paper (Planning for the Communities of the Future)
says: "Any proposals will need to take account of the Government's
revised sustainable development strategy and the integrated transport
strategy. Sustainable development is at the heart of the European
Spatial Development Perspective which stresses the need to integrate
land use planning and other sectoral policies which have an indirect
impact on spatial planning. This integrated approach will promote
sustainable development as well as economic and social cohesion."
Concerns about the current proposals in the
context of sustainable development focus around two issues:
— the current wording of the RDA Bill
could be interpreted in more than one way and may not, therefore,
deliver the Government's stated objectives of placing sustainable
development in the heart of the RDAs;
— given the wide range of activity
at the regional level, there is a need to ensure that effective
co-ordination takes place.
Some of the same concerns appear to have been
identified by the House of Commons Environment, Transport and
Regional Affairs Select Committee. In its report on RDAs the Committee
argued that it is "unclear how conflicts between sustainability,
regional planning and economic development will be resolved"
(January 1998; paragraph 43).
The Local Government Association would argue
that:
— a regional dimension to the Government's
sustainable development strategy is essential—reinforced
by the increasing importance of the regional aspects of land use
planning, transport policy and economic regeneration;
— this is best achieved by putting
in place an overarching regional strategy in each region to which
the principles of sustainable development would be central. Without
such a strategy it is not clear how the integration the Government
wants to see can be achieved. The RDA, for example, needs to be
able to see and understand the broader picture into which its
strategy will be contributing.
— Such a strategy is probably best
put in place by regional chambers working in partnership with
the GoRs. Chambers, with their broad regional remit and firm links
to the democratic process, will be in a good position to take
difficult strategic choices about regional priorities;
— other regional strategies (regardless
of who produces them) would nest within the over-arching strategy.
They would include: RDA, RPG, Transport Strategy, Environment
Agency action plans etc.
It may be possible to achieve the above without
legislation but an appropriate amendment to the RDA Bill would
be seen as a clear example of the Government putting its commitment
to sustainable development into practice.
The remainder of this memorandum provides responses
to each of the questions posed in the letter of invitation.
1. Government initiatives to encourage local authorities
to take action to address environmental concerns, for example
to adopt Local Agenda 21 or seek accreditation under EMAS
Central government has provided some support
for a number of joint projects with local government which have
provided some assistance with the uptake of Local Agenda 21, including:
— a series of Local Agenda 21 Case
Studies and Roundtable Guidance Notes;
— production and development of guidance
on EMAS (including a "Helpdesk");
— guidance on Sustainability Reporting.
Most recently, joint guidance on why and how
to prepare an effective Local Agenda 21 strategy ("Sustainable
local communities for the 21st century") was launched
at an LGA/LGMB Conference in January 1998. This document provides
clear, practical guidance to local authorities on how to put a
really effective local strategy in place.
Continued central government support for joint
initiatives will be crucial if local authorities are to meet the
Prime Minister's challenge of having a Local Agenda 21 strategy
in place by the year 2000.
The LGA has initiated a major project to "move
Local Agenda 21 out of the portacabin and into the Chief Executive's
office".
The LA21 Steering Group's work programmes include
a number of initiatives for which central government's support
is being sought. This programme includes proposals for a series
of regional "awareness raising" and training events
in conjunction with Government Offices of the Regions. Interest
and commitment of the Regional Offices to such initiatives would
appear, at present, to be mixed.
Another potentially important central/local
government initiative would be a package of guidance for local
authorities on a range of energy management issues. At present,
however, it is not clear whether the programme of work, which
we had understood would be provided through the Energy Saving
Trust (EST), will proceed.
A copy of a listing of initiatives planned by
members of the Steering Group forms Annexes 1 and 2 to this memorandum.
2. Organisational arrangements for integrating
environmental considerations into decision-making.
One of the most important factors for integrated
decision-making about the environment and sustainable development
in local government is a strong corporate commitment and co-ordination,
supported by strong inter-departmental co-operation and departmental
action. Although local government has a good track record in these
areas, these key messages are currently being promulgated to local
authorities by the LA21 Steering Group, the LGA, LGMB and partner
organisations such as SOLACE (the Society of Local Authority Chief
Executives). We attach a copy of a recent "Chief Executive's
Stocktake" leaflet produced in conjunction with SOLACE (Annex
3).
