For the past three years SE2 has helped us deliver our Healthy Homes Initiative. Their understanding of the issues around fuel poverty, ability to communicate clearly to different stakeholders and willingness to go that extra mile has contributed massively to the initiatives success and made them an ideal partner.
Steve Shaffelburg, Inner North West London PCTs
If I was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change…
In this, the General Election week, we've asked some leading lights of our industry to tell us what they'd do if they were Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Today's manifesto is from John Kolm-Murray, National Chair of the Carbon Action Network, the organisation that represents all local energy authorities in England and Wales.
I’d have a long list of things I’d want to sort out but I’ll stick to two.
Firstly, I would be very clear that local authorities are the natural lead agencies for delivering energy efficiency. Successive government obligations on energy companies have only worked as local councils have played significant roles, either by indirect subsidy of officer times and resource or direct subsidy through top-ups and incentives. In Scotland local authorities are allocated funding according to the level of fuel poverty need in their areas, with a further competitive element of funding for those who can and wish to go further. If I was Energy Secretary funding would be allocated to English local authorities or county energy partnerships on the basis of a similar formula.
Secondly, the role of home energy conservation authorities needs to be further enshrined in legislation. I would amend and beef up the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 to make local authorities legally responsible for reducing fuel poverty in their areas according to ambitious government targets. Whether they chose to deliver programmes directly or commission partners would not matter, just that they got the job done, with rewards and penalties as appropriate.
National politicians are increasingly talking about devolution within England and local delivery and I believe our time has come.
What would YOU do if you were in charge of DECC? Tweet us your thoughts to @se2limited or @se2_rachael!