SDZ0003
Written evidence submitted by Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE)
I respond on behalf of APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) which is a not-for-profit UK wide organisation owned by our member local authorities. APSE’s aims and values are to support and promote the delivery of excellence in frontline local government services. APSE works with over 300 local authorities, throughout the UK specialising in frontline service delivery issues. APSE uniquely brings together policy into frontline service delivery issues. We operate a UK wide climate change renewables network for our local authority members, which includes local councillors, leaders, and cabinet members as well as senior local government officers. Similarly, APSE operates a series of frontline networks to support our member local councils, in areas such as waste and resources, parks and public realm, highways and housing, alongside leisure assets.
APSE Energy is one of APSE’s additional services to our member local councils, which was launched in 2014 with a vision to ’facilitate the municipalisation of energy services’. APSE Energy now has over 130 local authorities actively participating in the network.; many are making great strides in leading the field in the quest for public sector renewable energy initiatives, whilst others are learning from their peers, and taking their first steps towards engaging in the climate change and energy agenda.
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this call for evidence on the support for innovation to deliver net zero. Whilst we have refrained from responding to each and every area of the inquiry, we nevertheless hope our response will be useful to the Committee. I also confirm that I would be happy to provide further written or oral evidence should this be considered useful to the committee.
APSE Response
APSE is responding to this call for evidence on the support for innovation to deliver net zero. We are focusing our response on a small number of issues and not on every element of the call for evidence. The main areas that we are focusing on for this response are, the short-termism of local government finance for net zero, decarbonising heat in public buildings, parks and open spaces and issues linked to the waste and resources strategy. We feel as though our views on these areas will be helpful for this consultation, based on our vast experience of working with local authorities in these areas.
The Context
Whilst APSE supports the intentions of the aims of the Net Zero Research and Innovation Framework it does have concerns about the ability to deliver targets set in the framework quickly enough to avoid the 1.5 C temperature rise which is looking less likely with global temperature having already risen by 1.3 C on average. Scientific evidence suggests that to avoid temperatures rising above 1.5 C will require emissions to be brought down by 45% over the next decade.
Short-termism of Local Government Finance for Net Zero
While the recent pots of funding for local authorities, such as the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), have been welcome, the short-termism of the local government finance model for delivering net zero and the competitive element of bidding for funding pots is harming progress across local government.
Our member councils consistently report that they have difficulty in planning financially for the medium and long term. Our members find it extremely hard to plan ahead without the security and consistency of identifiable future funding streams. Having a long-term approach to local government finance for net zero would allow councils to prioritise areas of their climate emergency action plans that will deliver the best carbon savings, while also prioritising projects that are the most appropriate for their localities. Local authorities know their areas and communities best and are therefore best placed to make decisions on how to decarbonise their areas, which projects and schemes to invest in first, and develop and execute a plan, with appropriate partners, to fully decarbonise their areas. Having security of funding would allow them to accelerate their plans, leading to a faster rate of decarbonisation and allowing their communities to take advantage of the co-benefits that would be created.
Many have made a climate emergency declaration and are sincere in attempting to address it. Having set ambitious timescales by which they aim to be net zero (2030 in many cases), the local government sector was justified in thinking there would be significant funding allocated to them based on the government’s own stance to addressing climate change. The funding which has been made available to date cannot be considered appropriate for the task when one considers the sheer scale of work to be completed. Add to this the short-term nature of funding, the competition for limited pots with the result that most are over-subscribed, and it is clear to see the difficulties which emerge from the current approach. Short term funding and competitive bidding are not helpful for the vast majority of councils.
The fast turnaround times required to bid for and then spend funds has meant that many smaller authorities, with less staffing resources, have missed out on the funding. These smaller authorities are often the ones that would benefit the most from this funding and need financial support to accelerate the decarbonisation of the buildings and services. This is tantamount to a bidding ‘lottery’ with those most able arguable at an advantage in accessing funds to the disbenefit of others.
APSE would therefore like to see a more consistent and fair approach to local government finance for net zero, that allows all councils to plan a programme of schemes and projects to decarbonise their areas and benefit from numerous resulting co-benefits.
This approach would also allow better planning on a cross-area or regional basis where scale is vital to the success and financial viability of projects. Inability to forecast finances hinders effective partnership working.
Decarbonising Heat in Public Buildings
Addressing heat in buildings is a government priority with a focus on decarbonising heat and the installation of heat pumps. A huge area for local authorities to address when tackling climate change and reducing emissions is their estate. This comprises civic and service buildings, community centres and facilities, leisure centres, depots, social housing, commercial properties and more.
The UK Net Zero Research and Innovation Framework report says that “to reach net zero, virtually all heat in buildings must be decarbonised by 2050.” Many local authority owned buildings are high energy users, often older and sometimes listed buildings, with vital functions for their communities, such as libraries, swimming pools, schools, and town halls. The local authorities who also still own housing stock have an enormous task of decarbonising social housing.
