Insights

Local Partnerships has launched its impact report for 2020-21. The impact report outlines and celebrates the successes Local Partnerships helped public sector organisations achieve in the last year in areas such as responding to the climate emergency, waste and the circular economy, infrastructure, building retrofit, energy, housing and regeneration, commercialisation, and more. Chief Executive of […]

Is your council making the most of its relationships with Housing Associations? Councils can face several housing delivery challenges including project viability, stalled allocated sites, unmet supported housing needs or funding modular homes. Bespoke council partnerships with Housing Associations can be an important part of the solution. Housing Delivery Partnerships The partnership between Calderdale Council […]

Tuesday 13 July, 11am-12pm Join us on Tuesday 13 July for a webinar covering the updates and enhancements to the Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool. The Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool is free to use, launched in 2020 in conjunction with the LGA and reviewed and approved by the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). The tool […]

The Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) third independent assessment on UK Climate Risk was published on 16 June 2021 and it makes alarming reading. The headline finding is that the UK is less well prepared for climate change than it was when the last independent report was published in 2017. Of particular concern were risks […]

Join us on Tuesday 13 July for a webinar covering the updates and enhancements to the Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool. The Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool is free to use, launched in 2020 in conjunction with the LGA and reviewed and approved by the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). The tool has proved popular, with […]

On Tuesday 4 May the LGA hosted a Domestic retrofit webinar with Local Partnerships. The session was chaired by Maxine Narburgh from the Greater South East Energy hub. Kate Duffy, Senior Policy Advisor LAD from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) opened the session by discussing the Local Authority Delivery (LAD) scheme, […]

Today, the Public Accounts Committee published its report on “Managing the expiry of PFI contracts“. The Committee investigated the concerns of the National Audit Office that there are over 700 operational PFI contracts, of which over 200 are due to reach contract expiry by 2030. In his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, Local Partnerships’ […]

Phase two of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme was announced on 17 March, with applications opening on 7 April 2021. The fund will close when sufficient high-quality applicants have been submitted, so you need to act now to secure funding. £75 million grant funding is available for financial year 2021-22 to support public sector organisations in tackling heat decarbonisation of […]

It was announced this week that a new UK Infrastructure Bank will be established later this year in Leeds. The Bank will be a long-lasting institution with a high degree of operational independence. From its inception, its core objectives will be to: Whilst the Bank will be supporting both private and public investment in major infrastructure, local authorities […]

Following the success of last year’s launch, Local Partnerships is proud to sponsor the Leadership in Responding to the Climate Emergency category at The MJ Awards 2021 as part of our work to support local and combined authorities take practical steps to face the huge challenge of tackling the climate crisis. The climate emergency affects […]

How can local government best utilise digital channels for climate change to communicate with residents about the climate crisis?  Recent work carried out by Local Partnerships explored how social media interaction can actively engage communities to encourage individual and collective sustainable behaviours. In a recent example carried out in partnership with a local authority, in order to record and understand existing behaviour changes made […]

The Retrofit of buildings, to make them more energy efficient and greener, is key to hitting net-zero targets.  The government is providing support through a £9bn package for energy efficiency measures. So far, one third of this package has been announced. £2bn has been allocated to domestic retrofit and £1bn was announced for non-domestic public […]

To understand the opportunities and barriers to Scope 3 reporting for local authorities with outsource social care provision, Local Partnerships are working with a group of local authority care commissioners and practitioners. This will take the form of workshop discussions with service commissioners and care providers to inform the development of sector guidance, which will […]

Retrofit of buildings to make them more energy efficient and greener is key to hitting decarbonisation net-zero targets. The government is providing support through a £9bn package for energy efficiency measures. So far, one third of this package has been announced. £2bn has been allocated to domestic retrofit and £1bn was announced for non-domestic public […]

Local authorities need to plan for the inevitable consequences of a changing climate. Of those that responded to the survey, 88% indicated they are working on a strategy or action plan in relation to adaptation to climate change. Adaptation is a process of on-going adjustments in response to climate and non-climate drivers. As such adaptation […]

With the need to sequester carbon and increase biodiversity, tree planting has risen up the agenda for lots of local authorities with many starting to publish ambitious tree strategies setting out the need to plant trees, and establishing targets. Not all local authorities have the land required to plant the trees identified in their strategies. […]