Recommendation 31

We welcome the work that the Government has done so far to provide a “one stop shop” of information on net zero grants to which local authorities can submit competitive bids. The Government appears to have streamlined the number of competitions for English local authorities somewhat, apparently taking the total from 22 to 18. However, this does not solve the problem of local authorities having to spend time and resource putting together applications that may fail, preventing them from having the visibility they need to plan for the long-term and develop investable projects. Furthermore, place-specific net zero measures have been shown to be more effective than place-agnostic measures. We recommend that the Government move away from competitive grants for net zero projects, and consider allocating some funds on a needs basis, and provide core funding for all councils to take forward climate action across their own services. We also recommend that the Government consider issuing funds for place-specific measures that are less constrained by the nationally set criteria of central-government issued grants.