Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 388)
WEDNESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2005
MR IAN
BATEMAN, MR
DON LACK
AND MR
BILL EDRICH
Q380 Joan Ruddock: Yes, but the cost
of installing it and all the rest of it, we need to know that.
Mr Lack: Yes.
Chairman: Ms Atherton and Mr Lazarowicz
have some snappy questions to ask.
Q381 Mr Lazarowicz: I am interested
in the proposal in your paper for a national procurement facility
to, "enable those local authorities with skills or resource
shortages to make risk-free choices with regard to suppliers and
services, and thus develop renewable energy." Can you tell
us briefly what that procurement facility would look like?
Mr Lack: At the moment each local
authority would have to go through a procurement route if it was
having to go through the EU procurement route for a major investment,
in, say, energy systems and panels, and if we can have a national
procurement, which would go through the European procurement route
but then allow local authorities to call off from this national
procurement, installation of solar panels or condensing boilers,
it is to try and save the time and resource of having to do this
exercise individually at each local authority.
Mr Edrich: I can give you a practical
example? Our council uses the OGC Commerce Procurement for computers;
goes to that and says, "Right, we will pull down these computers,"
whatever the numbers we actually use, and that is effectively
what we are saying there. We are part of a large-scale procurement
purchase of solar panels, as part of a European project where
our Dutch partners are purchasing five megawatts of PV and we
have actually just called off that contract.
Q382 Mr Lazarowicz: Without getting
too much into technical detail—and I raised it because it
was raised in your paper—I wonder what is the problem here?
Is it a problem of lack of a procurement facility or is it actually
to do with the drive to adopt that kind of approach? We have heard
from yourself, we have heard from previous witnesses that in fact
energy saving, energy efficiency can lead to returns in a very
short-term period. You are talking about a risk free choice. Most
people like to make risk free choices when they come to procure
anything, but is it not really more to do with the commitment
by local authorities to go along the environmentally sustainable
purchasing path that is really the problem and that is really
what is needed? Is that not the real issue? I am not quite sure
why procurement facilities are going to add something to this.
Mr Edrich: What you are getting
set up is a sense of regional excellence for procurement and that
is being driven by local authorities to do that, to meet some
of the Gershon requirements that we have placed upon us anyway.
If you go to our authority, we are actually part of the Yorkshire
Purchasing Organisation and we purchase our fuel through that
organisation and we get extremely good rates for that and have
made quite significant savings ourselves. So there is a real drive
by local authorities to see procurement as a way to reduce costs
and to reduce revenue costs.
Q383 Mr Lazarowicz: I can see the
advantage of national procurement in many respects but I am not
sure it is particularly a feature to do with energy efficient
supplies, and that is something I am still to be convinced about,
but perhaps we can leave that for another time. Can I ask a related
question which comes from that part of your paper as well? You
did make the complaint that local authorities that attempt to
address climate change are beset by problems associated with the
competitive and fragmented nature of funding opportunities. Is
that a real problem as distinct from the problem that applies
in any case where a local authority is seeking to access what
are inevitably complex funding streams in many areas of work?
Mr Edrich: If you think that we
have over 23 funding routes that we can apply for energy, that
starts to give you a feel of wasting officers' time to make those
competitive bids against those funding streams or initiatives.
So, yes, ideas of actually streamlining and bringing funding together
would reduce the amount of officers' time we spend in writing
bids competitively against other local authorities.
Q384 Mr Lazarowicz: Is it really
a problem? I am sure it would be an idea if it was one source,
but I am sure if we look through the EU there is probably 1000
plus funding streams for EU funding and there are no doubt 100s
from UK Government funding in many areas as well. Is it really
a problem in practical terms?
Mr Lack: It has to be time and
resource and to meet the cause, and if you are unsuccessful that
has an effect, and some local authorities will not make the bid
because they do not want to run the risk of not being successful.
