#Manchester Steering Group, £100k, promises to overhaul website. Doesn’t.

Posted on May 9, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Last July the the Manchester A Certain Future Steering Group*, which has received cash and seconded staff in excess of £100k from Manchester City Council,  published its annual report.  In that report they promised newsletters (a promise they broke).

They announced that “by early 2016” stakeholders would be told how they could be involved in the creation of the group’s next strategic plan for 2016-20. Of course,  no such announcement was ever made, and there are no real opportunities, except rubber-stamping in May-June.

They also said they’d be overhauling their website.website 2015

“further development and ongoing maintenance of manchesterclimate.com, which has been hosted on the Greater Manchester sustainability website ‘Platform’ since 2013.”

 

That was in July 2015.  And they’d formulated that plan before then, obviously.  And in May 2016, a year later? The chair of the Steering Group tells MCFly;

I fully acknowledge that the website is not as good as it ideally would be. There is an exercise on-going at the moment to substantially overhaul & improve it – including adding more content & improving navigability.

So, what are the point of these promises in the annual reports then?  What do the staff get paid to ACTUALLY DO?  What does the money from Manchester City Council actually get spent on?  Why should anyone take anything the Steering Group says seriously?  Why should the Council continue to throw money down a hole?

All good questions, yes?  Maybe political parties that claim to be the opposition in this city might like to start asking them?

 

  • Just to confuse and demoralise further The Steering Group overlaps with the Manchester A Certain Future Community Interest Company, which was established in September 2015. Its registered address is Manchester Town Hall Extension.  It is changing its name to the Manchester Climate Change Agency [they think they’ve got more chance of European funding with that name-

From the March 2016 minutes – “LL to send email to Directors RE CIC formal name change to ‘Manchester Climate Change Agency’, following agreement to use this as the CIC’s trading name. This will help with funding bids.”

Posted in Democratic deficit, Manchester City Council, Steering Group | Leave a comment

Theatre Review: “Climate of Fear”

Posted on May 8, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Climate change is a toxic subject for theatre. It’s not going to bring in large audiences, star performers or supply a catchy show name to put up in lights. More likely, it will further whiten and age the crowd, sprinkling a few young activists along the back rows. So, it was refreshing to learn that Contact theatre had commissioned ‘Climate of Fear’ to kick off its ‘Flying Solo’ festival. But the interesting premise and spirited performances could not quite help this production fulfil its potential.

Frequent travellers along Oxford Road will be familiar with the H-shaped towers of Contact peering over the university campus. The borderline-carbuncle building programmes an innovative range of shows, always with young people at their heart. Flying Solo is a fine example of its vision: an annual festival celebrating what happens when performers go it alone. ‘Climate of Fear’ (see – gloomy titles!) promised to ‘explore the emotion of anger through the themes of climate justice, social inequality, memory and the body’.  So far so intriguing.

Theatre 1 was set out with cabaret-style seating, promising audience interaction and some fourth wall demolition. A speedy social profiling of fellow theatre-goers suggested we were amidst more diverse company. So far so heartening.

On to the show. Tonight’s format was 9 monologues, each delivered by a young person playing a character grappling with a facet of climate change. First, we were introduced to a shopkeeper, hit by a nasty lung disease and (assuming this was the same person) the issues of plastic bags. But subsequent characters lacked this grocer’s charm – and critical examination. The only non-European character (a Colombian cleaner) presented a confusing, aspirational relationship with the West; a young blogger (this was only clear from the programme) notes, supplied a troublingly unproblematic notion of identity (‘there are three mes….. then there is the real me’). A tortured Monsanto worker did at least grapple with the corporate mask she was forced to don, but this interrogation could have dug so much deeper. Monologues delivered in couplets jarred and those delivered in song…sank.

These reservations should not detract from the feisty efforts of the young actors, who according to the programme notes had not previously engaged with issues of climate change or monologue. Laudable, without doubt. The creative process sounds interesting too: a period of immersion, climate-theatre camp. But where was the direction? A firmer steering hand would have lent these 60-minutes greater coherence and a more choreographed ensemble piece (rather than the group bow) would have surely made the message pack more punch. Flying solo is all very well, but you need a strong launch pad, and some wings…. Zena Edwards’s previous work, and blog musings, look so good – and her future shows will surely be worth a look – but maybe the ambitious hands-off approach did not match the material on this occasion?

