Prefer to watch this post as a video? Scroll down to the end.

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The Council Climate Action Scorecards are compiled by a cohort of volunteers, trained up by Climate Emergency UK. They’re currently recruiting for the next round of marking, so if that sounds like something you’d like to be involved with, check out the details here.

The knowledge that volunteers acquire isn’t just applicable to the Scorecards: it upskills them for life, empowering them to apply their knowledge to informed climate action. In that way, the benefits of the Scorecards project are more longlasting, and spread further than we might have expected!

Fiona Dyer was part of the volunteer cohort of 2023, and she shared her journey from climate-concerned to climate-informed. Her story can inspire us all — especially those who may be feeling powerless or hopeless in the face of the climate crisis.

Fiona explains: “At the start of the COVID pandemic I had to retire early from the NHS to look after my mum. I had more time to read, and the more I read, the more concerned I felt about the impact global heating and biodiversity loss was going to have on my children’s future. Across the world people were already suffering. 

“I heard about the CE UK Scorecards project from a friend, and decided volunteering would be something positive I could do that I could fit around my other commitments. I doubted whether my computing skills would be adequate, but the CE UK team was friendly and supportive, and we volunteers learnt from each other via a chat forum. 

“Reading through councils’ climate action plans to find information was challenging at times, but it also gave me a good understanding of the scope, powers and potential influence councils have to help communities mitigate and adapt to the challenges that lie ahead.” 

So, that’s where it started — but it’s certainly not where it ended! Fiona goes on to tell us how she could bring that acquired knowledge to a whole new arena.

“I went on to join Climate Action Durham (CAD), and learned that they’d held a Citizens’ Forum on Climate Action the year before, in collaboration with Durham County Council. 

“I suggested we used the Scorecards at the next forum, as up to date, publicly available research that would give us a better understanding of the breadth of topics councils should be addressing, as well as performance data. 

“It was agreed that by using the Scorecards we could more easily assess the council’s climate response plan: its strengths and weaknesses, how it compared with similar and neighbouring councils and how we could gauge improvement over time. 

“The citizens’ forum was held in the autumn, timed to be just after the publication of the Scorecards. As we had already established a ‘critical friend’ type relationship with the council, it was agreed that the introduction to the forum would be given by myself, alongside the council’s Neighbourhoods and Climate Change Corporate Director. 

“My presentation was a combination of some of the council’s own slides and slides I created using Scorecards data, chosen to highlight issues that would help focus discussion in the work groups that followed. 

“I would not have had the confidence to do this without my experience of being a Scorecards volunteer, as I have no previous experience in this area. It was also an opportunity for me to champion the broader agenda of increasing local democracy. “

That’s the increased confidence that knowledge can bring. And then, as Fiona explains, the event itself was enriched and informed by the Scorecards data.

“The Citizens’ Forum on Climate Action was open to anyone who wanted to attend. People were asked to choose the work group they wanted to be part of in advance: these broadly aligned with the Scorecard categories and they were given the link to the Scorecards website. 

“The questions and scores in each of the Scorecards categories enabled us to be more effective in scrutinising the council’s performance. 

“The council said they welcomed CAD’s involvement in consulting the public on its climate plans and being held to account in a constructive way.”

And from this one day emerged some longterm outcomes:

“The feedback from the forum work groups was written up in detail as a report, including nine specific recommendations. Where possible I used my Scorecards knowledge to cite examples of good practice by other councils for each recommendation, these were included as footnote references. 

“For example, Bristol use an Eco Impact Checklist that is applied to all their new projects. This report was shared with the council and made available to the public via the CAD website. 

“CAD members who facilitated the groups in the forum have continued to work with the relevant councillors, to varying degrees, as the next iteration of their climate plan is being developed. We will see how many of the recommendations are included in the new plan when it is published later this year. 

“As a group we intend to continue supporting, lobbying and campaigning where it is needed. We have just set up Durham Climate Hub, part of a national network of climate emergency centres and are continuing to work with the council’s community engagement officer. In the run up to this year’s forum we plan to hold sessions in the Hub on some of the forum themes to increase interest and participation from a broader section of the public. 

“I have suggested CE UKs training to various other groups, one of which I have co-hosted with CE UK using my local knowledge. It feels good to be playing my part in raising awareness of the challenges we face and working creatively with other people to improve local resilience, not forgetting the bigger picture and fundamental need for system change.”

