Agenda item

(Paper to follow).

2.1       With reference to paragraph 5 of the Scottish Borders Council Minute of 29 August 2020, there had been circulated copies of a briefing note explaining the background to the Sustainable Development Committee (SDC).  Councillor Aitchison explained that the purpose of the paper was to simply set out ‘how we got here’ and very broadly some of those priority areas the Council needed to work on. The paper referred to the commitment made by Council, on 29 August 2020, to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals as they related to local government, as follows:

1.       An overarching ethos bringing clarity, consistency and coherence to the Council’s approach across the full range of its activities.

2.    Taking a leadership role in relation to sustainable development enabling the Council to maintain and build value organisationally through the efficient and sustainable use of resources, to develop public value in its relationship to citizens and communities, and to manage reputational risk.

Council agreed to establish the SDC to drive and monitor the implementation of the above goals. As part of this process, the Committee would review recent decisions and actions of the UK and Scottish Governments, UK local authorities and Borders wide voluntary sector initiatives, with a view to making recommendations as to how the Council could exercise leadership in tackling climate change.  The Committee would report to Council annually on progress.  Council had also agreed that, to support implementation of sustainable development, the previous Sustainable Procurement Policy Group  would be renamed the ‘Sustainable Development Group’ (SDG) and its role extended to ensure that appropriate practice was adopted and followed in how the Council undertook the full range of its activities.  Comprising both Executive Directors, the Director for Assets and Infrastructure, and key officers from across Council services, the SDG had met twice to agree the details of its remit and membership, and to consider priority areas of Council activity and methodologies for assessment of sustainability and carbon appraisal. The SDG had recently co-ordinated Council responses to 3 recent Scottish Government consultations.  For information, copies of the responses were included with the agenda papers. Chair of the SDG, Ian Aikman, explained that in representing the operational and Corporate side of the Council, the Group would support the Committee and take forward ideas and provide a practical perspective.

2.2       Councillor Aitchison highlighted two interrelated early pieces of work highlighted in the briefing, namely Performance Indicators and Priorities.  A presentation later in the Committee agenda considered the urgency of climate action by governments, other public bodies (including the Council) and of society as a whole.  Other priority areas identified by officers included – energy, transport and biodiversity.  Clearly, there was considerable overlap between these. It was noted that the Council had been investing in energy saving projects for a number of years, and this programme would continue producing carbon savings and cost savings. A key step in ensuring that the Council delivered improved sustainable development performance was ensuring that we could measure progress.  Some appropriate indicators already existed but it was clear that there were gaps.  A vital task of the SDG would be to develop a suite of performance indicators, which could support improvement.  Some potential measures, such as energy savings, and street cleanliness were already reported. Consideration would need to be given to which indicators should be reported where, as well as to the refinement of existing indicators and the development of new indicators. It was expected that updates on performance reporting activity would be available at the next meeting of the Committee.  There followed a brief discussion about the introductory paper, with Members commenting on some effective measures already taken by  the Council to save energy and reduce waste in particular.  Members also made reference to very difficult decisions and perhaps unpalatable decisions that would need to be made in the future.

DECISION

NOTED