APSE has worked with many local authorities who have received PSDS funding, with popular options being installing heat pumps and heat networks. Although the installation of a heat pump may appear a relatively quick exercise there are issues with getting technical support to size and design a scheme, the heat pump supply chain, accessing installers and subsequently someone to service them on a regular basis. There is a significant problem with training and skills around heat pumps and the manufacture of enough units to meet targets going forward. Heat networks are a long-term job and the issue remains the same. The technology works but issues such as the scale and duration of retrofitting, support and regulation for customers and planning policies to ensure developers link up to planned schemes need to be addressed.
The role of hydrogen can be substantial but there is currently no clarity about where it will fit into the mix of renewables going forward nor specifically distribution networks.
In terms of innovation, the work done by Nottingham City Council and Energiesprong and Swansea City Council and their ‘Homes as power stations’ scheme reflect what can be achieved. These are scalable projects, but such is the vastness of what needs to be done that it is difficult to see how they can easily be rolled out without both significant resources being allocated to them alongside innovation into the technology, installation methods, skills, and supply chain.
Waste and the Green Environment
APSE is concerned by actions that are already in place, which require local authority involvement, are struggling to meet ambitions. For example, the Extended Producer Responsibility regulations, which aim to further increase recycling by making packaging producers responsible for household packaging recycling and recovery costs, are struggling to be implemented and consequently the infrastructure (additional refuse vehicles, bins, waste treatment facilities etc.), to deliver the services required will be stifled until funding from the EPR is made available. In addition, the lack of clarity on dates means that many local authorities are having issues managing current waste treatment contractual arrangements due to this uncertainty.
The Deposit Return Scheme is also in a similar state of flux with the UK’s four member countries moving at different speeds and having different requirements, which is not only confusing for both businesses and the public alike but could also cause cross border problems with markets across the four countries being adversely affected. For if there were different deposit return schemes in the various home nations, then this may discourage cross-border beverage sales or cause other complications for consumers, businesses, and waste management.
These two examples are quoted as both are regarded as key objectives in the Environment Act 2021, yet both are facing considerable time lags in becoming fully operational.
Regarding the environment it is pleasing to see a wide range of landscapes included in the Framework, including marine environments. However, again many of the schemes will be dependent upon appropriate levels of funding being made available to ensure the sustainability of proposed objectives, for instance the target to plant 30 thousand hectares of trees by 2025 assumes that land is available and that the revenue to support the long-term future of woodland and forest under local authority control is available. Certainly, the number of tree officers to monitor and record the health and benefits of newly planted trees is a concern based on current levels and skills. For an effective monitoring and recording system to be in place the operational numbers within the sector would need to be dramatically and rapidly increased.
Biodiversity Net Gain is being mooted as a game changer in relation to increasing levels of biodiversity, but again to carry out assessments as to the value of biodiversity on proposed development sites and ensure a 10% gain, requires suitable ecologist or suitably trained officers to carry out the work, and APSE research has shown these are resources many local authorities do not currently have. It should also be remembered that the duty placed upon local authorities to increase biodiversity levels, has also to be balanced against the pressures local authorities are under to provide space for new housing. These factors coupled with the paucity of planning powers for local authorities, which often inhibit effective interventions suggests that in reality the gains that could be achieved through biodiversity net gain will be lost through unsustainable developments that are permissible under current planning regulations.
Many of the spaces which are by inference part of the solutions to net zero, such as peatlands, forest, woodlands, marine environments etc. are often the responsibility of local authorities or at the very least influenced by local authorities and will therefore be subject to the ongoing strains on local council budgets. APSE member councils have largely been unable to recover their budgets, on frontline services, which were severely impacted during the yeas of austerity. Indeed, many of the research proposals and future initiatives in the Framework will be reliant upon local authorities to deliver and again the issue arises as to the future availability of funding to support any of these responsibilities.
The Wider Sector
There is a great deal of ground-breaking and innovative work being carried out by local authorities regarding many of the targets and proposals to achieve the aims of the Framework. APSE is supporting local authorities through training, research publications, seminars, and advisory groups, highlighting best practice and case studies. Indeed, APSE has trained thousands of local authority leaders, councillors, chief and senior officers, alongside frontline workers on carbon literacy. However, APSE would argue that much more prompt action and funding is needed from Government to make those short-term actions happen and most importantly to become effective and sustainable, for as the Framework identifies, many of the future aims within the document are dependent upon technologies that are still in prototype phases, so we need to ensure what is currently happening works.
A final point, and perhaps the most demanding, is that to achieve the aims of the Framework, there will need to be a considerable re-education of the way we live our lives and manufacture the goods we use and, by association, how our lifestyles affect the land, soils, waters, and wider environments which our very existence relies upon. To have responsibility lying with government, both national and local will not deliver the necessary actions. Business, and local communities across the UK and, globally, will need to play a critical part in understanding how the way we consume food and use goods impacts ecosystems. Therefore, national education and awareness raising programmes need to be in place now if people are to understand why the changes are needed and how they can support them. Again, this is an exercise whereby local councils, acting as ‘stewards of place’ will be critical to success. This is an area where local authorities are already engaged in education campaigns and behaviour change; examples being highly successful campaigns in support of recycling or encouraging walking and cycling routes instead of car travel. However, the role of adequate resources, in the success of these initiatives, should not be underestimated.
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this call for evidence on the support for innovation to deliver net zero. APSE is looking forward to seeing and sharing the outcomes of this consultation.
June 2023