Fiona’s account is a phenomenal example of how citizens can work together with their local councils to understand, oversee and encourage better climate action. It shows how the Scorecards training has a ripple effect that is tangible and longlasting. 

Big thanks to Fiona for sharing her experience — we hope it will inspire others who are looking for a way to take practical and productive action on climate issues.

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Image: David Ross

Work for the 2025 Council Climate Action Scorecards has already begun. To help make sure the next round have an even bigger impact than the last, I’ve been attending Advisory Group roundtables, hosted by Climate Emergency UK, alongside policy experts, council leaders and climate officers. Together, we’ve been going through the methodology with a fine-tooth comb. 

What are the Scorecards?

The Council Climate Action Scorecards project evaluates the climate actions of all UK local councils, serving as both a benchmark and a motivational tool. The project highlights councils’ efforts in seven sections:

• buildings and heating
• transport 
• planning and land use 
• governance and finance
• biodiversity
• collaboration and engagement
• food and  waste

By offering a clear, comparable picture of each council’s performance, the Scorecards help hold councils accountable, increase transparency, and encourage continuous improvement. They are designed and delivered by CE UK, with technical and policy support from mySociety. 

How much change is too much change?

Why are we changing the methodology? You might be thinking, if it works, why fix it? The updates are driven by a desire for the project to respond to the evolving policy landscape and feedback from stakeholders.  That said, we’re trying to strike the right balance between introducing necessary changes to keep the Scorecards accurate and relevant, but not so many that we lose the ability to compare to the previous Scorecards. 

The wisdom of the advisory group has been essential in striking this balance, as we were able to hear directly from elected councillors and council employees about their priorities and pain points.

So what’s changed? 

The reasons that questions have been tweaked, reweighted or removed are many and varied – and actually offer quite an interesting perspective on how the sector is changing. To see the detailed breakdown, check out the new methodology page on the Scorecards website. Here are the headlines:

• There’ve been 13 changes to question criteria — but no one section has had more than three criteria changed. This was often to add an additional tier allowing for higher marks: for example, Question 4.3b, about reduction in emissions since 2019, will now have an additional point available for councils whose reductions have exceeded 40%.
• There are five questions which have new weighting, based on sector feedback. For example, Question 2.9, on whether a council has a workplace parking levy, has been downgraded to ‘medium’. 
• There are three brand new questions to reflect areas of emerging policy interest, such as a new question on engagement with trade unions or other employee representative bodies.
• Three existing questions have been changed  in response to sector feedback, for example Question 4.2 now focuses on a council’s corporate risk register rather than a standalone climate change risk register.
• One question (7.1a) has been removed to reflect a change in government policy on single use plastics, making it a legal requirement of all local authorities to reduce their single use plastic usage.

What impact will this have on scores?

An initial trial scoring  with a sample of councils using 2023 data showed slight decreases in scores, but only by an average of 2%. This trial scoring was done using a ‘worst case scenario’ assumption of councils scoring none of the new points available. This was discussed by the Advisory Group, and it was agreed that this level of change was small enough to remain confident that the Scorecards could be meaningfully compared.

Reflections on the roundtables 

In total I attended four meetings of the Advisory Group.

In each meeting we broke out into small groups to go through each question line by line, then discussed each groups’ feedback. The CE UK team then went away to draw conclusions, which were brought back to the next meeting and agreed. 

In the initial discussions there was some disagreement, as you might expect from a group of people coming from different perspectives and wanting different things from the Scorecards; however, the tone and conduct was always upbeat and working towards a solution. 

We ended the final meeting with agreement across the board on all changes. Overall, the changes that have come out of the methodology review process reflect a commendable ambition for collaborative and continuous improvement — and to make real change at the local level.

Photo by Winston Tjia on Unsplash

Tl;dr: We’ve added lots of local council data to the Local Intelligence Hub.

In February, we launched the Local Intelligence Hub, and today we’ve released a huge new update. 

We designed the Local Intelligence Hub — in collaboration with The Climate Coalition and supported by Green Alliance — to provide all the data you need, either about one constituency or across the whole country, on issues around climate. It helps you gain a deep understanding of public opinion, demographics, political considerations, and much, much more. In short, it’s an extremely powerful tool, free to use, and invaluable for anyone pushing for better climate action.  

At launch, we divided the data by UK Parliamentary constituency — but with this huge new update, you can now also explore data at the local council level.

As ever, there are several different ways to view this data:

• by individual authority, so you can deep dive into your local area
• as a table, so you can compare councils by metrics that matter to you
• plotted onto a map, so you can see where to find hot- and cold-spots of action

And it can all be downloaded as a spreadsheet for use on your own desktop.

