Team formation and scoping
The skills required, organisations that should be engaged and deciding on a geographical scope
ALPHA
Overview
Aim: Establish a core group responsible for completing the work, building external supply chain relationships and tying this work to other work in the area.
Why this is important: To ensure that the work has buy-in across local government and is rooted in the local context and supply chains.
The guidance in this section is based on work Nesta undertook with Plymouth and conversations with local authorities around the UK. The recommendations in this section are based on the kinds of work we undertook and the value we saw in bringing other officers into the process. With this in mind, we have looked to describe core competencies as we’re also aware that job titles vary.
The core competencies mentioned below are based on the kind of activities undertaken in the planning and the work required to ensure a local heat plan reflects the local context, while aligning with other work across the local authority.
Core team
The core team is responsible for owning the data modelling, mapping of technologies and creation of a clean heat plan. They should also ensure to advocate for best practice in communicating the plan to households.
The job descriptions below aim to cover example job titles that have been seen around the UK. To help understand the required skills, we’ve also detailed core responsibilities.
Example job titles
Energy programme manager / LAEP officer (England & Wales)/ LHEES officer (Scotland)/ programme & policy lead – low carbon
Core responsibility
Leading the project team and combining an understanding of the local areas, available data and technological trade-offs.
Example job titles
Local planning officer
Core responsibility
Ensuring the plan ties with other local plans and is compatible with local planning policy.
Example job titles
Economics development officer, skills development lead
Core responsibility
Ensuring that clean heat is considered alongside and complements the aims of the skills and supply chain in the local area.
Example job titles
Net zero delivery officer / housing delivery officer / retrofit coordinator / housing officer
Core responsibility
Developing the plan and bringing together the insights from various perspectives, contributing knowledge of local housing stakeholders, running the consultation and building connections across the local supply chain.
Advisory group
The advisory group should consist of local stakeholders who will represent those involved in the delivery of clean heat. The purpose of this group is to input in the various stages of a plan, ensuring that the local context is represented, that any consideration around local skills are considered and that the plan is rooted in the reality of technical delivery.
We see early signals that bringing these stakeholders into the process early prevents duplication of work, such as multiple rounds of technical feasibility, and presents a natural path to continue into delivery.
Supply chain
Example organisations
Local plumbing merchants, heating engineers, national suppliers and installers
Skills and training
Example organisations
Local colleges, training providers and skills partnerships
Third sector
Example organisations
Local retrofit charities, fuel poverty and energy advice charities
Community groups
Example organisations
Local energy groups, community hubs, community builders, local citizen assemblies
Defining scope
A single ward may be an appropriate size for experimenting with the approach laid out within this guidance and manually mapping technologies at a per-property level. However, when grouping properties, an arbitrary area may result in groups of properties being artificially constrained.
The work in Plymouth suggested that working at a larger scale would give sight of scale while holding onto the detail of the heat transition. Granular planning at this larger scale will rapidly become resource-intensive.
A small area (ie, a ward)
Good for
Testing the approach detailed within this guide, understanding the mechanics and value of this approach for more complex areas.
Challenges
Lack of scale can underestimate the transition. Constraining mapping to a singular area could miss opportunities beyond borders.
A larger area (ie, a local authority area)
Good for
A holistic view across ward boundaries and building a view to scale. Most suitable when using the local heat planning tool being developed by Nesta.
Challenges
Manually mapping a large area will be very resource-intensive and prone to error.
Heat planning tool
Nesta is developing an open-source data tool to handle planning at the local authority level. If you work in local government, contact us to be amongst the first to access it.
Email us at cleanheatneighbourhoods@nesta.org.uk
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