Contact now turns its attention to a refurb, and relaunch. Let’s hope that the first listings in the revamped building include more work that confronts climate change, head-on. This evening proved there is a real gap in the market for a proper examination on the stage. But tonight was not it. The audience, aside from those cheering on their performer-friends, left underwhelmed.

Though this reviewer did receive a pack of radish seeds.

Reviewer: Chloe J.

Posted in Event reports, Film Review | Leave a comment

Community Energy Project dosh. Deadline 31 May

Posted on May 7, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

See here for more info.

The M&S Energy Community Energy Fund is back for 2016!

We’re pleased to announce that the M&S Energy Community Energy Fund is open for applications with £350,000 to distribute to community groups across the UK this summer.

There’s £12,500 up for grabs in each M&S region across Great Britain to use towards the installation of a renewable technology and generate energy for your community building.

Whether you’re a community energy group, a sports club or simply an organisation that wants to have a positive impact on the environment, we want to hear from you.

What do I need to do to apply?
Online applications are now open and you have until 31st May 2016 to tell us all about your project to be in with a chance to win funding.

A tip to support your application preparation:

  1. Make sure Planning Permission or Permitted Development Rights has been approved prior to application
  2. You will need to submit cost quotes from your installer so have this document ready to upload
FIND OUT MORE
Posted in Energy | Leave a comment

Elections and Climate, Vale 4 Labour Councillors (#Manchester’s loss)

Posted on May 7, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

SHOCK NEWS: Manchester Climate Monthly writes nice things about a) anyone and b) councillors.

The local council elections on Thursday ended Manchester Labour’s complete control.  They now only have 95 of the 96 council seats.  The one odd-person-out is John Leech, who was a Liberal Democrat councillor before he was an MP (Withington 2005-2015).  It will be interesting to see which scrutiny committee(s) he tries to get onto, which he succeeds in getting onto, and what he does both on and off those scrutiny committees.  Manchester City Council’s string of broken promises on the environment (especially climate change) is a very very long one; Leech may be willing and able to force the council to respond,  and get media coverage in a way that MCFly has basically failed to do so.

If, as is widely assumed, the 2018 local elections are an “all out” affair (because Manchester’s population growth over the last 15 years merits an overhaul of ward boundaries), then Labour’s grip might be loosened further. The Lib Dems will fancy getting a few more seats in South Manchester, and the Greens will fancy their chances too.  In the intervening two years though, there is an enormous amount of non-election-focused work to be done. It remains to be seen if the non-Labour political parties are willing or indeed able to do this.

Finally, this; there were a number of Councillors who chose not to contest these elections.

Some of them MCFly didn’t know, but had heard good things about (e.g. Bridie Adams).  Others we’d had interactions (positive, mostly) with.  Four stand out.

Fran Shone, who was a single-term councillor in Northenden showed an interest in environmental matters and a willingness to ask awkward questions and to express discontent with the fob-off answers she was given.  It was an uphill battle in Neighbourhoods Scrutiny, and that has not been solved yet.

Dan Gillard was another single-term councillor, who represented Withington.  From early days Dan expressed an interest in environmental issues, and an all-too-rare willingness to engage constructively beyond the walls of Castle Grayskull.  Dan was, for one year only, chair of Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee (now renamed, on his initiative, the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny Committee).  He is leaving the Council, an intensely hierarchical and doctrinaire organisation for the less trying locale of… the priesthood (I shit you not). Manchester Labour Party can ill-afford to lose people of his intelligence, humour and integrity, nor can the city itself.  Our loss is the Vatican’s gain.

Alistair Cox has been a ward councillor for Moss Side for 16 years.  In the time I’ve known him, he has been diligent, hard-working, generous, interested, and not “up himself”.  He assures me that the new councillor is a good ‘un.  Whatever happens, they are big shoes to fill (as also they were when another long-serving councillor, Roy Waters, stepped down in 2014).  I’ve heard a lot of scurrilous gossip about many councillors (none of it printable).  I’ve never heard a negative word said of Alistair.

