Agenda item

The Cabinet considered a report of the Corporate Director of Resources which recommended changes to the Council’s loan scheme for schools, to take account of energy efficiency, carbon emission and sustainability issues (for copy of report see file of minutes).

Councillor Henderson thanked officers for bringing forward this report. He welcomed the report and advised how the amends to the scheme were sensible and pragmatic, and he hoped that as the loans would be more accessible, this would help with the council’s climate emergency responses.  The scheme would be widely communicated to all of the council’s maintained schools.

Councillor Wilkes thanked all for bringing this forward. He explained how many of the council’s maintained schools were not as energy efficient as the Council would want them to be, and with 39% of the councils carbon emissions coming from the heating and power to schools buildings the scale of the challenge was significant. The revised school loans scheme would make it easier for schools to invest in energy saving measures. He advised that he was calling on government to ensure that the next round of decarbonisation grants provide for the transformation of school buildings, and Cabinet would be writing to the government urging they provide matched funding particularly for schools, to help meet climate change targets as quickly as possible.

Resolved:

That the recommendations in the report be approved.