Existing LGA lobbying on the SCA

What can I use the act for?

The options for using the act are endless!

In effect the act can be used for anything that requires a change at a national level and that you can prove has the support of, and will increase, the sustainability of your community.

The act essentially provides local communities with a lobbying route, through their local council, to the Secretary of State.

The Local Government Association as the national voice for local government lobbies Government for change on a vast number of policies and issues. A selection of some of the changes we are currently pressing for and which we believe will benefit local government and sustainability are summarised below. We hope these will provide you with some ideas for the scope of the act.

1. Increasing recycling amongst businesses

The current situation

At the moment despite rising landfill tax the financial incentives don’t exist for private contractors to offer recycling collections to SMEs – especially in rural areas where collection costs are higher. Local authorities who are already collecting household waste from the area are well positioned to offer efficient services including recycling to local businesses. However, local authorities are discouraged from collecting business waste by the Government’s performance framework. Under the framework, if a local authority collects business waste it becomes classed as municipal waste and comes within the scope of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (this limits the amount of waste councils can landfill).

There is a great willingness to recycle amongst small business staff. At the moment many are taking their recyclates homes and using their household recycling service. Local authority studies have shown this can apply between 20-70 per cent of small businesses placing a burden on council tax payers.

If councils were not discouraged from providing a service to their local businesses, we could reduce the problems created by a multitude of separate collections carried out in the same urban centre – increased traffic congestion and pollution as well as littering and street scene problems from waste being put out at varying times.

What we would like to change

We would like to see an end to the disincentive under the LATS system for local authorities to handle commercial waste. We believe this would lead to more local authorities collecting recycling and general waste and also make it easier to open up civic amenity sites to trade waste and to reduce waste fly-tipped on private land.

Find out more on the BREW website

2. Helping to reduce fuel bills, carbon emissions and creating jobs

The current situation

The Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) runs from 8 April 08 - 11 March 09. It sets targets for energy suppliers to save energy in people’s homes and is estimated to cost consumers around £2.8bn, which is collected through their bills.

The suppliers choose which measures they promote under CERT. It was estimated that suppliers would install 5 million cavity wall and loft measures; however at current rates less than 4 million installation measures are likely to be installed. This is because suppliers are focusing on ‘soft’ measures such as low energy light bulbs, which are easier and cheaper to distribute. We have a number of concerns with this approach:

• sending out light bulbs unsolicited offers no guarantees that they will be used to save carbon
• sending out light bulbs does not offer the benefit of improving our housing stock
• the number of insulation installers increased following the Government’s signals for scaling up insulations. However, with suppliers not delivering the volume of insulation suggested by Government, the job potential for installers and support staff (such as surveyors) has not been realised. There are concerns there will be significant job losses as a significant amount of installation capacity is not being utilised.

What we would like to change

The Government is currently consulting on changing CERT regulations to increase the target by 20%. We are arguing that the refresh of CERT must:

• require suppliers to provide at least 5 million professionally cavity wall and loft installations over the 3 years
• increase the target on suppliers
• exclude ‘softer’ measures such as energy saving light bulbs

3. Supporting councils to build more homes

The current situation

There is increasing recognition that with the private sector-led housing development massively reduced or stalled, councils could play a more direct role to keep house building going. 

What we would like to change

We would like the Government to reform the Housing Revenue Account subsidy system to increase resources and remove disincentives to council led development by:

• Reforming the Housing Revenue Account subsidy system so that rents and income from the sales of council housing are retained locally to invest in new housing
• Simplify and streamline the documents and processes – for example the 300 page Housing Corporate Grant Agreement that councils who have successfully bid for Homes and Communities Agency funding have to sign
• Allow councils to access social housing grant - currently councils are required to develop complex delivery models such as local housing companies. This would then put them on a level playing field with housing associations 
• Make it easier for councils to borrow to invest in housing by allowing borrowing against future rental income outside the public sector borrowing requirement

Find out more here:
Spend council rent on building and improving council housing

4. Supporting people to access high skilled, high paid jobs in their local area

The current situation

Worklessness and low skills are two of the greatest challenges facing local economies – 30 per cent of the economically inactive have no qualifications – so the issues of worklessness and skills cannot be treated in isolation. At present, workless people and employers have to negotiate two systems – one to help people into employment, one to help them to develop their skills. These two systems have hitherto worked against each other- for example unemployed people are actively restricted from re-training by the 16 hour rule.

Our ambition is that more people should be able to secure high-skilled, high paid sustainable jobs in their local economy and that we minimise the impact of the recession to ensure that people do not become long-term unemployed. To meet this ambition, people need to be equipped with the skills and attitudes that make them attractive to local employers. We need to unlock talent by providing people with the support they need – not just employment support and training, but across local public services.

What we would like to change

The Government has acknowledged that the services for worklessness and skills need to integrate. We believe these services come together naturally at a local level and would like the Government to make the following changes:

• A consolidated and ambitious list of measures where the system could be flexed to meet local need, subject to agreement about how to meet the costs.
• An extension of pilots of the sub-regional approach in sub-regions and local partnerships of all kinds not just the core cities
• A joint approach to letting contracts to providers with the full involvement of the sub-regional partnerships
• Extension of the City Strategy approach so that any local authority in receipt of working neighbourhoods funds and seeking to make an impact on worklessness can make use of the flexibilities available to the city strategy pathfinders
• The new skills funding agency should have a limited mandate as a funding body with powers to address failing providers.
• Strategic decisions about how to shape provision and respond to the labour market should be taken by sub-regional and local partnerships
• Councils should play a leading role in the decision making and funding for the new adults’ career service that the Government is committed to developing to ensure that it is fully co-ordinated with local advice services meeting local needs.

Find out more here:

From recession to recovery II: a focus on unemployment 
The integration gap: developing a devolved welfare and skills system
Welfare reform - the case for devolution