Issue - meetings

(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  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39