What kind of data are we talking about?

We’re pulling together data from multiple different sources. What does it all have in common? We reckon that it provides new insights for climate campaigners, researchers, journalists and organisations  — especially when it’s combined in new ways, as Local Intelligence Hub allows you to do quickly and simply. 

Sources include national polling data, information from our services CAPE and Scorecards, and other Climate Coalition member organisations, like the National Trust and the RSPB. 

And we’re always looking for more data, so do get in touch if you know of a useful source we haven’t yet included! 

What can I do with it?

You will know best how this rich data could inform your work, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Build a profile of your local council

Dip into the local council page and see what data awaits you! Here’s an example of the top-level stats you can find for Leeds City Council:

• The area has a strong mandate for climate action. MRP polling suggests we’d see 88% of Leeds City residents support onshore wind compared to 83.5% national average, and just 10% oppose net zero compared to 12% national average. 
• Leeds City Council is doing better than most councils, but could be doing more. It scored 53% on the Climate Action Scorecards, gaining its highest scores in Planning and Land Use, but with the biggest room for improvement on Transport. 
• Emissions are huge, but so is the population. Leeds City Council serves 798,786 residents compared to the average of 307,712. According to BEIS data, Leeds City Council has influence over 2,822 kilotons of CO2 emissions, which is more than twice the national average of 1,168.3.
• There’s an active climate movement. In Leeds city there were more Great Big Green Week events than average in both 2022 and 2023.

2. Design a national campaign strategy 

If you’re a campaigning organisation looking to work out where and how to allocate resources, the table-builder and CSV download could form an essential part of your planning process. Here we’ve generated the single-tier councils with Net Zero target dates that fall within the coming decade, and sorted by their Action Scorecards overall score, alongside useful data about public opinion and emissions.

3. Visualise your goals

Local Intelligence Hub helps you zero in on the areas of the country that meet specific criteria. For example, where are the district councils who have declared a climate emergency but haven’t published a climate action plan? Here’s a map that shows you — just one of hundreds of maps that you can generate with a few clicks, and no expertise required:

What to do with all this lovely local data?

Thanks to this update, it’s now easier than ever to push for local climate action. With these rich new insights, you now have a number of talking points with which to engage your local councillors or council climate officers — and a wealth of facts and figures to back them up.

What next?

We need you to use the Hub and tell us what works, and what doesn’t! Give us your feedback  — and if you’d like to know whenever we add something new,  sign up to updates and we’ll let you know when there’s new data to play with.

Photo by Daniil Korbut on Unsplash

Canada differs from the UK in many ways: obviously it’s vastly bigger, extending across many more latitudes; its climate, nature and terrains vary hugely; its cities are more dispersed and diverse — and accordingly, the challenges the two countries face around tackling the climate emergency are different, too. 

But there are some significant ways in which we are alike, too, as we learned when we chatted with Hannah Muhajarine, National Campaign Manager at the Climate Reality Project Canada. 

Climate Reality, like mySociety and Climate Emergency UK, have identified local councils — or municipal governments as they’re called in Canada — as crucial contributors to our respective countries’ decarbonisation. Both sides run projects that monitor the climate action of these authorities, helping citizens to keep an eye on their progress.

“Scorecards helped us reimagine both our content and project design.”

Hannah first heard about the Council Climate Action Scorecards on the Local Zero podcast, and immediately saw the parallels between our two projects. Not only that — she understood that Climate Reality could learn from our project, adopting some of the Scorecards’ approaches. 

We were keen to hear how the Scorecards have encouraged Climate Reality to enrich and broaden their own work in monitoring climate action at the local level. So, first of all, what is Climate Reality?

“We’re the Canadian branch of The Climate Reality Project, which is an international climate organisation,” explained Hannah.”We work by training citizens on climate advocacy, education, and communication.  

“This includes supporting a network of Community Climate Hubs across Canada, which mobilise citizens to get involved in local climate advocacy targeting city and town councils. 

“These grassroots groups get involved in a variety of projects, including making sure that climate is a priority during municipal elections and budget-setting; participating in public consultations relating to climate; campaigning to get their council to declare a climate emergency; organising campaigns; hosting community-facing public events on climate, and more.”

All good stuff, but a lot more hands-on advocacy than we’ve been doing over here. So, where are the links with the Scorecards project?

