Thread by @CllrBenParker

Yesterday was Policy & Sustainability committee — on the agenda was:

*TVL (Tourist Tax) 🧳
*Redeployment pool plans 🏊‍♂️
*Corporate property strategy 🏢
*Energy for Edinburgh ⚡️
*Health & Social Care scrutiny 🔍
*Gaelic language plan 🗣
*Community Climate Funding 🌱

(1/)

*International Travel guidance ✈️
*Update on declaring a Nature Emergency 🚨
*Heat Networks update 🔥
*Annual Performance report 📊

plus lots more! An overview in thread 🪡, but you can access all papers (and webcast recording) on the Council website: democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/ieListDocument…

We began with a report on what might go into a proposed TVL scheme in Edinburgh, including discussion of what money should be spent on 🧳 💷

All parties except the Tories agreed a scheme should go ahead, and we were happy lots of our amendment was accepted

this included … ⤵️

Adding Trade Union reps to the TVL advisory group ✅

Specifying that the focus of investment in “culture” from TVL funds should be to democratise access to festivals (including free tickets), and prioritise grassroots and smaller events / activities ✅

Mainstreaming climate spending across all investment “portfolios” proposed (compared to a 25% ringfenced amount originally proposed) ✅

Officers will go ahead and scope out the scheme with these details in mind, as well as for spending on city infrastructure and services 🏙

We were disappointed no other Party supported our amendment to *not* spend funds on marketing, PR or for “industry growth” ❌

We simply believe the Council should be promoting sustainable tourism for community benefit instead and are surprised others don’t share our view 🤷‍♀️

Finally on TVL, we are happy that other groups accepted our request for officers to do more scoping to see if we can follow the Amsterdam TVL model — there, holiday homes and short term lets pay 10% of turnover

We look forward to reading more about this at the next update 📑

We next had a report on the Council’s redeployment pool 🏊‍♂️ — this followed from the budget vote of Labour / LD / Con councillors in February to make “savings” by proposing to end the Council policy of no compulsory redundancies, something Greens opposed at the time (and still do)

Thankfully, this position is not one supported by a majority of Cllrs - despite votes otherwise at February - and we were happy to support the 3 pledges of TUs including a commitment to not reverse this policy as part of this agenda item 🚫

There are still Qs about the budgetary implications and we were pleased to come to a joint position with Lab / SNP where officers will report on this at the next Finance & Resources committee and we will scrutinise the alternative “savings” being proposed by officers then.

The situation with regard to no compulsory redundancies was wholly avoidable and whilst we are still critical of the Labour votes which led us down this path, we are pleased that any uncertainty felt by Council workers about the budget decision should now be allayed.

Another big item came next which was the “corporate property strategy” 🏢

The report outlines principles the Council will follow as it manages its estate going forward including considering 20 minute neighbourhoods, net zero targets and future work behaviours / patterns 💻🌍

Our amendment strengthened considerations around accessibility as we felt the strategy was light on detail around this 👨‍🦼

We also wanted to explore the net zero theme in more depth — especially relating to proposals for buildings where retrofitting will be “too” costly 🌍

Next we had a paper on Energy for Edinburgh, the Council owned energy company ⚡️

The report we received was in response to my motion last year which asked for officers to produce an options appraisal for how it could become an active enterprise 🤷‍♀️

There was agreement that the company should pursue work on heat networks and we’ll have further updates at the end of the year 📆🔥

Our amendment to build community wealth building / cooperative principles into any future business case was accepted ✅

A flurry of reports followed on Health & Social Care (the “EIJB”) where we were able to scrutinise updates on general performance, as well as on key items like the transfer of Castlegreen & North Merchiston care homes 🔍

We also moved an emergency motion on EIJB governance which was accepted, asking for a public report about the circumstances surrounding the consultation on the future of care homes in Edinburgh, after our questioning at last committee uncovered some serious issues 🥫🪱

We also had some climate / nature focused reports on:

*International travel guidance ✈️
*Declaring a nature emergency 🚨
*Community Climate Fund 🌎

where we had 3x amendments ⤵️

Firstly, we proposed that there should be a complete ban on any internal business flights ✈️🚫which was only supported by SNP members and therefore not passed — frustrating for what is in practice a small proposal but significant in what it communicates RE our climate ambitions

Thankfully, on Community Climate Funding we secured agreement that continuation of last year’s highly successful fund be considered for continuation in the budget process (with learning from this year incorporated). A good win for communities across the city and the planet 🌎🤝

And on nature, I was pleased to ask Qs around governance and how to mainstream this work across the Council

I look forward to further briefings from officers on this point, including about what resourcing is required to increase activity .. all relevant for budget decisions! 🌳

Finally, we had a very significant amendment on the Gaelic Language Plan, where we pushed the Council to commit in its plans to continue to work to secure the provision of a GME secondary school in conjunction with the Scottish Government 🏫

We also focused on expanding plans around Gaelic Language Education in schools and to strengthen commitments to bilingual signage for new or replacement signs 🪧

This was a big amendment & subject to some negotiation on the day which we were grateful to (eventually) see pass ✅

In all, a long committee and lots to think about / reflect on 💭🪞

Council meetings are often 7+ hours long and inaccessible for many. We are still working to try and improve this internally (but there is a long way to go on that front!)