Manchester City Council has trained precisely one zero councillors since November 2014 in carbon literacy.
MCFly submitted a FoIA asking for “A monthly break down of how many council members have been trained, from the first one successfully trained, up until 6th February 2017”
May 2013 6
June 2014 3
August 2014 2
September 2014 7
October 2014 1
January 2015 7
And to train those officers (see yesterdays post) and these councillors? Some outfit got paid thirteen grand.
So we asked “is there a threshold at which the council conducts a value for money appraisal of its spending. Thirteen thousand pounds may not seem like a lot, but I think it is.”
And we were told
“There is no specific threshold for value for money appraisals, however, the City Council Financial Regulations are followed in relation to procurement and commissioning.”
manchester climate monthly 
FWIW Misc. annotation … from the warming Canadian prairies in today’s Edmonton Journal:
Opinion: It’s good business for cities to prepare for climate change
http://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-its-good-business-for-cities-to-prepare-for-climate-change
April 6, 2017 6:00 AM MDT
excerpt: ‘If the operation of a city was a business — and there are many similarities — then planning for climate change is a basic senior-management responsibility. Dealing with climate change impacts like extreme weather events is going to require collective effort, and will mean we have to make changes to the way we live and do business to be better prepared for climate risks.’
Dr. Hank Venema is director of planning for the Prairie Climate Centre, a joint initiative of the University of Winnipeg and the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
excerpt: ‘So how can Canadian cities show that they’re committed to building resilience? With support from Calgary and Edmonton, I’ve been exploring this question with colleagues at the Prairie Climate Centre and we’ve released our recommendations in a new research series, Building a Climate-Resilient City.
The nine papers we prepared cover a range of topics, including transportation, electricity infrastructure, agriculture and disaster preparedness. Our reports highlight many exciting, proven examples of actions that cities are taking, like smart grids that contribute to a resilient electrical system, low-impact design standards improving how water runoff is managed, or green space being used to provide services like flood prevention.’
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Not sure why I do this… could there be a genetic bias to sardonic observations?