Councils' now commonly have a corporate policy
statement on sustainable development as part of the corporate
aims of the authority. Mechanisms for dissemination, co-ordination
and implementation of this policy may involve a dedicated "Environment
or LA21 Co-ordinator" located within a corporate policy unit,
enabling links to be made to the policy and performance review
activities of the Council. Bradford MBC provides an example of
an authority with a clear statement of corporate aims encompassing
sustainable development and a comprehensive range of mechanisms
for dissemination and implementation.
Good inter-departmental working is also essential
and successful practice in local government demonstrates that
this needs to be set at an appropriate level of seniority and
to engage with policy makers in every department. Once the "corporate
drivers" have been activated, recent LGMB research has demonstrated
that much will follow. However, the research suggested that it
was not sufficient for top managers to simply devolve responsibility
to departmental managers: the corporate centre must facilitate
the development of organisational structures, culture and behaviour
to allow appropriate management to take place. This research drew
on experience in a dozen authorities with a track record in environmental
management and innovation including Belfast CC, Kirklees MC, RB
of Windsor and Maidenhead, Surrey CC and Leicester CC.
Implementation of sustainable development policies
can be assisted by co-ordinators or lead officers in each department,
supported by Departmental teams from all levels of staff. Kent
CC is one authority with such a network of "green teams"
to help implement sustainable development policies through local
actions by every council department.
Authorities such as Bradford MBC, Kent CC, Stratford-upon
Avon DC, Fife Council and the London Borough of Sutton are amongst
many that have developed a clear vision of sustainability and
have taken a range of practical steps to ensure that the vision
becomes a reality. Steps taken include:
— council sub committees, with lead
councillors focusing solely on Local Agenda 21 and related issues;
— a Director appointed to take the
lead on promoting sustainability
— cross-Departmental officer groups
supporting activities to implement sustainability;
— officers groups within each Department
looking at how to make services more sustainable;
— service planning processes requiring
each Department to address sustainability in its annual service
plan;
— Local Agenda 21 Units, based in the
corporate centre of the authorities, offering support to each
Council Department, and to others active in local sustainability;
— implementation of environmental management
systems such as EMAS;
— procedures which ensure that sustainable
development implication statements are included in committee reports;
— retraining of internal financial
auditors to undertake environmental and sustainable development
auditing;
— area panels and neighbourhood forums
to involve all people in the area.
We would suggest that there are many ways in
which central government could usefully follow the lead of local
authorities in greening policy-making and decision-making. The
difference for central government is that it can change the framework
whilst local government has to work within it. Thus, the adoption
of local authority approaches by government will be far reaching
and would, in turn, enhance the ability of local authorities to
take further steps. A very important part of the issue is not
about improving the ability of local authorities to be green,
but of how government can best green itself and the framework
it sets.
3. The purpose and value of seeking accreditation
under EMAS or ISO14001
There are a number of reasons why an increasing
number of local authorities are showing an interest in using EMAS
or related approaches. Amongst the most recent spurs are the proposed
Best Value regime with its emphasis on performance management
and external assessment, the Prime Minister's Local Agenda 21
target and the Audit Commission's "Environmental Stewardship"
study.
The objectives of EMAS and ISO14001 accreditation
are to:
— apply the conventional management
loop (policy—planning—implementation and operation—checking
and corrective action—management review) to the management
of environmental impacts;
— to filter all of the environmental
impacts of a local authority and identify those that are truly
significant: management resources committed to these will optimise
the environmental returns made;
— to promote continuous improvement
in organisational environmental performance by striving to reach
recognised levels of best practice;
— to enable every councillor and member
of staff to make the right environmental decision at the right
time. In effect, institutionalising "triggers" which
firstly alert the organisation for the need to assess the environmental
implications of, for example, a policy or purchasing decision
and secondly creates the space for individuals to systematically
analyse and debate the environmental impacts;
— to publicly demonstrate that the
local authority is achieving environmental "best value".
In other words, generating maximum environmental benefit from
the limited public resources which have been made available.
