Brent lagging behind on home insulation

A council by council area breakdown of how many British homes have been insulated by the Government’s energy saving scheme is published today. Kirklees Council where the Green Party spear-headed a systematic scheme is the top performing local authority.

Lagging lofts and filling cavity walls can save households over £100 in fuel bills every year. The figures, published by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), are released on a regional, council and constituency basis. They show how much loft and cavity wall insulation was professionally installed under the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) up until 31 March 2011. The CERT places requirements on energy companies to help consumers cut their emissions through energy efficiency.

Energy companies have been told by the Coalition Government to increase the help they make available to people to insulate their homes and save money. A total of 3.5 million homes are set to benefit by December 2012 as a result of a tougher CERT.
Key statistics include:

• Over the last year (April 2010 to March 2011), the largest number of insulation measures were installed in Birmingham (12,079); Leeds (11,244); Bradford (9,078); Fife (8,163); Wiltshire (7,872).
• The lowest number of insulation measures were installed on the Isles of Scilly (0); Westminster (39); Kensington and Chelsea (177); Hackney (272); Shetland Islands (349).
• The top five performing local authorities under the CERT scheme over the past three years, in terms of percentage of housing stock insulated, are Kirklees (24.8%); Isle of Anglesey (22.5%); Carmarthenshire (19.2%); South Ribble (19%); Wyre (18.2%).
• The five local authorities that have seen the lowest percentage of the housing stock insulated over the past three years through CERT are City of London (<0.1%); Westminster (0.3%); Kensington and Chelsea (0.8%); Hackney (1.3%); Hammersmith and Fulham (1.6%).

How does Brent compare?

Over the 3 years, starting April 1st 2008 the figures for Brent's 100,177 homes are:
Year 1 152 cavity wall insulation, 752 loft insulation
Year 2 1,985 cavity wall insulation, 2,319 loft insulation
Year 3 358 cavity wall insulation,  913 loft insulation


In total 6% of homes have been treated compared with 24.8% in Kirklees. Although this is a higher figures than many London boroughs the decline in numbers this year is concerning. With energy bills again on the rise and the need to tackle climate change it is clear from the example of the higher performing authorities that Brent could and should be doing much more. Brent Green Party has called for a street by street programme of insulation measures on the Kirklees model in its Green Charter submission to Brent Council.

Described by the BBC as "unique to the UK" Kirklees Council, covering the Huddersfield area,  has achieved much with its Warm Front scheme which has been strongly pushed by the Greens. Kirklees' approach has been: let's get the whole job done and in the last 2 years the Council has filled 9,000 homes with cavity wall insulation and 18,000 homes with loft insulation.


Warm Front reduces bills for people by an average of £150 a year per home and makes a huge dent in fuel poverty. The scheme also gets unemployed builders back into work - it has created an estimated 200 jobs locally - and cuts carbon emissions - with "No catch!"

The long term benefits mean Kirklees Council is saving people £4.5 million a year. The scheme is so impressive that Scotland's Greens has been trying to bring it in nationwide.

LINK to main reports

Brent Green Party's submission on the Green Charter can be found HERE

The Torch of Workers' Solidarity

Strikers from public service unions and their supporters will be meeting at The Torch pub tomorrow morning at 9.30am for a rally before travelling to central London  The Torch is in Wembley Park opposite the Ark Academy, on the corner of Bridge Road and Forty Lane.

The Green Party Trades Union Group has issued the following statement:

GPTU calls on all its members and all Green Party members to suppot the strikers of UCU, ATL,NUT and PCS in the pensions strike tomorrow. We have posted a message from Sally Hunt of UCU on the GPTU blog which explains that, contrary to media myth, public sector pensions are hardly generous. These pensions are in any case a slight compensation for the low salaries of the public sector where many workers do their work out of a sense of public service. Why should these workers pay with their pensions for a crisis of international finance? 

'Democracy key to academy decisions' say Brent teaching unions

Save Our Schools from Jason N. Parkinson on Vimeo.

The three main teaching unions (NUT, ATL and NASUWT) have written to headteachers and governors in Brent putting forward their negotiating position on conversion to academies. The letter follows Claremont High School's decision to convert to an academy from April 1st despite 70% of staff voting against the proposal.

The unions say they are opposed to academies because they are a 'large step on the way to privatisation of the management of state education',  will undermine hard-fought for national pay and conditions and will 'undermine the local family of schools and the role of the local authority'.

In a key passage they state:

Our position is one of democracy. It is that, before any application is made for Academy Conversion, there is full debate, with arguments from both sides, ending in a ballot of all staff on the question, 'Do you support ________ school becoming an Academy?'

The unions point out that Governors will want to ascertain the views of staff before any application and that this is the 'best. most democratic, clearest and most unequivocal way of doing so'.  They claim that consultation is often conducted in a way that distorts or glosses over the views of consultees so propose a secret, independently overseen ballot. They stress that it is important that parents know the views of staff before forming their own views on any proposals. The unions say that they will be looking at ensuring 'all legal avenues are explored and that parents are properly informed and consulted'.

The unions conclude:

We know that as Governors you will feel that you have to take tough and hard-headed decisions. As part of the largest volunteer workforce in the country you are also custodians of the system as a whole and we ask you to consider both the short-term and the long-term consequences of Academy conversion.

The letter comes at a time when it is believed that many Brent secondary schools are reviewing their position following Claremont's decision and seven Harrow Schools are consulting on becoming academies.