Manchester City Council’s new Chief Executive, Joanne Roney, has not done her carbon literacy training (as reported yesterday).  Neither has she been given anything more than a verbal briefing on the status of the City Council’s climate change action plan since taking over from Howard Bernstein  six months ago.

So, taking action to reduce the Council’s carbon emissions (as distinct from relying on the National Grid’s de-carbonisation and the flogging off of Council buildings) seems not to be high on the list of priorities of the new team (1).  Quelle surpise.

And will the elected members insist that the CEO takes the training and gets regular written reports on how the Council is progressing?  Therein lies a problem; 95 of the 96 are Labour, and unlikely to rock the boat they want to stay within, even if they knew enough or cared enough.  And if you think there are many Corbynistas among that 95, you’ve not been paying attention…

And if you think  Manchester’s official environment groups will raise a fuss?  You’ve not been paying attention.  The biggest outfit is not a watch-dog, but a lapdog….

Footnotes
(1) How do we know this?  Well, we FoIAed, and asked for

Any WRITTEN briefing/documentation supplied to the new CEO about the status of Manchester City Council’s climate change action plant. You answered in the last FOIA that “A verbal briefing has been provided by Richard Elliott, Head of Policy, Partnerships and Research.” Surely this has been followed up with a written briefing, no?

This was the reply –

“Whilst no specific briefing has been provided for the CEO, please see the attached MCC Climate Change Action Plan report which was submitted to Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee which has been seen by Joanne Roney and is in the public domain.”