Page Aim
Traditionally local democracy has been based on council elections and voters' access to council members. More recently an area's stakeholders have also been able to speak at their local authorities' council and council committee meetings.
Low voter turnout and other factors have led to Government attempts to re-engage local electorates through, eg, its modernisation and locality working programmes.
The page will become:
A permanent record
of the responses to sustainability and / or participation concerns
raised with Coventry and Warwickshire's decision makers.
An indication of
how our Local Strategic Partnerships and Third Sector Assemblies
are responding to the challenges of global unsustainability?
A blueprint for
how communities everywhere can use decision making processes to
lobby on sustainability concerns.
Outline Contents
Material is stored chronologically.
Document Store
Log for 2009
Opportunities for Participation in Local Decision Making.
COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009.
Log for 2008
Sustainable Community Strategy Accessibility.
Green Energy Procurement.
Loyalty Card for Local Businesses.
Transition Area Status.
FE Colleges and Sustainability.
Green Periodicals in Local Libraries.
Government Outcome Targets.
Sustainable Community Strategy Action Plans.
Sustainable Communities Act 2007.
Transparency of Processes during 2008.
Log for 2004 – 2006
Information and Process Transparency.
S&P.
Climate Change Policies.
Sustainability Policies.
Sustainable Communities Bill.
LSP Use of Fair Trade.
Fairtrade Area Status.
Transparency of Processes during 2004: 2006.
LSPs’ S&P Rating.
Log for 2003
LSPs’ Sustainability Focus.
Sustainable Communities Bill.
GATS.
Earth Charter.
Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change.
LSP Use of Fair Trade.
Transparency of Processes during 2003.
"Building community capacity is no longer an optional extra, it is essential to meeting the global challenges that we face."
Julie Unwin, Chief Executive, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Topic Updates
The next update will include more details of Coventry and Warwickshire council / LSP responses to Links’ communications regarding the two S&P concerns raised during 2009.
The Log for 2009 now gives full details of Links’ approaches regarding:
Opportunities for
participation in local decision making.
The UN COP15 Climate
Change Summit 2009
Details of LSP / council responses will be posted here before transfer to the Document Store Logs.
Opportunities for Participation in Local Decision Making
Documents to be uploaded:
LSP responses regarding
opportunities for participation in local decision making by third
sector communities of interest.
LSP responses regarding
opportunities for participation in local decision making by those
communities of interest focusing on sustainability concerns.
COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit
On 05 November 2009 Links circulated a letter to a number of subregional organisations:
Coventry Partnership
and the five Warwickshire district LSPs (Chairs).
Warwickshire Climate
Change Partnership (Chair).
Coventry City Council,
Warwickshire County Council and the five district councils (CEOs).
Established points
of contact within the subregion’s LSP / council infrastructure.
VAC and WCAVA.
Urban Forum and Shared
Energy (see below).
Enclosed with the letter of 05 November was:
A briefing on the Summit
and the sort of agreements that VCS organisations hoped would be
reached in order to address the challenges.
VCS materials - a summit
related broadsheet published by Urban Forum, and a set of papers
prepared by Shared Energy.
A survey aimed at discovering
the responses of Coventry and Warwickshire LSPs to the valuable
opportunities presented by the international Summit.
On 25 January 2010 a follow up letter was sent to those district LSPs / councils who had not responded.
“This is an emergency and emergency situations require emergency actions.”
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General.
Coventry
Response
Sent 19 November 2009 from the manager of Coventry Partnership. dawn.ford@coventry.gov.uk
“Climate change is recognised by the Coventry Partnership as an important issue and as such, is a cross cutting theme of the Sustainable Community Strategy ‘Coventry the Next Twenty Years’. The Partnership also has a separate Climate Change Strategy.
“The Environmental Theme Group presented at the last Coventry Partnership Board the issues around a low carbon agenda and its effects and how Coventry might respond to this in the future. The Theme Group provides a strategic overview to the implementation of the Partnerships Climate Change Strategy and other environmental activities.”
Response
Sent on 22 December 2009 from the Partnership support officer, on behalf of the Environment Theme Group. sarah.perry@coventry.gov.uk – this was a response to the survey:
1. Please say which international climate change initiatives (such as IPCC Reports, the Kyoto Protocol, the Stern Report and the forthcoming Conference of the Parties) the LSP has been receiving briefings on?
“The LSP has received briefings on IPCC reports, Kyoto Protocol and Stern Report as well as the UKCIP report, UK Health Impacts on Climate Change (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology November 2004 and Defra Climate Change Strategic Framework 2007 as part of the Climate Change Strategy March 2008.”
2. Please could you give brief details of any LSP responses to those sections of such documents addressing the urgent need for local action.
“The LSP’s reaction was to compile jointly a strategy with Coventry City Council and approve it at its Board meeting.”
3. Will the Partnership be using the provided '2028' papers to facilitate discussion?
“We have no knowledge of the 2028 scheme.”
4. Will the Partnership be sending a delegate to the Urban Forum conference on 03 December? (If so, please could I ask that you forward Sustainability Links a copy of his / her report back for inclusion on the website.)
“No.”
5. Has the LSP considered any of the other local ways it's been proposed that climate change can be tackled?
“The Climate Change Strategy contains the main approaches plus works with Energy Saving Trust on a city wide strategic carbon management pilot and Switch It Off Campaign.”
6. Bearing in mind policy makers' abject failure to take credible action on global sustainability concerns, we also propose that the area's LSPs now facilitate: a) the production of an expertise driven transition strategy, and b) sustainability audits of future SCS action plan implementation.
