Beyond “bins and potholes”: How could a new statutory duty shape council climate action?

Though local governments have the potential to influence a third of greenhouse gas emissions in their areas, at present Local Authorities (LAs) in England have no statutory obligation to do so. The new Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill passing through UK Parliament is hoping to change this. It would require public bodies in England and Wales to contribute to the Environment Act 2021 and the Climate Change Act 2008. But what do council climate officers think of the potential for new statutory responsibilities over climate? And how can policymakers ensure any new responsibilities are fairly designed given existing pressures faced by councils?

The majority of councils have set net zero emissions targets of some kind, with many aiming for 2030. However, there are persistent questions about their realism given the well-documented financial stress many local governments face. The wave of emissions target-setting from around 2019 onwards is notable for being voluntary. The last time councils faced a statutory mechanism in this area was from 2008-2010 as part of the National Indicators Framework. Councils were required to report progress against several metrics, including the following three around climate: operational CO₂ emission reductions, per capita reductions in CO₂ emissions in the LA area, and planning for climate change adaptation.

Those councils which hung onto their climate teams from the National Indicator days are seen as having had a head start in today’s landscape of local climate action. Similarly, Scotland and Wales have longstanding public sector climate commitments. Given the greater population, land area and number of LAs in England, its lack of such a statutory mechanism is all the more remarkable.

For my doctoral research I spoke to 33 interviewees with experience in subnational climate action about how and why capabilities to decarbonise vary across the UK’s regions and countries, and their perspectives on a local statutory responsibility. The consensus was that a statutory responsibility could improve the effectiveness and fairness of local climate action, with several conditions.

The new duty could better define and therefore legitimise the role of local government in delivering climate action. In turn this would help councils to justify and ringfence budgets for council climate teams. By establishing a baseline for action, the duty would level the playing field, ensuring a minimum viable level of decarbonisation by every authority, whilst allowing ambitious councils to go further.

Many council climate officers thought that national government was either uninterested or unaware of what they had been doing. Some officers considered that they were pigeonholed by both central government and the public to collecting bins and fixing potholes. Indeed, the Local Government Association has called for a new “equal, respectful partnership between local and national government”. The new bill is perhaps an opportunity for such a reset, provided the duty is designed in collaboration with councils and recognises their considerable work in this area to date.

The interviews suggested there were multiple (interrelated) conditions for designing a statutory duty, including:

1. defining it effectively;
2. ensuring it was well-funded;
3. minimising the additional administrative burden to LAs; and
4. making it proportional to LA powers over their area-based emissions.

Firstly, though the idea of a local duty is thrown around a lot, it’s often unclear what this means in practice. The bill text refers to LAs and other public bodies needing to “contribute to delivery of targets”. How would an appropriate contribution be defined and measured? Any statutory obligation is likely to entail some reporting of progress, but would LAs have to report on their actual emissions reductions or what actions they had taken? Ensuring that the expectation is clearly defined and communicated to LAs would be critical.

Perspectives on what the role of LAs could or should be are often dependent on whether you’re asking local or national actors. Our work in EDRC in developing a method for downscaling national energy demand scenarios to the local scale has raised this question around local roles and responsibilities. But there is no clear answer to this contentious question without more definitive national policy guidance.

Perhaps the most commonly cited condition was around funding. Scotland’s public sector emissions reporting duty provides a good model here, with arms-length bodies funded by Scottish government responsible for coordinating emissions reporting and providing support.  This model could also help reduce the administrative burden that many council officers foresaw in a new duty.

Some interviewees critiqued the idea that councils should have responsibility over all the emissions occurring in their administrative boundaries. For instance, when large industrial emitters are present, how is the LA expected to decarbonise them without the appropriate powers? The definition of the responsibilities LAs have should be realistically aligned with the extent of their powers. The uncertain role of LAs in industrial decarbonisation is foregrounded by the case of Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plans, which are being reviewed as part of research within EDRC’s Place theme.

As we head towards 2030, a very common target date, we’re reaching a crunch point for many authorities. A statutory responsibility could provide an umbrella framework for an honest conversation about realistic LA emissions targets, ensuring that they are as science-based as possible rather than politically-motivated. Coupled with the English Devolution Bill, the new targets bill could introduce a degree of coordination across local climate action and provide a window of opportunity to rebuild trust between levels of government. The insights from council climate officers point together point towards a checklist of caveats that any future bill should consider, to ensure that any new local statutory responsibility is both effective and equitable.

This blog is based on doctoral research funded by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Programme scholarship. The original articles are available below:

• “How could it be our responsibility?”: The equity of Local Authority climate action in England
• Climate ambition and respective capabilities: are England’s local emissions targets spatially just?