“To support the Hubs and their local advocacy work, since 2018 Climate Reality has led a project called the National Climate League (NCL), where we trained volunteers to collect data every year on a set of climate-related indicators measuring climate progress at the local level across Canada”.

Ah yes, the overlaps certainly begin to become obvious — in fact, that’s exactly what Climate Emergency UK did for the UK Scorecards. So, what sort of data were Climate Reality collecting?

“For example, the number of Passive Certified buildings within municipal limits, the number of transit trips per year, household waste per year… we also tracked a smaller number of policies, like climate plans and climate targets, adaptation plans, green building policies and so on.”

And, like the Scorecards, all this information was a useful way of letting the public know how their local government was getting on: “Climate Reality staff would pull together the volunteer-collected data each year and publish it in a report, with data visualisations comparing municipalities across the range of indicators, the results of our policy scan, and case studies of top-performing municipalities.”

“Learning about the Scorecards provided a great inspiration, and a specific model for us to work towards.”

Hannah goes on, “In the spring of 2023, we’d just launched the fifth edition. We were interested in re-evaluating the design of the project, and especially expanding the policy aspect.”

This was great timing: “It was around then that I heard about the Scorecards on an episode of the Local Zero podcast. I was really excited, since the project had many parallels to ours, but featured more detailed and extensive criteria — plus it was a bit larger scale in terms of volunteer participants and the number of councils covered, and it used the scoring method to compare councils with one another, which we hadn’t previously considered.”

What great synchronicity. So, what changes did Climate Reality make, inspired by the Scorecards?

Hannah explains, “Scorecards helped us reimagine both our content and project design. For example, we introduced more extensive and in-depth training for volunteers. Inspired by the way that Climate Emergency UK work, we identified volunteers with key skills, and harnessed them to help with data verification. 

You also influenced us to add questions around retrofit programmes, support for low-income homeowners and rental housing; renewable energy targets; and community climate action funding.”

And so, what were the outcomes of these changes?

“We were able to recruit 51 volunteers to participate in data collection this year, and collect data for 53 municipalities across Canada, which is a great expansion on the project compared to last year.

“Plus, the new version of the NCL includes 21 policy questions, each with several sub-questions. So we’re now tracking things like climate plans, community greenhouse gas reduction targets, citizens’ climate advisory committees, mode-share targets, curbside composting programmes, and more. 

“We’re hoping the new Scorecards-informed version of the NCL will provide a great boost in terms of the data and information available to our network of climate advocates, and give them a new tool they can use to engage in local climate advocacy, targeting city councils, towns, and even other jurisdictions perhaps — as well as communicating with their community about how their city/town compares to others on climate. 

“My hope is that expanding and strengthening the policy element of the NCL — which the Scorecards helped us do — will really help boost local advocates’ policy literacy, help them identify specific policies, targets and programmes that other municipalities have implemented and which they might like to build a campaign around and encourage their municipality to adopt. They’ll be able to evaluate their council’s climate plans and targets against what has actually been implemented and what the outcomes have been — in other words, they’ll be empowered to draw the connection between policy and action, just as the Scorecards have done.”

Climate Reality won’t actually be scoring the municipalities this year, though Hannah says it’s a consideration for future iterations. “As you all know, there are challenges with designing an objective, properly weighted scoring system, so we decided we didn’t have the capacity to go all in on trying to design something this year, but it would be something we’d like to do in the future. Obviously it is a really good method for translating a lot of detailed, diverse policy information into something that can provide an at a glance comparison.

“Overall, learning about the Scorecards and connecting with Climate Emergency UK provided a great inspiration, and a specific model for us to work towards, as well as really helpful advice on specific shared challenges.”

We are very gratified to hear that. It is always wonderful to connect with other projects around the world that are working towards similar aims by similar means, and to exchange ideas. Thanks very much to Hannah for telling us all about it.

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Image: Will Clewis

Lucie Bolton took the position of Climate Strategy Officer at Rother District Council in 2022. Since then, she’s found the Council Climate Action Scorecards project an invaluable support for her work. 

Hearing this, we were of course keen to find out more — so we asked Lucie to share her journey, from brand new climate officer to now, a couple of years on, with a refreshed strategy and action plan in place.

“The council had declared a Climate Emergency in September 2019, going on to adopt their Environment Strategy in 2020”, explains Lucie, “But the pandemic and staff changes meant the production of a Climate Action Plan was delayed. That’s not to say climate action wasn’t taking place, but there were no KPIs, and it wasn’t fully embedded across the organisation.”

