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Our webinar highlighted the importance of effective and sustainable procurement in local government with presentations from Cllr Clyde Loakes (Deputy Leader, London Borough of Waltham Forest / LGA Improvement and Innovation Climate Working Group), Krista Middleton (Oxford City Council), and Kelly Greer and Steph Hacker (The Association for Decentralised Energy).
Setting the scene for sustainable procurement
Cllr Clyde Loakes – Deputy Leader and Climate and Air Quality, London Borough of Waltham Forest and Member of the LGA’s Improvement and Innovation Climate Working Group
Cllr Loakes opened the event by setting the current economic and political scene. Councils continue to bear the impact of budget and resourcing reductions and have been further stretched during the COVID-19 pandemic. Councils also have a key role in mitigating climate change. The decarbonisation agenda continues to pick up pace following the COP26 United Nations Climate Change conference and just before COP27, with councils declaring climate change emergencies. Progress is beginning to be made with strategies being taken into local delivery plans.
The importance of effective and sustainable procurement, underpinned by commissioning, has never been greater for local government.
The pressure to find greater efficiencies and reduce consumption, while striving to improve productivity and do all of this sustainably, is driving councils to look for different ways to deliver better outcomes for local people.
Councils are also having to deal with inflationary pressures – especially in the energy markets with soaring energy bills and supply chain issues with long lead-in times for delivery while being tasked to support the government’s levelling up agenda with local economic growth.
The webinar introduced our National Energy Category Strategy for Local Government 2022 – energising procurement – which has been updated to help councils optimise the way they procure and manage energy in today’s markets, focusing on the wide range of economic, environmental and social opportunities available to them. This is particularly pertinent with the current energy price crisis and councils’ efforts to minimise costs, generate income and maximise the benefits for their local communities through their energy procurement actions.
We also heard about successful green procurement projects, including Oxford City Council’s unique dynamic purchasing system (DPS) tailored for the fast-paced, innovative and ever-growing world of electric vehicle infrastructure.
And lastly, we heard from Dr Josh Pritchard, Deputy Director, Policy Unit at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) who leads on procurement and who gave us a perspective from the private sector on how they are working with councils to mutually get the best socio-economic and environmental outcomes from the contracts you let.
National Energy Category Strategy for Local Government 2022 – energising procurement
Kelly Greer (Head of Research) and Steph Hacker (Senior Researcher) at The Association for Decentralised Energy
Kelly and Steph are members of the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE) research team. Kelly worked on the original strategy in 2017, and Kelly and Steph have worked on the updated version.
Setting the scene
- UK councils collectively spend more than £680 million on energy every year.
- with resources tightening, energy security rising ever higher on the political agenda and councils being required to play a key role in tackling climate change, it is important to remember that energy is one of the largest controllable overheads in many council buildings and estates.
- We saw some relief from the announcements in Parliament from the last few weeks – a six-month freeze on energy prices for the public sector – but we still need more information. It is certainly not a time to relax and we need to look for the broader opportunities outlined in this strategy for councils to make savings and actively generate income through onsite generation and flexibility markets.
- The new strategy had new themes which were selected based on what councils are expected to consider as they go through the procurement process.
- The current economic and geopolitical context that councils and the UK find ourselves in is putting increased pressure on council resources. Energy security is high on the political agenda and councils are being asked to play a key role in tackling climate change.
- The intention was to frame the recommendations and case studies in the strategy with this in mind reflect the real issues that councils are facing and be realistic and applicable to council situations.
It is important to note that ADE considered the potential removal of the energy supply chapter in the strategy, given that it’s a very volatile market to be an energy supplier at present and we have seen the collapse of several council-owned energy supply organisations in recent times. However, the team stressed that councils shouldn’t discount the role that they can play with heat networks, which can support affordable heat for residents.
Also, a note on the structure – the ADE included key actions under each section of the report in addition to numerous case studies which formed the focus of this presentation.
Further information
- Stephanie Hacker at [email protected]
- Kelly Greer at [email protected]
Tools to enable better electric vehicle infrastructure delivery
Krista Middleton, Innovation Project Officer for the Sustainability Cities Team, Oxford City Council
Setting the scene
From August 2021 to August 2022 there has been a 34 per cent increase in the number of charging devices across the UK. The electric vehicle (EV) market is rapidly and continually changing and growing. A full local electric vehicle infrastructure scheme (LEVI) grant (£450 million) is anticipated to launch in February 2023.
Oxford City Council was one of the eight original Go Ultra Low Cities promoting electric vehicles, tackling air quality, and reducing carbon emissions. The council has a dedicated innovation team focusing on EV implementation. They installed their first chargepoint in 2017 and have installed over 80 chargepoints (including slow, fast, rapid on and off-street) to date. They also opened Europe’s most powerful EV charging hub, Energy Superhub Oxford in July 2022.
Further information
If you would like to learn more about this work, the following further information from Oxford City Council may be helpful:
