Manchester City Council will NOT produce monthly eco-dashboards, despite a two year-old commitment.  This is just the latest in a very long list of broken promises by the Council, which once upon a time said it would be the “Greenest City in the UK”.

In August 2014 Council Leader Richard Leese told elected councillors that a monthly eco-dashboard already existed. (See from 1 min forty in the following video)

That was not true, and a month later a statement was read out to the committee to that effect. In September 2014 Manchester Climate Monthly was told

“A monthly environmental dashboard does not exist at the current time, but work is underway to develop this as part of the work described above on the Manchester Strategy.”

So, almost two years later, MCFly sent in the following Freedom of Information Act request

Since September 2014, what work has been undertaken to create a monthly environmental dashboard, by whom?
Is a monthly environmental dashboard going to happen?  If so, when will the first one appear?
If not, what reasons does the council have for not doing such a basic thing?

And what came back was the usual gibberish and bullshit that evaded straightforward questions and told half-truths.  You can read it in full –

Performance management arrangements within the Manchester Partnership were reviewed as part of the development of the Manchester Strategy. Progress towards the vision for the strategy will be monitored through the Council's State of the City Reports. These reports include a range of data sets both directly relating to environmental matters (e.g. air quality) and indirectly relating to the environment (e.g. commuting habits.) You can access a copy of the latest State of the City Report here

A new State of the City Report will be produced in September 2016 and this will conclude performance management towards the Community Strategy which expired in 2015, and establish a baseline for the city against which future performance will be compared. Following this a further State of the City report will be produced in spring 2017 which will begin to show progress from the baseline established in the previous report to the vision for the city for 2025 set out in the Manchester Strategy.

The 2017 report will include a revised range of indicators that align with the ambitions referred to in the Strategy. Some of the key indicators that will be monitored are listed towards the back of the Manchester Strategy (page 62 onwards), a full list of measures is being discussed with our partners in delivering the Strategy. This performance framework will be produced annually and submitted to the Our Manchester Forum (previously the Manchester Leaders Forum) and published on the Council and Manchester Partnership websites. In taking the decision to produce the report annually various matters were taken into account, including the frequency of publication of key data sets. Many of the key data sets showing progress towards the city’s vision are available annually, for example UK local authority and regional carbon dioxide emissions and annual mean nitrogen dioxide concentrations.

Analysis (ok, ‘rant’): Right now there is probably a great amount of hand-wringing and Leaver-bashing going on in the Town Hall. But by its condescending behaviour, its anti-democratic actions and its outright lies, Manchester City Council has contributed the mood of anger and disgust with the political establishment that has lead to this (misguided in my opinion) protest vote. The City Council basically laughs at anyone who expects it to keep its promises. It totally rejects any responsibility for being a government that looks after the long-term interests of its population. As a post on MCFly will show tomorrow, it adamantly refuses to examine the health impacts of climate change.

The City Council – the culture of both its elected representatives and its dismal officer-class – could serve as the poster-child for the elite behaviour that has led to this horrific mess we are in now.