“Scorecards helped us reimagine both our content and project design.”

Post pandemic, recognising a need for a more concerted approach, the council employed two new staff: Lucie as Climate Strategy Officer, plus a new Climate Project Officer.

“I was brought in to refresh the Environment Strategy — which was renamed the Climate Strategy — and to develop and deliver the Climate Action Plan.”

While Lucie had highly relevant experience in her background, the council context was new for her: 

“I came from an environmental NGO, where I was involved with developing strategies, but I hadn’t developed a Climate Strategy for a local authority before. 

“I performed the usual strategy development activities — gap analysis, evidence base and so on — and when I was looking at best practices across the sector, I came across the Council Climate Plan Scorecards.”

The Climate Plan Scorecards, released in 2022, were the precursor to the Climate Action Scorecards. They scrutinised every UK council’s action plans, marking them to a wide set of criteria. 

“This was a fantastic resource for me,” says Lucie, “as I was able to see what good looks like and what we should be aiming for. 

“I used the Scorecards to look at neighbouring authorities, authorities with similar emissions, demographics et cetera. Along with other resources like the UK100 Powers in Place report, it helped me shape the Rother District Council Climate Strategy. 

“I was also able to reach out to different authorities and speak to their Climate Officers, which was useful.”

In 2023, the Council Climate Action Scorecards were launched, providing Lucie with still more invaluable data.

“I found the methodology particularly useful for developing Rother District Council’s Climate Action Plan. It was also useful to benchmark against, to see what we have already achieved and where we could do better”. 

“This was a fantastic resource for me, as I was able to see what good looks like and what we should be aiming for.”

“Overall, the results were useful in demonstrating to colleagues the sort of things we could be doing and what our neighbouring authorities were doing.”

Rother District Council adopted the refreshed Climate Strategy and Climate Action Plan in December 2023, and Lucie continues to dip into the Scorecards.

“I am now using them regularly in the implementation of the Climate Action Plan. For example, we have an action to eliminate pesticide usage in the council’s grounds maintenance. Using the Scorecards, I can quickly find examples of other councils who have already done this, and access the information I need through the evidence links.

“I’m really pleased to hear there will be another round of council scoring. I think Rother District Council will score better thanks to the action we have taken since the first round of scoring, though I am concerned the timeframe will mean some significant activities will still be in progress. Our new Local Plan, for example, is aiming to be ambitious and align with our 2030 target, but is unlikely to be ready to be examined in that round.”

Thanks very much to Lucie for sharing her story. We hope it inspires other Climate Officers to explore how the Scorecards project can aid them in their work.

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Image: Chris McAuley (CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

To reach the UK’s 2050 net zero target, all local authorities need to take serious action across all of their operations. But what exactly should they do, and in what order?

To get the most out of the brilliant data uncovered by the Council Climate Action Scorecards, Climate Emergency UK commissioned Anthesis to research and write a report digging into the characteristics that were associated with high marks. This allows campaigners and officers alike to go to their councils and say: “Start here. These are the most effective actions to drive up our scores, and reduce our carbon footprint.”

The Scorecards Successes report is available to read now, and it was an absolute pleasure to join councillors, campaigners and others in the climate sector yesterday for a really encouraging conference to celebrate its launch.

Here are five things I took away:

1. Good governance generates great scores

As you can see from the table above, appointing a climate portfolio holder is the most impactful characteristic for high scores in the Council Climate Action Scorecards. I loved the way Matt Babic from Anthesis (authors of the report) described effective governance as a T-shape, with the downstroke representing depth of knowledge within a climate team, and the across stroke representing good communication and distribution of responsibility across the council as a whole. For campaigners out there, this might be a good way to start a conversation with your local council  — how effective  is your council’s climate ‘T’ in depth and breadth? 

2. Funding reform is vital

The report recognises that since 2019, councils have spent more than £130 million applying for short term competitive funded pots; time and money that is wasted if they are unsuccessful. This came up time and again throughout the day, and there was consensus across the room. In order for councils to be able to deliver at the pace and scale necessary, national government needs to unlock these barriers to funding and enable clearer, simpler financial mechanisms, which must also facilitate necessary private sector investment. 

