The following is the response to a Freedom of Information Request from David Ridley, Chair of Coventry Green New Deal

Climate Change Board Freedom of Information Request
To: David Ridley
From: Information Governance Team
Postal Address:
Coventry City Council
PO Box 15
Council House
Coventry
CV1 5RR
www.coventry.gov.uk
E-mail: infogov@coventry.gov.uk
Phone: 024 7697 5408
05 May 2022

Dear Sir/Madam

Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) Request ID: FOI415686390

Thank you for your request for information relating to the Climate Change Board and progress of its Climate Change Strategy.

You have requested the following information:

At a recent public meeting, Bret Willers, CCC’s Head of Sustainability & Climate Change, claimed in response to a verbal request for more information about the Climate Change Board that all the documents relating to its terms of reference, responsibilities, and scrutiny arrangements were publicly available.

However, I have not been able to find these documents online.

I have now repeatedly requested this information via my local Councillor Bally Singh, and have had no response.

I am now, therefore, writing to you under the Environmental Information Regulations and Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from you.

[NB This information requested is caught by the EIR because it falls under the following categories of Environmental information:

(c) measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements;

(d) reports on the implementation of environmental legislation;

(e) cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in (c)]

 I would like to see any information relating to the following:

 1. The purpose of the Climate Change Board, and how it relates to the formulation of CCC’s new Climate Change Strategy

Coventry’s Independent Climate Change board has been set up to help shape and move forward actions to reduce the impact of climate change. The aim is to share policies, plans, good practice and work together collaboratively in an effort to keep the city on track for a zero-carbon future.

Coventry City Council’s One Coventry approach includes collaboration with stakeholders across the city. Coventry’s independent Climate Change Board is an example of how we work with partners to tackle the effects of climate change and is highlighted as part of the strategy and will go out for consultation later this year.

2. Terms of reference or equivalent for CCC’s Climate Change Board

Please see the attached document.

3. Details as to how the work of this board will be held accountable and/or scrutinised by elected representatives

The Climate Change Board is a city-wide independent board of which the Council are a member.

The Climate Change Board is not directly accountable to the Council however it works closely and collaboratively together for the benefit of the city.

4. Any financial arrangements this Board has entered into with its members or with outside Organisations

The Climate Change Board has not entered into any financial arrangements with its members.

5. Any existing minutes of meetings and meeting papers presented to this Board so fa r

The minutes are not currently publicly available however will be once the governance procedures are finalised, and the mechanism agreed to release this information into the public.

6. Details as to how such minutes/documents will be made publicly available before and after meetings

The Climate Change Board is not a public meeting however press releases are made regarding the progress of the board.

7. How the public can find out when this Board meet

The Board will meet at least once a quarter. The dates are agreed by the Chair and Vice Chair.

This information is not published publicly as it is not a public meeting

8. How members of the public can feed into these meetings, given that only one Cllr is on the Board itself

The Board has set up a number of working groups, one of which has a specific remit for addressing inequities which includes public engagement.

Please may you also provide me with:

9. Agreements or correspondence with Confirmation that CCC is working with Andy Gouldson, Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Leeds and founder of the ESRC Place-based Climate Action Network (PCAN)

Coventry City Council are working with Professor Andy Gouldson and have commissioned a Net Zero route map for Coventry enabling us to benchmark against other cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Swansea and Leeds.

Please see attached an email sent from Bret Willers, Head of service to confirm the success of the tender.

The Council is withholding some of the requested information in this case as it falls under; the exception(s) in Regulation 13 of the Regulations which relates to Personal Data. The Council has applied the provisions of Regulation 13 in respect of this information as it judges it to fall within the definition for personal data set out in Section 3(2) and 3(3) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA)

As:

(2) personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual (subject to subsection (14)(c))”

(3) “Identifiable living individual” means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to –

(a) an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or

(b) one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.”

The Council considers that this information is caught by the above exception to disclosure and to explain further, a disclosure made under the provisions of the Regulations is judged to be a disclosure to the wider world and here the Council must consider disclosure of personal information in line with the provisions of the DPA.

In this instance it is judged that the personal information relating to junior council officers involved is being processed by the Council for the purpose of maintenance inspections.

All personal identifiers and information relating to the officers have therefore been redacted (removed) from the supplied information. Individuals involved would also have no reasonable expectation that their details would be disclosed to the world-at-large.

Any disclosure of this information would be judged in this instance to breach DPA principles, notably the first principle – that of fair and lawful processing and the second principle-that of processing for specified and not-incompatible purposes. Personal identifiers have thus been redacted in this instance.

10. Details as to in what way CCC is working with Prof Gouldson, and at what stage this work is currently at.

We have received the first draft of the Net Zero routemap and are working through the data before it is published and circulated wider.

We aim to publish the Net Zero routemap this Summer 2022.

11. Agreements or correspondence with the PCAN network Whether CCC has applied to be part of the PCAN network, and/or any other relevant climate-related networks or organisations.

Coventry City Council are part of PCAN and have attended various PCAN meetings with other member authorities.

There was no formal application process to be part of PCAN other than being a Local Authority.

Meetings are held publicly and can be found here:

https://pcancities.org.uk/pcan-network-plus

12. A timetable of when CCC intends to next present its work on its Climate Change Strategy to Cllrs as part of Council business

This timetable is due to be agreed after the 2022 elections and committee timetable is released.

13. A timetable of when CCC intends to publish its new Climate Change Strategy

Please refer to Question 12.

 

The supply of information in response to a FOI/EIR request does not confer an automatic right to re-use the information. You can use any information supplied for the purposes of private study and non-commercial research without requiring further permission. Similarly, information supplied can also be re-used for the purposes of news reporting. An exception to this is photographs. Please contact us if you wish to use the information for any other purpose.

For information, we publish a variety of information such as: FOI/EIR Disclosure Log, Publication Scheme, Facts about Coventry and Open Data that you may find of useful if you are looking for information in the future.

If you are unhappy with the handling of your request, you can ask us to review our response.

Requests for reviews should be submitted within 40 days of the date of receipt of our response to your original request – email: infogov@coventry.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the outcome of our review, you can write to the Information Commissioner, who can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF or email icocasework@ico.org.uk.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in your response.

Yours faithfully

Information Governance