“Would be interested to see details of what is proposed in sections a and b.”
7. We would be grateful to learn of LSP members' initial reaction to these ideas.
“As above – need more information to assess possible resource commitment in the context of an already challenging agenda.”
Response
Sent on 08 February 2010 from the Partnership support officer, on behalf of the Environment Theme Group. sarah.perry@coventry.gov.uk
“The Community Empowerment Network is an active member of the Theme Group and helps to promote all of the group’s activities.”
Response
The Voluntary Action Coventry website included submitted information about both COP15 and sustainability.org.
North Warwickshire
Response
Sent on 12 November 2009 from NWBC’s Assistant Chief Executive and Solicitor to the Council. stevemaxey@northwarks.gov.uk
“The current position with the North Warwickshire LSP is that it has chosen three priority topics; education attainment, access to services and health. This is not to say these are the three most important topics, but that they are the areas where the most impact can be made by partnerships in this area. Other topics, such as crime, housing and climate change are better dealt with at other levels. As a result therefore the issues raise in your letter are unlikely to be discussed in significant detail by the LSP. They will be addressed however through the work the Council is doing on climate change and through partnerships at a county and regional level.”
Nuneaton and Bedworth
Response
Sent on 08 February 2010 from the Chief Executive of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. christine.kerr@nuneatonandbedworth.gov.uk
“NBBC is in the process of refreshing its Environmental Sustainability Strategy. A number of the actions contained within that Strategy can be linked to the LSP in relation to two specific themes – External and Community… I feel LSPs nationwide can best promote the sustainability imperative by championing the above actions.”
The response included pages from the Environmental Sustainability Strategy Action Plan 2010 – 2013. The External theme focused on energy advice, the Community theme focused on leadership and communications, with most of the proposed work being undertaken in partnership with the Energy Saving Trust.
Rugby
Response
Sent on 04 January 2010 from the Sustainable Partnerships Manager. stephen.marks@rugby.gov.uk
“There are number of key activities that the LSP is delivering in relation to the climate change agenda, notably
·14 the delivery of an extensive Affordable Warmth Action Plan intended to increase the take up of energy efficiency measures, particularly amongst vulnerable groups
·15 development of planning policy with requires higher levels of energy efficiency and low carbon development
·16 involvement in energy awareness campaigns and promotional activities
The LSP also has involvement in the Warwickshire Climate Change Partnership.”
The letter included some responses to questions raised in the Links’ Survey:
1. Please say which international climate change initiatives (such as IPCC Reports, the Kyoto Protocol, the Stern Report and the forthcoming Conference of the Parties) the LSP has been receiving briefings on?
“The LSP Board has not received briefings on the specific climate change initiatives you refer to. However, the broad knowledge base and national policy framework in relation to climate change is considered during the establishment of relevant strategic objectives and associated action plans.”
4. Will the Partnership be sending a delegate to the Urban Forum conference on 03 December?
“The Partnership did not formally send a delegate to the Urban Forum conference.”
5. Has the LSP considered any of the other local ways it's been proposed that climate change can be tackled?
“…work on climate change will largely be co-ordinated and driven by the Warwickshire Climate Change Partnership.”
Stratford upon Avon
Response
Sent on 02 February 2010, from the Chair of the LSP Environment and Climate Change Group / SDC Cabinet Environment Portfolio Holder. simon.jackson@stratford-dc.gov.uk
“I believe that the best approach for LSPs nationally on this issue is to provide community groups with the platform to promote their actions and to provide the opportunity to influence the decisions of other agencies. LSPs have to be rooted in local communities in order to work and this bottom up approach allows for a diverse range of initiatives to be fostered rather than a single top down approach which is the domain of national government.”
Warwick district
Response
Sent on 09 April 2010, from the Chief Executive of Warwick District Council.
“The Warwick District LSP and SCS focuses on four priority themes – housing: health and wellbeing: jobs, skills and the economy: safety. However, there are a number of cross cutting themes, one of which is sustainability… a Single Integrated Subregional Strategy is to be developed and this will include climate change.
Warwickshire
Response
Neither Warwickshire County Council nor Warwickshire Climate Change Partnership replied to the letters sent them.
Editorial: an assessment of LSP / council responses
to Links’ approaches re COP15
Coventry Partnership’s briefings on climate change are indeed impressive, although the evidence gathered here suggests that such information giving is untypical.
Another concern immediately evident is that while district councils are deferring climate change action to Warwickshire County Council, neither the County Council nor Climate Change Partnership responded to the letters Links sent. A similar lack of transparency was evident when Links contacted the County Council regarding opportunities for participation in local decision making by third sector communities of interest. It was only after a request under the Freedom of Information Act that a reply was received.
This aside, the tendency to defer responsibility for action back up the geo-political hierarchy is an abdication: as the transition movement has shown, truly effective action has to be grassroots based. The Stratford upon Avon response deserves a second reading.
Referral to the document store Log for 2009 highlights another systemic problem. Local participation processes are not engaging with VCS organisations – such as Urban Forum, Shared Energy and New Economics Foundation – who can bring the necessary scientific expertise, global perspectives and sustainable lifestyle information and choices to the table.
The extent to which local “green” groups’ input is processed out is a matter for further research, as are questions whether these key players are being actively excluded or self-excluding or both – and if so, why.
By denying action rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s forest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates.
Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International, commenting on the failure of COP15.
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