Finally, Neil Swannick was a councillor for Bradford ward from 1998.  Neil was also the second Executive Member for the Environment and did an enormous amount to get environmental issues generally – and climate change specifically – onto the Council’s agenda before it became ‘sexy’ in 2008-9.  His “Principles Document” from 2007 makes for depressing reading now (i.e. ‘look how far we haven’t come’).   It is an absolute tragedy that the momentum he built, and the policies he proposed, were not continued after his term finished.  No Executive Member for the Environment since then has come within a thousand miles of his ability;  If and when the history of Manchester City Council and its environmental policy failures is written, there will be a chapter entitled “If only…” with Neil’s name throughout.

MCFly wishes these four councillors all the best for their futures, and thanks them for doing what they did.

Posted in Manchester City Council | Leave a comment

Steering Group promises “opportunities to get involved.” Doesn’t deliver

Posted on May 6, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

The Steering Group, the group that has received roughly £100k from Manchester City Council, has broken a promise to inform stakeholders of how they can be involved in making the next strategic plan.  The promise was made in its 2015 Annual Report (see below) This is bigger, much bigger than promises to produce a newsletter, or update a website (more on that soon).

On page 10 of the 2015 annual report there are paragraphs about the MACF plan.

by early 2016“The process for its publication will be published by early 2016, including opportunities for
stakeholders to get involved.”
Did that get published in early 2016?  Er, no.
And what “opportunities for stakeholders to get involved” are there?
Well, if you like you can rubber-stamp what a bunch of bureaucrats have written behind closed doors.  What do I mean?
See this response on the plan from the chair of the Steering Group, released only after a repeated emails to the chair of the group, and two cced-to-councillors emails.

2016-2020 Plan

  • Since the commitment to develop the 2016-20 plan (in the Annual Report 2015) we have been working with the Town Hall policy-makers and politicians to include ‘zero carbon by 2050’ as a commitment in the Manchester Strategy.

  • We’re currently working on the draft strategy setting out how the 2050 target will be achieved and will be consulting on it publicly during May/June.

  • The 2016-20 plan will now therefore sit in the context of the strategy and will be the first of a series of 5-year ‘implementation plans’.

  • It is intended that the strategy and plan will be ‘published’ at the AGM in July, alongside the Annual Report

So, instead of “opportunities” announced “by early 2016” what we actually get is

“consulting in it publicly during May/June”

That they can’t – or won’t – see the yawning chasm between those two statements tells you everything you need to know about their sense of urgency, and their competence.

The days when the Council would listen to the people outside the charmed circle (i.e. May-September 2009) are long long gone.  They only happened because Richard Leese had committed to going to a big climate meeting of mayors, and he knew that the normal mechanisms of policy-making could not deliver what he needed.  So they latched onto the Call to Real Action process, while it suited them, and then dropped it like a gun as soon as they could.

 

Posted in Steering Group, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Upcoming Event: #Climate Poetry Lab Tues May 17th #Manchester

Posted on May 5, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

climatepoetrylab

More details on facebook.

Call me an old curmudgeon, but I don’t know what is gained by calling everything a “lab” or a “hub” or such nonsense.

Posted in Upcoming Events | 4 Comments

Greens edge Labour in election!!! …

Posted on May 4, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

… survey.  Greens edge Labour in election survey.

final survey.pngSorry, couldn’t help myself.

Manchester Friends of the Earth does an election survey, where they ask candidates for local authority seats across Greater Manchester a series of questions about their positions on climate and energy, air quality etc.  FoE does not get paid to do this, and it’s a lot of work – so, a serious shout out to them.  This is an important job, and they do it well.

And how many candidates from which parties have replied (in Manchester, as opposed to Greater Manchester)

2 Conservatives

8 Lib Dems

15 Labour (including the Glorious Leader himself)

and….

18 Greens.

Thus the headline.  Look, politicians will happily sign up to 80% cuts by 2030 blah blah blah.  As we learnt in 2009, promises are easy.  Getting them to keep even a small percentage of their promises?   Not so much.

Posted in Manchester City Council | 1 Comment

Steering Group meeting was NOT quorate. #Manchester

Posted on May 4, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

The infamous Steering Group meeting in February 2016, at which only one Director of the company was present, and 8 sent their apologies, was NOT quorate.

How do we know this?  Not because answers have finally been forthcoming from the Steering Group (another promise was made this morning).  Nope, we went to the CIC regulator. Very helpful.  Managed to get a copy of the Constitution.

Compare these two images. The first is the 18th February meeting.