3. Devolution deals need simplifying if they’re going to support better climate action

One surprising finding from the report is that authorities that are members of Combined Authorities score lower on the whole than those that are not. This paints a mixed picture for the successes of devolution deals in delivering across their constituent councils. In the final panel of the day, Sandra Bell from Friends of the Earth and co-chair of the Blueprint Coalition, gave some excellent food for thought about the future of devolution deals across the UK. The UK government has promised devolution deals “everywhere” by 2030, which is also the date by which many UK councils have committed to reach net zero. We still lack clarity on the exact form and shape of the deals yet to come, and with a very mixed picture of multiple types and styles of devolution settlements currently in operation, the Blueprint Coalition are calling for clarity, simplicity and scaled up funding to help this new layer of governance really deliver. 

4. Transparency and public engagement aren’t the same thing, but they’re both needed 

At mySociety, we care a lot about transparency, and we’re always asking for better data publication to enable it. Better data publication from local authorities would enable us to make useful climate data more accessible to those who want to dig into it. But publishing data and engaging the public aren’t entirely the same thing. In addition to transparency, councils should be actively delivering public engagement exercises that tackle  the more holistic questions and future decision-making, about how to make the road to net zero a fair one. It was great to hear Cllr Anna Railton talk about Oxford City Council’s residents panel – a great forum for these conversations, and markedly cheaper than a citizens’ assembly. Transparency and public engagement are related, but not the same, and we need both.

5. “Don’t be afraid to copy”

Rob Robinson from Kent County Council made the point that I think underpins a lot of why we think the Scorecards are so helpful. Every council in the UK is working towards net zero, be that to their own target or the UK’s 2050 target, but they don’t have to do it alone. In every section there are high scoring councils, and the evidence of the brilliant policies they’ve implemented are easily discoverable on the site. Let’s not reinvent the wheel: this isn’t an exam, as Rob says —  don’t be afraid to copy.

We were more than delighted when this news story crossed our radar, showing in detail how Cllr Andrew Murray, of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, used the Council Climate Action Scorecards to gain support from his fellow councillors for climate action.

Cllr Murray’s proposed motion even referred to the Scorecards themselves:

“This Council acknowledges the work done to date to help address the climate emergency; reaffirms previous motions regarding the degenerating global situation; and again, reiterates that the crisis is the biggest threat posed to our constituents, our district, and our planet.

“Further acknowledges, however, that recent data collated by Climate Emergency UK ranks NMDDC 8th out of the 11 Councils within NI; and thus, pledges to include ambitious targets in the forthcoming Sustainability and Climate Strategies and Action Plans to expedite implementation.

Cllr Murray went on to explain that the council was below the averages for Northern Ireland in five sections of the Scorecards, albeit that in two — Building & Heating and Waste Reduction & Food – they had scored better than most of their NI fellow councils. Finally, he pointed out that their scores may have suffered from a lack of communication around the council’s recent activity.

We admired this intervention for its use of the Scorecards to do several things: point out where the council was lagging behind others in the country; give recognition to the areas where Scorecard rankings were above average; and to point out that some action they were taking may not be visible enough to outside observers.

All of these points were given further legitimacy by the fact that the Scorecards are an independent project, providing an objective set of benchmarks.

We got in touch with Cllr Murray to ask him more. He was a strong advocate for his local area, happy to describe its many charms:

“I am an elected representative for the Slieve Croob DEA,” he told us, “which lies within Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. I live in a wee town called Castlewellan. We’ve lots of forests, hills and coast within my area, and the council area as a whole.”

Sounds like an area where it’s well worth protecting the natural environment then! So, how did the Scorecards help?

Cllr Murray explains: “The Scorecards were very useful. I used them as an impetus to draw up a motion asking our council to attribute targets to actions they are taking, or will take in the future, regarding climate change and the environment. 

“Because the Scorecards were collated as well as being subdivided into relevant sections, I was able to curate my speaking notes appropriately.

“But they were also useful for a number of other reasons: firstly, they averaged out what other councils in Northern Ireland were attaining. In Northern Ireland, we have different responsibilities to our English, Scottish and Welsh counterparts. So to have them separated out regionally meant that Council Officers could not simply bat away the motion by saying the cards were not relevant – there are demonstrable things that other councils within Northern Ireland are doing that we are not. 

“That is not to say that they were simply used as a stick with which to beat Officers! There were aspects in which our council was above average, so this allowed praise to be allocated to the areas in which it was deserved. 

“Likewise, there were areas in which, from my reading of them and my understanding of the council, I think that there are some functions we are actually already performing but haven’t communicated – ergo, we could easily improve our score. 

“The Scorecards enabled me to lay things out succinctly and clearly, and I was able to get the motion passed. The hope is that sections of them can be incorporated into the targets for the council, and we can ultimately improve on our climatic and environmental impact. 

