Climate and Community Action Working Group (CCAWG)

Dr Mark Earthey, (Independent Councillor for Rottingdean & West Saltdean)

We welcome the appointment of Cllr Tim Rowkins as Cabinet Member for Net Zero and support his statements calling for a ‘paradigm shift’ in the way we think about issues such as consumption, growth, wealth and progress and the need for an effective partnership between the Council and Community if meaningful progress towards ‘Net Zero’ is to be achieved.

We welcome the imminent appointment of a Head of Net Zero (HNZ) and in particular their role in “developing strategic and commercial partnerships, leading on joint ventures to protect the environment and increase the city’s climate resilience.”

We recognise that progress towards Net Zero under the banner of the ‘Carbon Neutral 2030’ programme has been very disappointing and that vital lessons are to be learned if we are to avoid repeating past mistakes that might further obstruct progress.

We regret the imminent redundancy of the Sustainability Team at BHCC and the subsequent reduction of capacity to deliver carbon neutral programmes in the city.

We regret the unilateral abolition of the CCAWG process without consultation with community stakeholders.

Considerable wealth of knowledge and expertise exists in the City within the sustainability, energy, circular economy, and transport sectors. So far, however, the appropriate architecture or infrastructure has not been developed to properly utilise and employ this expertise. We also recognise the growing risk of backlash against policies and programmes that require lifestyle change on behalf of citizens if they are not properly consulted on and involved in decisions which necessitate these changes. Indeed, in some of the city’s wards, the backlash has already started.

Until recently, community engagement on climate action was almost non-existent. The creation of the Climate and Community Action Working Group architecture therefore represented welcome progress. However it has become clear that a similar paradigm shift in thinking about ‘community engagement’ needs to take place if we are not to replicate flawed top-down processes which do not serve to properly empower community stakeholders but instead sees them as mere amplifiers of Council priorities and agendas. A ‘proper and meaningful’ approach to engagement must see community-stakeholders as co-producers of policy and programme delivery and as ‘critical friends’ to whom the Council can turn at an early stage to submit policy and programmes to robust, constructive scrutiny.

This new paradigm in community engagement should include the community offering its expertise:

1. Directly to the Cabinet member for Net Zero, and any other Cabinet member where sustainability, energy, the circular economy, and transport forms part of their portfolio, and
2. Directly to the two Scrutiny Committee overseeing the work of the above Cabinet member.

In both (a) and (b), community provision of expertise could involve direct secondment of stakeholders members to the Cabinets and/or Scrutiny Committees, their sub-groups, and working-parties on an as-needed basis, and/or through the submission of expert testimony. Community stakeholders are prepared to be very flexible, and offers their expertise for consumption by the Cabinet member and Scrutiny Committees in whatever format their protocols dictate. The important point is that community expertise is used, and seen to be used, to ensure community engagement. The consequences of community dis-engagement would be catastrophic, and there are signs that this is already happening.

The disbanding of CCAWG, recent political changes at a national level, combined with the appointment of the new HNZ, gives us a much-needed ‘reset opportunity’ to critically reappraise, redesign and relaunch the community engagement architecture.

We therefore restate our commitment to review the governance of the climate engagement architecture and methodology in B&H so that it may be properly ‘fit for purpose’. Such a review must be inclusive, thorough, robust and should not be led solely or decided upon by those who have previously controlled CCAWG. If the review is to be credible, it must be facilitated by an independent authority, such as an academic from one of the local universities. All local stakeholders from within civil society must be given full opportunity to participate in the review but the precise delivery thereof can be a matter of further discussion. For the sake of public transparency, the review should also be added to the two new Scrutiny Committees’ oversight portfolios.

Upon completion of the review, the revised architecture will be submitted to the next meeting with senior Councillors and the incoming HNZ and, once approved, launched to the community at a public event co-produced by senior Councillors, the incoming Head of Net Zero and leading community stakeholders.