Councillors criticise climate consultation plan for borough

NEW PLANS to consult residents on the climate emergency response have been criticised by opposition councillors.

Last week, the borough council’s executive approved plans to launch a community deliberative process.

At a meeting on Thursday, October 28, the councillors agreed to actively start talking to residents about climate change in the new year.

The plan is to bring residents and community groups together to share their thoughts on the best ways to tackle the climate emergency locally.

The process will end in September and will consist of peer groups and e-panels.

But this method has been criticised by both Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors over concerns the consultation will not be meaningful.

Cllr Rachel Burgess, leader of the Labour group, said her party has been campaigning for a Citizens’ Assembly on the Climate Emergency in order to take politicians out of the process.

She said the community deliberative process has been “dressed up to look novel” but is a more complicated version of a normal borough council consultation.

She is concerned that the peer groups and e-panels will not allow the participants to develop genuine expertise on the climate emergency.

“The participants will have no chance to meaningfully interact with experts, apart from watching a video,” she said. “In effect we are asking them to watch a local version of Blue Planet, go home, look at Google, and then come back and have a discussion with others who may be equally poorly prepared.

“With only one learning session and one discussion session, these groups will not be able to assimilate the knowledge required to make a meaningful contribution to the plan.”

Cllr Sarah Kerr, Liberal Democrat lead for climate, said deliberative process requires a wide range of information sources presented as evidence.

“There is no opportunity anywhere in the process for residents to question and challenge those sources of information as it’s all prerecorded,” she said. “The borough council is missing a trick by not allowing for that direct engagement between participants and the experts.

“An expert would be able to advise on what is and isn’t achievable within the context of local government, but without experts in the room, this isn’t possible.”

Cllr Burgess added: “Residents must be able to develop their expertise through a two-way exchange, over multiple sessions. They need experts on hand while they deliberate.”

Both councillors were concerned about how residents will be selected for the process.

Cllr Burgess said it must be a demographically representative selection of residents. And Cllr Kerr said she is concerned the selection will not be random.

“Random selection, usually through some form of lottery, ensures that there is a genuine cross section of society represented, rather than strategically selected people, as I fear this could be,” she said.

Cllr Kerr said residents involved should be rewarded for their time and contributions.

“Participants are usually rewarded for their contribution in deliberative processes due to the commitment involved, but the borough council said it is unlikely to do this, relying on volunteers,” Cllr Kerr said. “Successful deliberative processes make a small financial reward to participants which ensures participation and engagement. The council’s decision could limit the pool of participation further.”

Questions have also been raised about how the council will handle the recommendations. Cllr Kerr said she fears it may be “tokenistic”.

“The commitment from the council is that officers will ‘explore’ the recommendations,” said Cllr Kerr. “This is not much of a commitment.

“If the process was truly deliberative, then the council should be committing to more than just exploring the recommendations.”

Cllr Burgess added: “The Conservatives will have a veto on anything that challenges their current plan. The same councillors have already voted twice for a plan that does not add up, contains many errors, and which I suspect most of them haven’t read.

“In October, officers claimed there were no risks of failure in the current plan. The very next day we read that the whole plan may be reviewed due to shortages of cash.

“[Residents] need a council that will commit to implementing the recommendations, not water them down. Only a Citizens’ Assembly on the Climate Emergency will deliver a credible process and a credible plan that can be supported by residents.”

She added: “Last year, the Liberal Democrats supported Labour’s motion to have a Citizens’ Assembly. The Conservatives rejected it out of hand. If the council had adopted Labour’s suggestion we could now be acting on a credible new plan, instead of just going through the motions.”

Cllr Laura Blumenthal, deputy executive member for equalities, poverty, the arts and climate emergency, said the council is doing “all it can”.

“Getting views and ideas from across the borough is a key step in ensuring we understand what matters to the wider community and how we can support businesses, groups and individuals in their own journeys towards lowering carbon emissions,” she said.

“This will enable us to forge ahead with this phase of the Climate Emergency Action Plan.”

The peer groups will include young people, teachers, businesses, councillors, and those in the voluntary sector, who will make recommendations.

Cllr Kerr said she would rather councillors were not involved in the deliberative process.

She said: “The council set up a councillor cross-party working group to steer the direction of the climate emergency action plan.”

But Cllr Kerr said this was disbanded after concerns were raised about its effectiveness at altering the climate action plan.

“It would make more sense to have this group re-instated and working effectively, and the deliberative process to focus on the community,” Cllr Kerr said. “How many more residents could we be engaging with if we removed the councillor peer group, because councillors were inputting through other channels?”

After the peer group recommendations, e-panels will open the conversation up wider, allowing residents to comment on the recommendations and grade them based on how effective they believe they will be in meeting the borough’s carbon and climate goals.

“E-panels appear to ask for views without consideration,” Cllr Kerr said.

This, she said, is not part of a normal deliberative process.

She was also concerned it relies on internet access, and would exclude some residents.