Agenda item

(Report by- Ms R Turner, Managing Director Children Families and Education Directorate and Mrs C McKenzie, Sustainability and Climate Change, Environment, Highways and Waste Directorate)

(1)   The Committee considered a report that summarised the progress made against the work carried out on Climate Change and the implementation of the Environment commitments and the ISO14001.

(2)   The Chairman asked Mrs McKenzie to give a brief introduction.  Mrs McKenzie highlighted some of the progress that the CFE Directorate had made and the future challenges that the directorate faced for the coming years that included; over the last year the Kent Environment Strategy had been reviewed and updated.  The original Strategy governed what the directorate and the local authority did within Kent as a whole.  A lot of the activity underneath the Strategy had a lot of good activity and projects but the outcomes did not change.  She felt that it was important that what was carried out in the future with the policy within CFE directorate and within KCC as a whole was taken in context with the Kent Environment Strategy.

(3)   All CFE buildings had been assessed to display an energy certificate which was an energy performance requirement, 350 schools, that were applicable for an energy certificate had been assessed with an average rating of ‘D’, which was better than average.  Half of the schools were better than that cohort of schools.  In terms of demonstrative savings within CFE; business miles had been reduced by less than 1% with a saving of £49k and in the last 6 months CFE had participated in ‘BT MeetMe’ telephone calls but there was still a lot of potential in those areas. Schools waste contracts included more recycling offers and a food trial had been undertaken, extending to the Family Centres and the Children’s Centres. 

(4)   For CFE there would be a continued focus on energy and carbon reduction, which she felt was a big challenge for CFE because of the size of its estate.  The carbon omissions did go up last year primarily because of the schools estate due to extended opening hours, older buildings ‘school that never sleeps’ and more ICTs.  There had been progress in reducing business mileage but there was still a lot of potential to reduce business mileage and cost savings that could be delivered.  There was also a need to improve on the activity around water and energy investment if significant savings were to be made. Mrs McKenzie advised that different funding streams were being looked at with an awareness of the uncertainty of budgets and the issue of the new academies and free schools policy being introduced at this time but reminded Members that KCC was still responsible for the academies and free schools etc carbon omissions which was a complicated situation as KCC would not have any control over those schools.  Mrs McKenzie concluded by highlighting the need to look at climate change risk and the potential for green jobs.

(5)   Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(6)    In reply to questions by Mr Pugh, Mrs McKenzie advised that KCC was working with the district and borough councils through the Climate Change Programme via a network and the Climate Change Plan. She felt that retrofit was one of the trickiest issues for KCC.   She confirmed that there were a myriad of grants for businesses and residents but the picture was very confused. She gave the example of the Warm Front Grant, a domestic retrofit grant, available to vulnerable residents, the take up in Kent was only 5% and that could be worth approximately £150m to Kent.  She also confirmed that KCC was working directly with the business community to try to streamline getting access to grants and working with the rest of the public sector to see how retrofit could be carried out with a consistent approach.  KCC was lobbying government to have a streamlined consistent approach to grants to improve the take up of grants by Kent residents and businesses to allow KCC to make small pots of money go further.

(7)    In reply to a question by Mr Smith, Mrs McKenzie advised that she was aware that an area of Ms Sue Dunn’s,Head of 14-24 Innovation Unit, work did cover Priority 7 [support and development of green jobs and businesses in Kent] within construction.  Mrs McKenzie advised that her Team were looking at some of the spin offs such as training and apprenticeships.  There was a lot of potential; both KCC and the district and borough councils were looking at taking on a number of educational placements.

(8)   In response to questions by Mr Sweetland, Mrs McKenzie advised that LASER was the main energy contractor for Kent schools.  She felt that in terms of business mileage reduction Mr Sweetland was correct that 3.5% was a start and that figure was rising but there was huge potential to increase that reduction, there was a need to challenge the way KCC did things and the amount of meetings that were held.  With regards to ‘BT MeetMe’ 10% of the accounts used, the overall savings for Kent were quite significant and with more use there would be huge savings, this was difficult to challenge but there was more buy in now because of the revenue savings that had been demonstrated mostly during the bad weather conditions in the Winter.   She concluded on the issue of Management Challenge, advising that her Team had brought in the Environment Board business mileage that had also been difficult issue to tackle.  Mr Ward added that CFE had set a target of 5% for business mileage but had a disappointing result in not reach that target. He explained that colleagues that did use ‘BT MeetMe’ during the bad weather had reverted back to type.  He felt that with the restructure and reduced staffing levels, staff would need to work smarter using tools such as BT MeetMe. 

(9)   RESOLVED that:

(a) the responses to questions and comments made by Members be    noted; and

(b) the overall progress made by KCC and the CFE Directorate on climate change and environmental issues be noted;