A group of six councillors is aiming to look at how Manchester City Council can work better on “sustainability issues.”  Once its terms of reference are agreed (at an Economy Scrutiny Committee meeting today), the “Environmental Sustainability Subgroup” will hold three public meetings – in August, October and November – before convening to agree its final report.

The group is forming in response to unfinished business from several well-attended and positive meetings of the Economy Scrutiny Committee (ESC). This committee, one of the six scrutiny committees, mainly looks at employment, education and skills.  Given the lengthy list of reports the ESC already had on its “forward plan”, the proposal at the May 2013 meeting to establish a sub-group (made initially by Liberal Democrat Victor Chamberlain) was warmly welcomed.

The group will be made up of (at least) Councillors Kate Chappell, Suzanne Richards, Carl Ollerhead, Andrew Simcock, Angeliki Stoggia [all Labour] and Victor Chamberlain.  They plan to “liaise with relevant groups of councillors, council officers and external stakeholders working on sustainability issues to share knowledge and best practice and avoid duplication.”

Subject to agreement today, the group’s objectives will be

1. To monitor the outcomes from the meetings held by the Economy Scrutiny Committee on the impact that Manchester’s economy has on the environment. To ensure that the recommendations made by the Committee are being progressed.
2. To investigate best practice and successes in the city, to determine what has worked and how to spread this knowledge and learning.
3. To investigate the Council’s approach to supporting the development of an environmentally sustainable economy.
4. To ensure that the recommendations from the Subgroup do not involve expenditure from the Council greater than the cost of time spent by staff in existing posts.

Its key lines of enquiry will be

– to review the recommendations and examine progress from the May 2013 meeting of the Economy Scrutiny Committee, which investigated Manchester’s economy in the context of minimising the impact on the environment.
– To liaise with relevant groups of councillors, council officers and external stakeholders working on sustainability issues to share knowledge and best practice and avoid duplication.
– To consider best practice and successes for the city to date, and the opportunities for spreading this knowledge.
– To examine how the impact on environmental sustainability can become an integral part of decision making in the Council.
– To work with officers to determine the feasibility of creating a real time dashboard measuring environmental impacts, similar to the one measuring economic impacts.
– To consider how Manchester can grow its base of sustainability focussed small and medium enterprises.
– To examine how the Council can help to bring about economic benefits and advantages to Manchester’s residents through environmental sustainability.

Meetings of the group “will be open to members of the media [I think they mean MCFly!] and public except where information which is confidential or exempt from publication is being considered.”

Basically, this is potentially the re-opening of constructive dialogue with the City Council that sputtered out with the unnecessary killing off of the Environmental Advisory Panel and the grotesque farce that is the Annual “Stakeholder” Conference.

Watch this space!

Marc Hudson
mcmonthly@gmail.com