250919 CPP Mgt Cttee Climate Change Strategy Update
Argyll and Bute Council · 19 September 2025
Back to Argyll and Bute Community Planning Partnership - Management Committee — 19 September 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Page 1 of 5 Classification: OFFICIAL Date: 10 September 2025 Update on Argyll and Bute Climate Action: A Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan for Argyll and Bute. 1.0 Purpose The purpose of this report is to provide an update on overall progress with the Community Planning Partnership’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan for Argyll and Bute, and in particular on two points: • Overall Progress and timeline of deliverables • Legacy Proposal: to update the CPP Management Committee on progress with developing a legacy proposal beyond the funded period, shaped by the Scottish Government’s aspirations and funding support for Argyll to develop a Regional Adaptation Partnership. 2.0 Recommendations The CPP Management Committee is asked to: • Note overall progress since the June meeting, with some work on community resilience and legacy/ongoing partnership proposals brought forward and pushing back some work on the Action Plan, and a timeline to July 2026 • Note in particular the significance for ongoing partnership work of the Scottish Government’s aspirations and support for developing an Argyll and Bute Regional Adaptation Partnership and the proposals made to take this forward, including funding for staff and consultant time for governance models and business case development 3.0 Background At its meeting of 6 June, the CPP Management Committee agreed that the project should use remaining funds in the budget to undertake additional work over and above the deliverables in the original funding agreement and that ACT as the employing body could carry forward funds beyond the end of the current financial year to enable this. The preferred model identified was 3 days per week from end October 2025 to mid July 2026. The additional work to comprise:
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Page 2 of 5 Classification: OFFICIAL • Ongoing work with communities to develop community level risk assessments in support of community-led resilience planning. • Monitoring and reporting on the first year of progress, with input on evaluation. • Developing legacy proposals. 4.0 Detail 4.1 Overall progress since June CPP Management Committee meeting: Community Resilience Although work with community groups on resilience is due to start in earnest in November following the end of the original funded period (end October) the project officer has been making contact with a range of community councils and other groups across the four Argyll and Bute Areas in order to develop an understanding of what has been working well and areas on which to concentrate, and of community capacity as this is a concern that has been voiced repeatedly. There is also a desire to ensure engagement before the onset of more severe weather events over autumn and into winter. Area Community Planning Groups and Community Development Officers have been extremely helpful in this regard as has the Council’s Resilience team and the access that it has provided to the Local Resilience Partnership. 4.2 Overall progress since June CPP Management Committee meeting: Action Plan Work on the Action Plan is ongoing and the Management Committee’s in person session on Transport Infrastructure provided a valuable opportunity to bring a strong body of transport expertise and agency under one roof to inform this. The forthcoming Management Committee sessions on Housing (September meeting) and Community Wellbeing (December) offer valuable further opportunities to inform the action plan. Due to this and to starting work on resilience and legacy early, rather than seek to present the Management Committee with the action plan in September, the proposed timeline is • September/October draft action plan to Climate Change Working Group for comment • October action plan to Management Committee for consideration as a draft at December meeting • Thereafter action plan to be published as draft for consultation with final version for approval to Management Committee’s first meeting of 2026.
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Page 3 of 5 Classification: OFFICIAL 4.3 Awards: COSLA Excellence Award, SLE Helping it Happen Award The Council’s community planning team and the project officer collaborated on a submission to COSLA on the climate change strategy for the Improving In Partnership category of the COSLA Excellence Awards 2025. We expect an announcement on whether we have been shortlisted at around the time of the CPP September meeting. The climate change strategy and the CPP’s role is also a key component of the submission made by ACT to Scottish Land & Estates for the “Combatting Climate Change” strand of their Helping it Happen award, and is one of the four finalists in this category with the winner to be announced on 1 October. 4.4 Legacy/Ongoing Partnership Work: Regional Adaptation Partnerships In the same timeframe, the Scottish Government announced, as part of its aspiration for all of Scotland to develop Regional Adaptation Partnerships, support for Argyll and Bute as a distinct region to develop its own Regional Adaptation Partnership, meaning that some work in this field has also been brought forward. Regional Adaptation Partnerships are introduced in the Scottish National Adaptation Plan: “The Scottish Government will drive collaboration on adaptation planning and investment with a broader set of partners, covering all of Scotland’s regions. The Scottish Government will work with local government and a broad range of other partners to establish regional adaptation partnerships and collaborations covering all regions in Scotland by 2029.” In this financial year, the Scottish Government has indicated that it wishes to do this through extra funding for the Climate Action Network Hubs that it funds. For Argyll and Bute this is an offer of £50k to the Argyll and Bute Climate Action Network which has been working closely with the CPP climate change project and is also hosted by ACT. Following discussion with the Council’s Community Planning Team and with endorsement from the CPP Chair, the Scottish Government awarded ABCAN £50k to support: • Climate literacy and resilience training (to be delivered by ABCAN) • Officer time and engagement to develop proposals for governance models and business case (ABCAN and CPP Climate Change Manager) • Consultant support for governance and business case development • Plus in kind support from Verture/Adaptation Scotland This will bring the CPP Climate Change Manager back from 3 days per week to 4 days per week from the beginning of November until the end of the financial year when the governance and business plan development work is due to be completed.
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Page 4 of 5 Classification: OFFICIAL Specific next steps required in order to make progress are • Engage with the CPP’s Climate Change Working Group and others to establish a short life working group in support of RAP development: 5-6 core members, with clear terms of reference, time commitment and defined outputs. This group would steer the RAP development, advise on the business case, and ensure broad consultation. • Ensure GDPR-compliant options for wider group communications. • Engagement with key stakeholders eg “major players” as defined by Scottish Public Bodies Climate Duties such as Argyll and Bute Council/Climate Change Working Group. • Communications exercise to announce the RAP project, invite wider engagement with the short-life working group. Need for transparency, inclusivity, and regular updates to stakeholders and community. • Procurement exercise for a consultant for the business case for the RAP. Working group to help define the scope, priorities, and governance options for the RAP, drawing on lessons from other regions and local experience. 4.4 Timeline for existing deliverables 2025 and new deliverables 2025-26
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Page 5 of 5 Classification: OFFICIAL 5.0 Resource Implications Funding is in place for the CPP Project Manager until mid July 2026: this is at 4 days per week (one day of which funded by Scottish Government) until end March 2026 to support further work on the action plan, community resilience and business case development, then 3 days per week until mid July 2026 to support community resilience, monitoring and reporting. The Management Committee has previously asked for an indication of what future financial contribution CPP partners might make. This will be informed as the Business Case progresses. The initial suggestion has been that this should be sufficient to fund a post at a similar level to the Climate Change Project Manger but with the person specification shaped by the requirements of taking forward agreed actions, over a period of five years in order to provide a substantial block of time to embed change. This is broadly similar to other RAPs although these can be on a higher salary scale £34,000-£47,000. This does not include resource implications for specific actions on the assumption that these will need to be through individual funding applications. Role of host organisation: ACT at present hosts both the CPP Climate Change Manager and the Argyll & Bute Climate Action Network. The identity and role of the ultimate hosting organisation will need to be determined by the governance study, and governance models for the longer established RAPs have typically changed over time according to need. Andy Macpherson, Climate Change Project Manager For more information, please contact: Andy Macpherson andy@act-now.org.uk