18 feb boad of directors

 

And this from the CIC articles of association. “Must never be less than one-third of the total number.  That would be 3, then…

quorum

 

 

Posted in Steering Group | Leave a comment

Comically inept #Manchester Steering Group has no energy chair #climate #farce 

Posted on May 4, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

Over five working days ago, the Steering Group promised imminent answers to questions that it had “not” ignored.  Of course, those answers have not arrived.  It’s like Waiting for Godot, with all of Beckett’s bleakness, but none of his intelligence.

Why no reply? It would be comforting to believe that the cause was either some calculation that the release of embarrassing information before the local elections might hurt Labour’s chances.  But conspiracies require competence… And anyway, the voters of Manchester just do not care about climate change – it’s a non-issue.

It might be due to antipathy to democracy and transparency.   This is a group, after all, that never held the elections it said it would, that cancelled the stakeholder conference and replaced it with an “AGM” where they make promises that they then don’t keep, and  holds meetings the public (aka “Stakeholders”)  are forbidden to attend.   It might be they just don’t like Manchester Climate Monthly. Again, this requires competence.

The most likely, bitter, truth is this.  The Steering Group’s failure to reply is down to the characteristic that has marked its whole sorry six years – a mind-boggling, heart-breaking incompetence, at a cosmically comic level.

While we are waiting for the eventual delivery of the much-promised information, let’s do a little case study of their incompetence, drawing on the official minutes.

Let’s talk about energy, a mildly important subject when you’re talking about climate change.

Let’s start at the 17th September2015 meeting.  ( This, by the way, was the third consecutive meeting to which Kate Chappell, Executive Member for the Environment of Manchester City Council, sent her apologies) .

A brief update explains

“Energy lead/chair position is still vacant. JS has been talking to Arup and Electricity Northwest. The subject lends itself to large infrastructure projects but will also include smaller, e.g. PV and community projects, which might be the basis of new activities than an energy group could initiate and oversee. To revisit as part of work to develop pipeline of MACF projects. In the meantime JS to invite Julian Packer, GMCA Low Carbon Investment Director to next meeting.”

So, they’re not actually going to think about ‘hmm, why can’t we attract any talented people to fill this slot. What should we do?’  That, after all, would require reflexivity and a long hard look at the Steering Group’s track record, future prospects, and the reputational risk it is to anyone who comes near it.  Nope, easier to invite an external.

But what’s this?  For the 22nd October 2015 meeting (which Kate Chappell, Executive Member for the Environment of Manchester City Council, sent her apologies)  the minutes tell us

Apologies were received from Jessica Bowles and Julian Packer so the items on ‘Greater Manchester Devolution update & discussion’ and ‘Greater Manchester Low Carbon Energy update & discussion’ are deferred to the November meeting.

So, we don’t actually have the minutes of the 19th November meeting, because they haven’t been posted by the Steering Group (sooooo interested in transparency.) (or because they don’t actually exist, and are just contained in the January meeting?  If so, how incompetent is that?!)

But from the January 2016 meeting (which Kate Chappell, Executive Member for the Environment of Manchester City Council, sent her apologies)  we learn this

Minutes of November Meeting

Apologies were received from Jessica Bowles and Julian Packer so the items on ‘Greater Manchester Devolution’ and ‘Greater Manchester Low Carbon Energy’ are to be considered for a future meeting.

jan 2016 meeting

 

Does the Steering Group now have an energy lead?  Of course not.  And who in their right mind would waste time, energy (hah!) and credibility on such a pointless organisation?

Posted in Energy, Manchester City Council, Steering Group | 5 Comments

#Manchester Labour Manifesto = April Fools Spoof, only worse.

Posted on May 3, 2016 by manchesterclimatemonthly

april 1st spoofManchester Labour Party’s election manifesto seems to have been ‘inspired’ by a post on Manchester Climate Monthly.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the post in question was an April Fool’s spoof, in which we announced that the Council was going to get all 96 of its councillors to undertake “carbon literacy” training by the of the year, AND also get 100,000 of Manchester’s citizens similarly trained by the end of the year.

The Labour Manifesto  – see relevant page below – contains the headlines, but – of course – no specific numerical targets.  Funny that. Not.labour nonsense-page001

Posted in Democratic deficit, humour, Manchester City Council | 1 Comment