Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
CLLR MICHAEL
HAINES, MR
MIKE PEVERILL
AND MR
RICHARD HURFORD
12 JULY 2006
Q120 Dr Turner: You mean you might
even bring more of them into the picture?
Mr Hurford: Indeed.
Mr Peverill: I think it is entirely
justifiable that Government should expect a certain minimum level
of performance. Obviously there will be arguments about how you
define that, but certainly setting a minimum standard is important
and that should periodically be raised over time, particularly
if we are to meet this 60% cut by 2050, but it is about putting
in the right system of incentives and restraints and financial
opportunities.
Dr Turner: Yes, I had a bill about that
some years ago which caused me a lot of angst!
Q121 Mr Stuart: Just before you move
on, could I ask about datasets, because I failed to do so before?
I wonder how useful the local authorities found the experimental
datasets on emissions put out at local authority and regional
government office level, and I wonder whether you are happy with
the accuracy of the data produced, whether you thought there were
any surprised in it and whether you would like such data to be
put out regularly?
Mr Hurford: We certainly found
it very useful, particularly for setting carbon baseline figures.
It is hard to know whether it was accurate or not, because it
is the only data we have got to cover our whole authority. We
hope it was, and yes, it would be very useful to have that every
year.
Q122 Mark Pritchard: Did you say
£78,000?
Mr Hurford: £28 million,
£70,000 per authority.
Q123 Mark Pritchard: Is that ring-fenced,
do you know?
Mr Hurford: That is what is suggested.
At the moment it is a request from the LGA.
Q124 Dr Turner: Could I come back
to the LGA and ask what the LGA's views are on what measures would
help councils to secure better carbon management, and what do
you think the principal barriers to them not securing good carbon
management are?
Cllr Haines: You mean individual
authorities, not the community beyond it, just the councils?
Q125 Dr Turner: Yes, the councils.
Given any individual council, what does it need to help it to
do this work, because it has been considered for a long time,
particularly through energy efficiency improvement, that if councils
have the means and the will they could make an enormous contribution?
Cllr Haines: As I have said, my
own authority is actually having its carbon footprint sorted out
in combination with the Carbon Trust, so with their own officers
they are telling us what our carbon footprint is. I gather we
might be able to save as much as about £90,000, but we will
have to wait and see. That is just the initial figure. So clearly
the incentive is there for the authorities to do this if there
will be savings attached with it. That is the way it has to work,
but at the moment, as has repeatedly been said, it is not a statutory
function and it is difficult to actually get councils to do it
unless the councils themselves decide that is what they are going
to spend some money which they have got spare on at times when
you have got a tight budget. That is the difficulty.
Q126 Dr Turner: What sort of level
of Government funding would have to go with the imposition of
statutory function, do you think, to make it work?
Cllr Haines: The figure we have
quoted, which is £70,000 per authority, is the only one I
am aware the LGA has worked up, but clearly it depend on exactly
what the nature of the statutory obligations are. On that basis,
that is what I would understand it to be, but clearly if we get
more specific leads on that following the Local Government White
Paper coming out, which does talk about obligations in that, I
understand, from yesterday's release, then we could get more breakdown
on that available for your further deliberations when you get
around to that.
Q127 Dr Turner: What sort of level
of carbon savings do you think £28 million will facilitate?
Sums of that order do not seem very much.
Cllr Haines: But that is not just
aimed at the saving of carbon in the local authority, that is
aimed at saving carbon in the wider community as well, which people
do not want to quantify.
Q128 Dr Turner: But you cannot divorce
the two, because the councils need to lead their local communities
into carbon saving behaviours?
Cllr Haines: Yes.
Q129 Dr Turner: The CSE report also
said there was a problem because there were are many agencies
providing support, too many funding streams. It is like a lot
of things in this field, too many pots of money but all too small
to be that effective or coordinated. Do you want to see some streamlining
here?
Cllr Haines: I think coordination
would be necessary, whether it comes from at the top or whether
authorities themselves have people in place who can then actually
start to sort through it as part of that process. That is the
other way of approaching it.
Q130 Dr Turner: Is this something
which the LGA could facilitate?
Cllr Haines: As I said in response
to an earlier question, the LGA has a small number of officers
who would deal with these things. We have produced the Greening
Communities campaign and we obviously actively promote things
like The Nottingham Declaration, so we lead those and there
are some who are running on ahead of us, but it is also getting
some of the others to come in as well. There is only so much we
can do for that. It is up to the individual councillors and their
councils as to how easily they are going to be led, which means
that yes, you have got to push them with the obligation, with
having a national outcome.
Q131 Mr Hurd: Could I just take Mr
Peverill back to what he said about the possibility of imposing
a minimum standard based on the experience of Nottingham for a
year or so. Are you in a position to make an assessment of where
that minimum standard could be most usefully pitched?
Mr Peverill: How do you mean,
in terms of a level of carbon savings?
Q132 Mr Hurd: I was not pre-judging
it, the level of carbon savings, the minimum level of activity?
Mr Peverill: I could not give
you an answer off the top of my head. I will have to give you
a more considered response, I think. It might be a combination
of carbon savings according to the circumstances of an individual
council combined with, perhaps, some progress milestones and what
is achievable within a given timescale.
Q133 Mark Pritchard: I just wonder
what steps you are taking, have taken or are about to take vis-a"-vis
energy efficiency in the remaining public sector housing stock
and also what encouragement you are giving to improve energy efficiency
in the private housing sector stock? I am sure you will have noted
the comments in the House yesterday about energy efficiency.