To give you the example of the Carbon Trust, the local authorities'
energy financing scheme came out before Christmas last year and
of the 100 local authorities that made a bid there could only
be 18 authorities that would successfully get an award of money.
But they all went through the same procedure of making that bid,
taking up that resource and committing time and cost and that
is the problem, and if that is one of a number of bids you could
argue how much money has been set aside in making these bids collectively
within the public sector and is that a good use of public funding?
We would argue that if we do not go there we would not get the
extra additionality.
Mr Edrich: The other aspect is
that the officers who make the bids are often the officers who
have to implement the work on site as well. So there is always
a tension between that officer making the bid and failing the
bid and thinking, "I could have gone and implemented that
work better."
Mr Lazarowicz: It is a wider issue to
local government finance, but it is not the time to pursue it
today, so I will leave it.
Chairman: Candy, will you draw our questioning
to its conclusion in this area?
Q385 Ms Atherton: You have been calling
for a national campaign to be held and last week Defra announced
a £12 million package of a communications rallying call across
the nation and region. Who is going to coordinate it? Are you
pleased? Are you involved? And who is going to make sure that
Kirklees, Leicester and Devon are singing from the same hymn sheet?
Mr Bateman: I am very pleased
with the outcome. I was involved in some of the workshops that
came to that outcome and the fact that it is focused on local
campaigns is the right solution, with this overarching national
campaign to badge it all locally because it is about local people,
it is making it relevant to local people. We understand that there
is £4 million in each of the next three years, and that if
it is spread across all local authorities or all government offices
in the regions it is only a very thin amount. So there is some
concern there, yes, but we have not really studied the details
and we do not know the mechanism for delivering those funds. So
we have no idea whether Devon, Leicester or Kirklees will actually
see any of the funds, but we are very hopeful that it will come
down there so that it will give a boost to our own campaigns at
the moment.
Q386 Ms Atherton: You have said in
your evidence—and I am going to quote, because I think it
is quite startling—that "there are case studies which
demonstrate that tackling climate change and energy efficiency
issues both collectively and as individuals has led to reductions
in NHS admissions, crime rates, domestic violence and also higher
employment and academic performance of pupils in schools."
That sounds to me like a manifesto for any political party and
it strikes me it would be helpful if you gave us, snappily, case
studies of just how you have hit these targets in various parts
of the LGA up and down the country that can be used as case examples
in any future national communications strategy, because they are
extravagant claims.
Mr Bateman: I think that particular
one was focused on the Beacon housing estate in Falmouth.
Q387 Ms Atherton: Which is fantastic!
Mr Lack: With the education one
and the one relating to schools, the houses I talked to you about
in the Saffron Estate and one of the benefits that the school
reported and recorded was an increase in pupil numbers attending,
less respiratory disorders in the classroom—asthma attacks—less
peer pressure because the clothing no longer smelt of mould and
damp. Basically what it proved to us was if you have fitness standards,
if you have good housing then it has a knock-on effect and one
of the tests for that was the education, that the school was telling
us what they were seeing. We were not probing them; they were
giving us the results. So that is one example as a case study.
But also Newark and Sherwood District Council have done a lot
on their fuel poverty and health benefits and that is another
case that we could provide.
Q388 Chairman: I think we understand
even more clearly now why the Prime Minister puts climate change
at the heart of his agenda with all of these attributes to which
you have been kind enough to refer. Thank you very much indeed
for some genuinely fascinating information and also for your agreement
to supply some further perspectives from an LGA standpoint, as
opposed to your three authorities, which certainly have an impressive
record in this area, and I think it is very interesting listening
for the Committee. So thank you for your written evidence and
thank you for being here, and our apologies again for having to
cancel before. Anyway, you are here and you have been heard, so
thank you very much.
Mr Lack: Could I just say that
we are very pleased to be here as the three authorities and we
are pleased that you thought we were excellent, but if it had
been Southampton, Newcastle or Manchester, they would have been
just as good.
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