Chief Executives' Group - North Yorkshire and York
11 February 2022
Local Authorities Climate Action Co-ordinator Role - Proposal for future priorities and funding
1 Purpose of the Report
1.1 This paper provides a proposal for funding and future priorities to continue the Local Authorities Climate Action Coordinator post that sits within the York and North Yorkshire LEP.
2 Background
2.1 The Local Authorities Climate Action Coordinator role is currently a 2 year post funded through the YNERYH Directors of Development budget, with its main aim to support York and North Yorkshire local authorities deliver substantial carbon emissions reductions and support climate action. The Directors of Development budget is made up of subscriptions from City of York, ERYC and North Yorkshire (including business rates pool income).
2.2 In February 2020, a paper was taken to the North Yorkshire and York Chief Executives’ Group outlining the need for the climate action post to support collaborative work across the sub-region. This received strong support, with members recognising the need for urgent action.
2.3 An officer was appointed to the post in August 2020, and has worked closely with LAs to develop a number of collaborative projects. The officer has now left the post, which leaves a remaining £24,500 of the original £100k signed-off by DoDs for the role.
2.4 This paper sets out the proposed priorities for the role moving forward, with a business case included in Appendix A.
3 Progress to date
3.1 The role has made a critical contribution to supporting local authorities deliver climate action, including:
- Increased collaboration, knowledge sharing and strengthened relationships between YNY Climate Action Leads through regular meetings, weekly newsletters, and knowledge sharing events such as EV Charging, Housing Retrofit and Treeplanting.
- Design and delivery of strategic procurement project to provide practical toolkits to ensure procurement is used as a lever to accelerate the transition to net zero.
- Co-development of bespoke LAs low carbon training module to increase all LA officers understanding and knowledge around climate change.
- Facilitating collaboration between services leads in Asset Management and Communications to encourage joint approaches and reduced duplication.
- Translation of Carbon Abatement Pathways Study recommendations to LAs specific role, and facilitating LAs engagement in the development of YNY Routemap to Carbon Negative (including Roundtable Sessions). This has included service specific briefings for Housing, Planning, Tourism, Waste and Economic Development for examples.
4 Proposed priorities moving forward
4.1 Over the last two years, York and North Yorkshire LAs have made substantial progress in developing and delivering their own climate action plans, building officer capacity and developing carbon reduction projects. We have particularly seen progress with LAs tackling their own operational carbon emissions. However, significant challenges remain in relation to LAs influencing emissions reductions across their geographies.
4.2 A business case is provided in Appendix A which includes an options appraisal for addressing this challenge. The preferred option is to recruit for a two year post for the LAs Climate Action Coordinator role.
4.3 Working with the YNY LAs Climate Action Leads group, we have developed the following priorities for extending the role to focus on enabling the transition to net zero:
- Strategic coordination and supporting regional work – understanding what scale climate action interventions are required (e.g., national, regional, sub-regional, local) and connecting the dots between activity to avoid duplication of effort and maximise impact. This would include supporting the work of the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission.
- Engaging and activating SMEs – working in partnership to develop a package of measures to support SMEs in YNY to decarbonise, including retail businesses and other B2Cs.
- Developing supply chains and skills – connecting businesses with higher education and skills providers to build the supply chains for housing retrofit, EV installation/maintenance and renewables.
- Driving collaboration – continue to convene YNY LAs to support collaboration and sharing best practice, and enable wider partnership working with anchor institutions.
- Supporting LGR and devolution – providing low carbon expertise where required to support devolution deal work and the LGR process, with a particular focus on ensuring the new unitary supports community-led climate action.
These priorities are closely aligned with LEP’s remit around strategic leadership, building partnerships, supporting businesses and developing skills, and as such the proposed post will leverage the expertise and capacity of other LEP teams to deliver these priorities effectively.
4.4 These priorities have been considered by the YNYERH Directors of Development Group and have received strong support. There was consensus at the meeting that it was critical for the role to continue and DoDs are supportive of the post continuing on a permanent basis. However, in light of the uncertainty of future funding and the need to consider how climate change action is resourced in the new North Yorkshire Council, the proposal within this report is to fund the post for a further period of two years. This will allow time for the new council to consider structures and resources for the future.
4.5 The shortfall in funding is £81,500 and DoDs have agreed to fund it using unallocated funding from within the DoDs budget.
5 Recommendations 5.1 To review the business case to extend the LAs Climate Action Coordinator role and agree the preferred option to continue funding the post for a further period of two years using unallocated funding within the DoDs budget. |
Katie Thomas
Senior Strategy Manager – Low Carbon & Environment, York and North Yorkshire LEP
11 February 2022
Appendix A – Business Case for LAs Climate Action Coordinator Role
Background |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Background to LAs Climate Action Coordinator Role In January 2020, £100k funding was secured from the business rates pool to recruit a 2 year post to support York and North Yorkshire local authorities deliver substantial carbon emissions reductions and support climate action. This was to address the challenge that local authorities had been seeking support from York and North Yorkshire LEP to develop their climate action plans following climate emergency declarations. Working within a small team, we did not have the capacity to support local authorities to the extent needed.
Working with LA colleagues, we developed the following priorities for the role:
The post was recruited to and commenced the role in August 2020, working closely with LAs to deliver on the above priorities. Challenge The recruited officer left the post 13th January 2022 for a new role within NYCC, which leaves a remaining £24,500 of the original £100k signed-off by DoDs for the role. Whilst York and North Yorkshire LAs have made substantial progress over the last two years in developing and delivering their own climate action plans, significant challenges remain in relation to LAs influencing emissions reductions across their geographies – which require a joined-up approach across the sub-region.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Options Appraisal |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preferred Option & Rationale |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preferred Option
These priorities are closely aligned with LEP’s role around strategic leadership, building partnerships, supporting businesses and developing skills, and as such the proposed post will leverage the expertise and capacity of other LEP teams to deliver these priorities effectively.
Other Options
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Risks And Mitigations |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Key risks associated with the preferred option are:
To address these risks:
|