4. Methods for involving business and the local
community in environmental initiatives
The recently published DTI "UK environmental
business club directory" identifies 118 clubs in the
UK and virtually all involve local councils. Many of the clubs
were initially instigated by local authorities and about thirty
are still directly administered by councils. Prime examples include
the Hartlepool Green Business Club, the Mid Suffolk Environmental
Business Forum and the Dacorum Green Business Club. Local authorities
have demonstrated that they can play an important role in helping
businesses organise forums, green clubs and roundtables and in
encouraging Business Links and Training and Enterprise Councils
to integrate environmental considerations into their service delivery.
The Label 21 Awards Scheme, administered by
the LA21 Steering Group and the NatWest Group, rewards local authority
and business partnerships. In 1997 over one hundred and thirty
examples of good practice were submitted and the winners included
the London Borough of Newham and Belfast City Council.
The Steering Group mounted a series of "Improving
business environmental performance" seminars in conjunction
with DETR and the Government Offices for the Regions in the Autumn
of 1997. The events were designed for local authority staff in
day to day contact with the business community and they highlighted
the many ways in which local authorities are involving and influencing
the environmental performance of businesses through advice, assistance
and purchasing policies as well as by regulation.
5. Developing environmental performance indicators
and targets
Local government has done much to develop local
sustainable development indicators. The LA21 Steering group supported
a "Sustainability Indicators Project" between 1993 and
1995. Ten local authorities developed a series of local indicators
through participative processes with their local communities.
The indicators that emerged related to local issues identified
by local people across the broad spectrum of environmental, social
and economic concerns.
A number of local authorities have developed
indicators of performance in relation to these indicators so as
to be able to measure broad progress towards sustainable development
and provide a basis for developing policies in LA21 strategies.
Bristol CC provides a good example of such an approach. Performance
indicators developed in this way, at local level with the involvement
and "buy-in" of local communities, are potentially more
likely to yield results than indicators or targets applied from
"on high" with less relevance to the immediate locality.
This issue will be an important consideration in the current debate
about the proposed Best Value regime for local government.
Many local authorities already measure "conditions"
in their areas summarising the information in Sustainability Reports.
Performance indicators and targets are subsequently developed
to address issues identified in the Reports as part of LA21 strategies.
Typically these performance indicators set specific targets for
improvement against which progress is monitored on a regular basis.
A potential problem for many local authorities
in the near future might be excessive demands for indicators for
different regimes and purposes. In addition to the range of existing
indicators already developed at local level (for which cost-effective
data collection and analysis methods are already in place) there
are Government proposals at present for core indicators for the
Best Value regime and for the National Sustainable Development
Strategy. Not only will it be important to co-ordinate thinking
on the purpose and value of local and national level indicators
but it will also be important to consider the merits of ensuring
that Best Value indicators can extend beyond measures for local
authority performance alone. Many indicators of sustainable development
would inevitably fall into this category but it is not yet clear
whether these will be able to form part of the Best Value regime.
6. ADDRESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT IN
CORPORATE REPORTS
Local government environmental/sustainable development
reports are commonplace and often take the form of stand alone
State of the Environment or Sustainability Reports (e.g., Lancashire
County Council's "Green" Audit). Other local authorities
choose to focus on sustainability indicator reports (e.g., LB
of Sutton, West Devon DC and Oxfordshire CC). Although related
to the wider environment, these types of report often refer to
the role and impact of councils.
Some councils produce and publish "Green"
Audits (e.g., Northamptonshire CC) which focus on internal housekeeping,
operations and services. The EMAS Regulation, with its Environmental
Statement requirements, has introduced a degree of standardisation
and has set benchmarks against which authorities can measure their
environmental reporting performance.
7. THE INTEGRATION
OF ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSIDERATIONS INTO
CENTRAL/LOCAL
GOVERNMENT POLICY
AREAS SUCH
AS EDUCATION,
HOUSING, PLANNING
AND TRANSPORT
The Steering Group's perception is that there
is a great deal of inconsistency between central government departments
on this matter. Although some arms of DETR have, for some time,
integrated environmental considerations into their policies and
guidance we detect little significant movement in some other departments.