“Obviously if that means we improve our position amongst other Northern Ireland councils, then happy days. But, as the saying goes, an incoming tide raises all boats – so if our position remains the same, but councils everywhere become more sustainable and mitigate our impact on the environment, then that’s a good thing all round. But ultimately, we have to control the things that we affect here in Newry, Mourne and Down District Council.”

That is exactly what we like to hear, and goes a long way to exemplifying exactly why Climate Emergency UK and mySociety came together to produce the Scorecards project. 

We are very glad that Councillor Murray was able to use them for furthering climate action in his beautiful corner of Northern Ireland — and we hope councillors everywhere will take inspiration from his method for doing so.

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Image: Shan Marsh Bubashan

It’s so tempting to start each of these with a clichéd “where did the time go?” or “how is it X month already?”, but in this case, it really does feel like 2024 is running away from us! 

January kicked off with Louise, Alex and I heading to the Democracy Network conference, where the theme of climate ran throughout lots of the discussions. If you are also interested in the intersections between climate, democracy and civic tech, you’ll be delighted to know that the call for proposals TICTeC 2024 is out now!

At the start of February, Annie from Climate Emergency UK and I worked on a piece that was published in the LGC, responding to an article from Richard Clewer asking for more emissions data in the Council Climate Action Scorecards. We agreed with Richard that more scoped emissions data would strengthen the scorecards. But, without a statutory reporting framework, that data simply doesn’t exist. We pointed to our fragmented data asks, that I’ve written about in these parts before. Also on our fragmented data work, our joint response with the Centre for Public Data to the Housing & Levelling Up inquiry has been published on the committee’s website. Two great examples of collaborative working to kick off the year!

The big ticket item for the last few months has of course been the Local Intelligence Hub, our joint project with the Climate Coalition, which launched to the public on 15th February! We’ve had such brilliant feedback from the launch, including great coverage in national and local media outlets. Zarino and I have been demonstrating the Hub to anyone who’ll have us (get in touch if you’d like your own demo!) — or watch Zarino’s brilliant short videos on YouTube. Struan and Alexander have been working through the datasets at phenomenal speed, and Myf has been doing wonderful messaging on Twitter and over on LinkedIn.

There are plans afoot to add even more data, so if you’re sitting on datasets that you think would be useful to yourself and others as part of the Hub, let us know! We’re especially interested in data organised by the new constituency boundaries, which I explain in more detail in a blog post about the recent byelections. Zarino made the most of the extra leap year day with several of our friends from the sector, at an event about data and the new constituencies.

Alongside all of the excitement about Local Intelligence Hub, the wheels are starting to turn for the next round of the Climate Action Scorecards. Siôn, Zarino and I have all attended different section-specific roundtables, which have involved brilliant discussions with council officers and industry experts. I’ll be joining the CE UK team at the Scorecards Report Launch & Conference on the 21st: hope to see some of you there! 

Photo by Chandan Chaurasia on Unsplash

Last Thursday saw two by-elections and two new MPs elected. When the Kingswood and Wellingborough voters go to the polls for the upcoming general election, many will be voting for candidates in brand new constituencies, and won’t have the MP they’ve just elected on their ballot paper. What can the Local Intelligence Hub tell us about how these constituencies will change?

The times boundaries, they are a’changing

Both of the constituencies that went to the polls on Thursday are being divided up to form multiple new constituencies at the next general election. The total number of constituencies and MPs (650) isn’t changing, but the boundaries are moving, and there are lots of new (and long) constituency names. In the case of Kingswood, no constituency of that name will exist anymore, instead being replaced by four brand new constituencies. Wellingborough, meanwhile, will be divided into three new constituencies. Let’s dive into the detail 👇

So, who goes where?

At the top of our new constituency pages, you’ll find the candidates that have been announced for that seat, thanks to our friends at The Democracy Club. This isn’t an official data set, it’s crowdsourced by Democracy Club and their wonderful volunteers.

We can see that Kingswood’s new MP, Damian Egan, is standing as the candidate in the new Bristol North East constituency. We also know that just 36% of the constituency’s current population will have the opportunity to vote for him next time round. Here’s how Kingswood will change:

• Bristol North East will cover approximately 36% of this constituency’s population, and 15% of this constituency’s area. 
• Filton and Bradley Stoke will cover approximately 18% of this constituency’s population, and 10% of this constituency’s area.
• North East Somerset and Hanham will cover approximately 45% of this constituency’s population, and 60% of this constituency’s area.
• Thornbury and Yate will cover approximately 1% of this constituency’s population, and 14% of this constituency’s area.

