APSE report outlines vital council role in developing the new green economy

The call comes as APSE launched a new report ‘The transition to the green economy: the vital role of the ensuring council’, which shows what local authorities are achieving and highlights ways in which national policy could enable them to do more.

The report shows how the ‘ensuring council’ model developed by APSE – whereby a local authority retains a core capacity to deliver efficient services and aligns this with strategic vision, policy co-ordination, leadership, entrepreneurship and accountability – can underpin the transition to a green economy.

Forty-six case studies in the report, written by Philip Monaghan and Eve Sadler of think-tank Infrangilis, show how every function within a local authority can make a contribution. Leadership in Hackney, spatial planning in Peterborough, transport in Bromsgrove and Redditch, property in Birmingham, waste management in Stirling and green skills training in Blaeneau Gwent are among the many examples given.

APSE’s chief executive, Paul O’Brien, said: ‘Councils are already making an impressive contribution through use of their assets, community leadership, regeneration, planning, procurement, transport, education and management of services on the front-line. It is disappointing that the Government’s recent policy roadmap on the green economy does not make any reference to the role of local government in this important transition.”

Measures which could be taken by central government to help unlock local authorities’ potential discussed in the report include: enabling £143bn pension fund investment in low carbon regeneration projects; requiring the electricity industry to work on district energy planning; and making Feed In Tariffs viable for large-scale social housing schemes”