Agenda item

Insight and Policy Manager to report verbally on the progress of the Task and Finish Group.

The Insight and Policy Manager reported on the progress which had been made by the task and finish group. The group had met on 8 October 2019 to progress the strategy and commission work. The committee recalled that at their first meeting they had agreed the seven  themes and items to be considered as options for inclusion in a coherent work programme. The group had commenced scoping and evaluating the Themes and three external organisations had been consulted, who were advising the council on cost factors. Internal expertise was also being drawn upon, to evaluate options and provide evaluations on resources and delivery. The council’s procurement team were also being consulted.

Important work is being undertaken to validate the council’s carbon emissions baseline, to ensure that the data was accurate and reliable. The group will be organising a workshop where the Vision and targets would be scoped. There will also be a conference event to launch the Vision and Strategy. The group had agreed to next meet on 18 December 2019, following completion of the options evaluation work and their costing. The committee agreed that they required a meeting in January 2020, to receive the task and finish group’s progress report and work programme recommendations, which would inform their recommendations to Cabinet and feed into the budget setting process in February 2020.

Liaison with outside organisations

The committee considered that engagement with the farming sector would be critical in helping to achieve its aims and objectives and to ensure resilience in local food production.

The Insight and Policy Manager also reported that the Council has been successful in securing student consultancy support, as part of a programme run by Oxford university. We will be engaging with a group of students to capture their creativity and fresh ideas on strategies and techniques to encourage behaviour change in order to achieve the challenging targets and use their skills to create a data pack of information to tell the compelling story around the urgency of climate change and adaptation. Once completed, this data pack will be hosted on ‘Oxfordshire Insight’.

The Insight and Policy Manager and the Energy Strategy and Projects Officer had presented to a climate change conference on South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils’ responses to climate emergency. The presentation was well-received and confirmed that the approaches were aligned with other councils’ priorities and was ahead of some others.

The council had just signed up to the Association of Public Sector Excellence (APSE) Energy Service, which provided access to information and events and guaranteed councillor places (for both South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse councils) at the APSE annual conference. The Energy Strategy and Projects Officer would be sending full details of the conference to the committee.

On 19 November 2019 an all-Oxfordshire (district councils and county council) collaboration meeting had been held. The aim was to foster stronger joint working, and discussions revealed some inevitable overlap in councils’ working arrangements, particularly in work commissioning. The meeting had concurred that economies of scale opportunities could be realised and that further discussions were required on this issue. The baseline work seemed to be an appropriate topic for this treatment.

The Insight and Policy Manager also reported that the Oxford City Citizens’ Assembly report would be publicly available within the next few days and was recommended reading for councillors. The council would be working with the City Council about the results of the Assembly process and it was likely that this council could enrich their data.

The work of the council on climate change had evoked a high level of interest from towns, villages and groups in South Oxfordshire.  Insight and Policy Officers The task and finish group would be meeting each of the town councils of Didcot, Henley, Thame and Wallingford within the next few weeks, to understand what activity they may have been carrying out in this area, share the progress of the Council andexplain the work and offer advice and assistance, leading to collaboration on the topic .

The committee were keen to engage closely with environment – related groups, particularly those for younger people. It was confirmed that Insight and Policy had completed a research mapping exercise on climate action groups; the council already had contacts with the Youth Climate Network and Extinction Rebellion. The Insight and Policy Manager would share her spreadsheet of 58 groups with the committee with an ask that members advise if there were other suitable groups for inclusion in the spreadsheet. The committee agreed that an effective Communications Plan was of critical importance. The new council website would be launched in January 2020, greatly assisting with these issues. The committee were also keen to ensure that full opportunity was taken of the available social media to promote the work and ambition of the committee. The Committee requested a list of suggestions for individuals to take action on the website.

Following the election and the imposition of the purdah rules, the council would write to town and parish councils and community groups to understand what activity they may be carrying out and update on the work of the committee, about its work and how those organisations could benefit from this. The committee queried whether the council could assist parishes with climate emergency auditing. It was noted that a web page would also be established.

Additionally, the council’s scrutiny structures would be formally consulted as a critical friend. It was noted that the Task and Finish Group had been invited to attend the Scrutiny Committee meeting on 21 January 2020.

Next steps

The group planned to report its provisional standards to the Cabinet in December 2019. The committee hoped that it could receive a progress report from the group on this work.

The committee noted that Vale of White Horse’s corresponding committee  was proposing to undertake a two-stage approach to their climate emergency targets. The Acting Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that the differences in approach would not affect South Oxfordshire’s pace, and that two sets of targets could be comfortably accommodated in this part of Oxfordshire.

The Group was exploring how higher standards could be met in the council’s service areas. For example, the taxi licensing policy could be reviewed to offer incentives for electric vehicles, perhaps by exacting a lower fee, but ensuring that such changes would be reasonable and practical. Scoping was proceeding on related infrastructure issues, including charging points. The committee requested creation of a work programme for the Committee for future planning of agenda items.

Future meetings of the Advisory Committee

The committee expressed a wish to review the car parks fees and charges proposals and to advise Cabinet by 30 January 2020 of their views. The committee would be interested in measures to encourage electric vehicles and to discourage fossil fuel ones. Also, the committee would like to be consulted on the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) spending, where biodiversity issues would be of primary importance.

It was noted that the council’s grounds maintenance contract would shortly be re-tendered and that may contain aspects of which the Committee could advise on. Due to governance timescales, briefings will be held in respect of this item with the relevant Portfolio Holders, Head of Service and the Committee Chair.