What about Wellingborough? We don’t have as much candidate information, but we do know that Wellingborough will become:

• Daventry, which will cover approximately 4% of this constituency’s population, and 24% of this constituency’s area.
• South Northamptonshire, which will cover approximately 5% of this constituency’s population, and 24% of this constituency’s area.
• Wellingborough and Rushden, which will cover approximately 90% of this constituency’s population, and 51% of this constituency’s area.

What does that mean for our data?

As we explain here, it depends on how the data comes to us in the first place.

Over time, statistics agencies will release more information for future constituencies, which we will be able to import straight into the Local Intelligence Hub. But during the changeover we want to keep as much of the value of datasets for the outgoing constituencies as possible.

What can we say about how these constituencies will change?

For datasets where we have the original data at a very granular level (eg: LSOA or point-based data), we’ve started creating new datasets using future constituencies. We’ve already done that for the Index of Multiple Deprivation dataset, and we’ll let you know as we make more progress on this. 

Where we only have data at the level of current constituencies, we’ve created a process to approximately convert information from current to future constituencies. The big assumption of this method is that, for either people or area, the thing being measured is evenly distributed across that metric. As such, we think it’s fair to say that while the data is fuzzy in comparison between neighbours, overall it will capture trends across wider areas or regions.

You can also dig into the new constituencies data yourself.

Thoughts?

The Local Intelligence Hub is brand new, and we’re still working out how to make it as useful as possible – for old constituencies, and new ones. Please try the hub out for yourself, and let us know how you get on!

Photo by Red Dot on Unsplash

P.S. We’ve also published this on our LinkedIn page – why not connect with us there?

A general election is not far away, so get ready for heated conversations: on your doorstep, on social media and in the news.

If you care about climate, we want you to be able to take part in those conversations with the facts at your fingertips. That’s why this week, we’re launching the Local Intelligence Hub, a powerful tool that provides a wealth of relevant national and local data in one place — and encourages you to combine it in a multitude of ways, to uncover useful new insights.

mySociety worked in collaboration with The Climate Coalition, supported by Green Alliance to develop this site. The aim is to help you — whether you’re a citizen, climate campaigner or part of an organisation — to understand and share the places where there is a strong mandate for environmental action, ensuring commitments to climate and nature are put firmly onto party manifestos. We’ve demoed it in front of organisations who’ve told us it’s a total gamechanger!

But enough words — let’s get straight to the action. Watch these short videos and you’ll immediately grasp the power of the Local Intelligence Hub.

For individuals

“I’m just one person: what difference can I make?” Well, with the Local Intelligence Hub’s data, you can make a lot of difference.

As a first step, put your postcode into the Local Intelligence Hub and find out all about your local area.

You might find some interesting data combinations: for example, what does public support for climate action look like in comparison to data on air pollution in your constituency? How about the measures of poverty against support for cheaper renewable energy?

We hope you’ll use this kind of intel to inform conversations with canvassers or your MP. If you discover something notable, why not write to the newspaper — local or national — or share your findings with your community newsletter, Facebook group etc?

In the run-up to an election public opinion has a lot of power, and all the more so when you can quote the data to prove it.

For campaigning

If you are part of a climate campaign that works nationally, the Local Intelligence Hub shows you at a glance where in the country to concentrate your activity for the most impact.

Play about with the map page, selecting different datasets, and you’ll soon understand the insights they unlock. Every constituency with high support for renewable energy for example; or the constituencies where the MPs have the lowest majorities; or where the population is youngest… the possibilities are practically endless.

If you’re more locally-based, dive into the constituency pages where a massive range of local data allows you to have a full picture of the area:

• Public opinion: How much support is there for climate initiatives such as net zero or renewable energy?
• Place: What factors affect people in the area, such as air pollution, flooding and levels of deprivation?
• Movement: Which climate and environmental groups are active in the area, and what other relevant organisations have a presence?

For each constituency, these three data collections are supplemented by information on the MP’s memberships, voting and activities. Note that you have the choice to see constituencies as they are now, or as they will be after the election when new boundaries come into play.

Once you’ve dipped into the data, you should be able to shape your campaigns to more effectively speak to the right people about the issues that matter to them.

We hope you find the Local Intelligence Hub useful. When you’ve had a chance to try it out, please do let us know how you’re using it!