Mr Hurford: Yes, this is the decent
home standard, which is obviously driving forward social housing,
particularly on the insulation side. In private sector housing
most authorities will invest a certain amount of money. My own
authority puts £2.5 million a year into private sector housing
improvement, of which about half a million goes into energy efficiency
works. That varies from authority to authority. In our own authority
that will continue. There are 50 or 51 authorities which are somehow
linked to energy efficiency advice centres and obviously the EAC
network through the Energy Saving Trust obviously works closely
with all communities but particularly the private sector.
Q134 Mark Pritchard: Could I pause
you on the private sector, given that you are doing them in reverse
order? Are you referring to the warmer homes? Is that linked into
the warmer homes strategy, insulation, where energy utility companies
pay part of the cost for the insulation of houses?
Mr Hurford: You have got the Warm
Front scheme, which is obviously the major investment for people
on a low income, and that has been going in some guise for 15
years. It used to be the Home Efficiency scheme. That is the Government's
major delivery plank for the fuel poor. It invests £2,700
per property if you are on benefit and you meet the right criteria.
You have also got the Energy Efficiency Commitment, which is the
obligation through the utility supplies. Again, that is the other
major delivery. That is more towards the fuel rich, it covers
everybody. Coming back to your question, you have obviously also
got the Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon Trust and there is
a number of other small pots of money which tend to come into
play at different times. Really the industry is characterised
by stop-start funding as we go from one Government scheme into
another one. The Government schemes are all very welcome, but
they do tend to come to an end and the only consistent ones at
the moment have been the Warm Front programme, which continues
year on year and has been growing, particularly over the last
five years, and the Energy Efficiency Commitment, which is through
the utility companies, which again has been doubled every three
years.
Q135 Mr Hurd: On the Energy Efficiency
Commitment, noting what was said in the Energy Review statement
yesterday about energy efficiency and the emphasis the Government
says it is going to put on that issue, is there a timetable for
that initiative ending? Secondly, do you think more could be done
within the existing framework of that initiative?
Mr Hurford: The Energy Efficiency
Commitment concludes in 2008 and it is expected that it will be
doubled in 2008 to go to 2011. There is certainly further scope
for local authorities to work with the energy suppliers. In the
last budget £20 million is mentioned in the Climate Change
Review. £20 million has been allocated for local authorities
to somehow work with the energy suppliers around the Energy Efficiency
Commitment to somehow incentivise the public to take more action
on energy efficiency. That scheme is currently being worked up
by Defra and will probably be launched next year, because I think
it is seen there is more possibility for how the Energy Efficiency
Commitment can be perhaps linked to Warm Front and then linked
to local authorities, because the comments from CSE about these
disjointed different agencies is a general feeling that there
is a lot of different players and several different pots of money
and somehow they need to be brought together. One of the possible
solutions is that they be brought together somehow through local
authorities because they are the local delivery agents. That would
not mean necessarily taking anything away from energy suppliers
or from, say, EAGA, who are the Warm Front delivery agents, but
there might be some sort of coordinated delivery mechanism by
which these different schemes and Government programmes with pots
of money could be brought together through the local authority.
That is one of the hopes, that that might be a delivery method
for this £20 million which has been announced.
Q136 Mr Hurd: You were going to mention
the public sector?
Mr Hurford: On the public sector
side, as I said, the decent homes standard, to take an authority
such as mine, Lewisham, we have a capital programme worth up to
£100 million a year, but that is for everything, kitchens,
re-wirings, et cetera. That is looking after all the properties.
Energy efficiency plays a major part in that. An authority like
Lewisham with 150,000 homes has been investing between £3
million and £4 million a year in better central heating,
obviously now condensing boilers, and energy efficiency measures.
I think that is probably more than most local authorities invest
from their capital programme, but yes, there are very significant
funds where authorities are looking after their own housing.
Q137 Mark Pritchard: A lot of local
authorities now are actually buying back from the private sector
stock, or for the first time buying private stock and bringing
it back into the de facto public sector under a housing
association, which the local authority may not have a stake in
in some way. Do you think in the medium to long-term, despite
the arguments for affordable housing, and so on, it is actually
going to increase the repair levy on local taxpayers?
Mr Hurford: I really do not know
how many homes are being bought up. I know some are, but I am
not sure how significant that is.
Q138 Mark Pritchard: Briefly, the
last question, Braintree, the British Gas scheme, fiscal incentives
linked to business rates, encouraging people to improve energy
efficiency, what are your views on that?
Cllr Haines: The LGA view is that
we would not have done it quite that way. I think it appears that
the money is a discount, whereas in reality it is not, but it
is obviously a special offer.
Q139 Mark Pritchard: A special offer.
They still exist!
Cllr Haines: Oh, yes, whereas
others might see it as a discount. It is how these things are
portrayed, but we would not have done it quite like that.
Mr Hurford: It is basically seen
as an administrative issue rather than a discount, so it is a
way of giving back £100 and it tends to be a one-off. I think
it is a very good scheme because it is highlighting it. It has
had a lot of press and there is scope to enlarge it across to
other councils, but I totally agree it is an administrative thing.
It is not really a permanent discount. People think the council
tax is too high, therefore by claiming to be a discount people
are immediately interested in the concept. It is a very good marketing
tool.
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