It is interesting to observe that some important departments are
not represented on the cabinet ministerial committee (ENV) which
is a principal decision-making body for Government policy on sustainable
development. The committee would appear to be confined to those
departments with an interest in "environmental" policy.
There are also variations, even within DETR, in the extent to
which considerations are truly those of "sustainable development"
rather than more narrowly defined environmental considerations.
There is scope for improvement at the local
level as well. Although Social Services departments are increasingly
making connections through the "quality of life" and
health agendas, there is perhaps less recognition in the education
field. The LGA already has plans to devote a substantial part
of the 1998 Education Conference to the theme of sustainable development.
8. The approach taken by Government to consult
with local authorities on new environmental policies with significant
impact on the environment (for example the UK strategy for sustainable
development, the integrated transport strategy, the revised climate
change programme, air quality targets)
For some time, local government has felt that
it has had a solid place in the Government's ante-room of policy
development by way of a range of consultative processes, whilst
not being afforded a genuine seat at the table of influence which
its distinctive role merits. Local government is significantly
different from other interest or lobby groups as it is part of
the overall machinery of government and can exert a unique influence
on policy and practices at the local level.
In recent months there have been one or two
changes to the methods of consulting local government including
some workshop sessions during the consultation period on the Integrated
Transport Green Paper and a series of regional seminars to launch
the consultation exercise on the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development.
Even these innovations were, however, relatively traditional compared
to the much more inclusive techniques increasingly employed by
local authorities when seeking input to their policies and strategies.
It would improve the process if there was a stronger and more
explicit commitment to more techniques of participation and to
a greater genuine involvement of local government.
9. The co-ordination between government Departments
where their interests coincide in relation to local government
business, how far authorities experienced an integrated "government"
approach, and any areas where the division of responsibilities
between departments is unhelpful
In relation to the holistic and contemporary
ideas and issues of sustainable development, the Steering Group
perceives that Government still retains relatively archaic structures
and cultures organised around specific functions. Sustainable
development requires a more holistic, outward-looking and pro-active
approach.
Many local authorities have long recognised
that traditional functional divisions can be very limiting when
trying to address cross-cutting issues such as environment, health,
employment, crime and the like. Many are embracing radical re-structuring
of their organisations in order to better address these issues
including Tamworth BC, Watford BC and Walsall MBC. Several have
also developed "one stop shops" for a more effective
and accessible interface with the public to provide "seamless"
services. Examples here would include Knowsley MBC, Leeds CC and
LB Hackney. Some, such as Surrey CC are experimenting with this
approach for both County Council and District Council services.
Short of these approaches many local authorities will have various
types of inter-departmental groups working on issues of sustainable
development, community safety, anti-poverty and so on.
It is salutary to consider that an average local
authority LA21 initiative could involve an interface with any
of the following central government departments in addition to
DETR:
— Cabinet Office: Social Exclusion
Unit.
— HM Treasury: environmental taxes.
— Home affairs: Crime and community
safety.
— Health: Healthier Nation.
— MAFF: Rural issues, sea defence,
agricultural statistics.
— Education and Employment: New deal/ETF,
Education Action Zones.
— Social security: benefit information
for anti-poverty work.
— International Development: international
LA21 links and world poverty.
— Culture, Media and Sport: arts and
lottery funding.
— Trade and Industry: greening business.
The Committee will, no doubt, be reflecting
on the adequacy of the mechanisms that are in place within Government
to facilitate liaison, co-ordination and consistency. Rigorous
sustainability assessments for all major policy initiatives and
reporting on sustainable development by all departments (including
DTI, MAFF, DfID etc) may provide steps forward.
There are also important linkages to be made
within DETR as the current proposals on Community Plans, Local
Agenda 21 Strategies, Best Value, Sustainable Development and
Modernising Local Government illustrate.
As noted earlier, one of the Steering Group's
main priorities over the next few years is an initiative to "move
Local Agenda 21 out of the portacabin and into the Chief Executive's
office". Members of the Steering Group would ask whether
there may not be merit in a similar initiative within central
government. The positioning of the new Sustainable Development
Unit within the Cabinet Office rather than within a wing of DETR
could send very important messages to many important places.
April 1998
