Agenda item

Questions from Members of the Council Under Standing Order No. 8.

Question from Councillor D. Moore

 

Please can the Portfolio Holder set out the baseline year being used to
measure progress for the Exeter Net Zero Exeter 2030 plan and the

 1.    Net Exeter emissions of carbon dioxide for that year, and

 2.    Net Exeter emissions of each of the other targeted greenhouse
gases for the year that is the base year for that gas.

Can the Portfolio Holder ensure that this baseline and benchmark is
publicised by Exeter City Council and Exeter City Futures alongside the Plan?


 

 

Minutes:

 

(a)        In accordance with Standing Order No. 8, the following questions were put by Councillor D. Moore to the Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Climate and Culture.

 

Please can the Portfolio Holder set out the baseline year being used to
measure progress for the Exeter Net Zero Exeter 2030 plan and the

 1.    Net Exeter emissions of carbon dioxide for that year, and

 2.    Net Exeter emissions of each of the other targeted greenhouse
gases for the year that is the base year for that gas.

Can the Portfolio Holder ensure that this baseline and benchmark is
publicised by Exeter City Council and Exeter City Futures alongside the Plan?

 

The Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder responded that a detailed spreadsheet containing the baseline data and assumptions of the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan could be downloaded from this page (by clicking the 'Net Zero Exeter Detail' button further down the page) https://www.exetercityfutures.com/insights/net-zero-exeter-plan/.

 

The Key Facts 2019 document, could be downloaded here: https://www.exetercityfutures.com/insights/exeter-key-facts-2019/. This was a summary document that collated existing data and statistics about Exeter (as of the end of 2019) and presenting them under the four key themes of the city's 12 Goals (Energy, Mobility, Sustainability and Capability) in order to identify areas Exeter might improve on.

 

The Key Facts 2019 document showed the figures around average CO2 emissions in Exeter from the Devon Climate Emergency Recovery Group (DCERG) report commissioned from the University of Exeter's Centre for Energy and the Environment. Their methodology used to generate this figure was available here: https://www.devonclimateemergency.org.uk/devons-carbon-footprint/. It was important to note that the Council had not carried out its own analysis on the data included in this DCERG report.

 

Having robust data was critical to measuring progress towards the city's Net Zero goals, yet carbon accounting, especially for a whole city, was a difficult task. In this sense, Exeter City Futures was consciously and consistently exploring ways in which this could be achieved on a more detailed level for Exeter.

 

It was confirmed that work was underway with the University of Exeter to establish the City Council’s CO2 base line data, taking 2018 as the baseline for the measurement and that, whilst it was important to establish the scientific data as the basis, the key was to attain the goal of becoming net zero Carbon by 2030.

 

Councillor D. Moore asked a supplementary question on which Body, Board or authority should be tasked to keep account and reporting on the city’s annual Carbon budget?

 

The Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder responded that this information would be obtained through the work being undertaken by Exeter City Futures and the University of Exeter for the City Council, with all proposals to come back through the Council’s democratic processes.

 

(b)        In accordance with Standing Order No. 8, the following question was put by Councillor Hannaford to the Portfolio Holder for Supporting People.

 

Does the Portfolio Holder agree that the Government’s untimely re-imposition of benefit sanctions will cause great stress, anxiety, and financial hardship for many of our most vulnerable residents?Furthermore, does the Portfolio Holder agree that, in the midst of a global pandemic, with all the public health pressures and resultant economic depression, with potentially huge job losses, that this is a massive waste of public servants’ time that could be much better spent on these other matters of greater significance?

 

How do these measures comply with the Government’s stated aim to do nothing that increases child poverty? Can the Portfolio Holder please confirm what scoping work is being done by the Council with other key partners, to mitigate the detrimental effects on the residents, their families, and the Council, in terms of debt, council tax payments and rent arrears if welfare payments and frozen, cut or ceased?

 

The Portfolio Holder replied that her day job and her role as Portfolio Holder involved working with those on benefits many of whom had been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic with many who had been furloughed receiving only 80% of their salary entitlement and with some facing redundancies where business are unable to restart. The Government’s decision was bad timing as we are still in the pandemic and there will also be an impact on child poverty.

 

The Department for Work and Pensions, in dealing with the pandemic, is now moving from response to recovery phase. Normally a claim for Universal Credit (UC) would involve working with a Work Coach, signing up to a claimant commitment to look for work, and keeping a journal of progress. However with 3.2 million new claims being received, those steps were omitted initially as the focus of the response phase was to get those claims into payment as quickly as possible to prevent hardship.

 

Now that volumes of new claims for UC have dropped back to pre-March levels, Work Coaches are returning to their normal role of helping people back into work. Online journals are being created for those still claiming UC and I have been assured that the only reason that sanctions have returned is because they form part of the conditionality for Universal Credit.

 

The Council works closely with colleagues at Job Centre Plus and they have shared that a reasonable approach to conditionality will be followed as no-one can be sanctioned for not applying for jobs that don’t exist.

 

Officers have been working closely with the other Devon Districts, Plymouth and Torbay Unitary Authorities and Devon County Council to monitor collection and debt levels across all areas of debt. No formal recovery action has been taken against households to date, the focus instead being on outbound calling to offer support to those appearing to struggle.

 

The Council has always been able to offer support to those in need through the use of discretionary funds including the local welfare support fund which continues to operate, although funding ceased in 2013. The formation of the Exeter Community Wellbeing Hub strengthened the Council’s ability to tap into a wealth of support within the City, in order to help residents, and this has been further enhanced by the recent creation of the Exeter Wellbeing Support Fund. The City Council previously put in place a One View of Debt approach to help people pay their bills realistically as well as other support mechanisms. The Council is doing everything it can to prevent this situation.

 

Councillor Hannaford welcomed the tolerant ethos and climate within the Council and requested an update report to a future Scrutiny Committee.