Home FAQs
SECTION MENU

FAQ

FAQsRSS FeedAtom Feed

Answer:

Data Controller and Purpose

The information you provide will be used by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ communications service to process your personal data in order to send you information about the council and its services. The information may be sent via email or text message.

The service is provided jointly with Granicus under the council’s instruction and Tower Hamlets Council is the data controller. View their privacy policy.

We have personal data from you, which may include your name, age, address and contact details and. We will use this to provide you with the latest council news, as well as offers and competitions and other information about what is happening in the borough, in accordance with your expressed preferences.

We process your data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If you have any concerns the council’s data protection officer can be contacted on DPO@towerhamlets.gov.uk.

Condition For processing personal data

With your consent, it is necessary for us to process your personal data, which may include your name, address, contact details, under the GDPR. 

A delay in you providing the information requested may result in a delay in providing appropriate services. 

How long do we keep your information?

We will only hold your information for as long as you subscribe to our services. You can unsubscribe at any time.

We may also anonymise some personal data you provide to us to ensure that you cannot be identified and use this for statistical analysis of data to allow the council to effectively target and plan the provision of services.

Information sharing

Your data will be shared with Granicus, in order to send you the information you have chosen to receive. We will never share it with any other organisation.

The council has a duty to protect public funds and may use personal information and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. Information may be shared with internal services and external bodies like the Audit Commission, Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police. This activity is carried out under social protection law. 

We have a duty to improve the health of the population we serve. To help with this, we use data and information from a range of sources including hospitals to understand more about the nature and causes of disease and ill-health in the area. This data would normally be anonymised and never used to make decisions on a specific individual or family. 

Data Transfer to non EEA territory

We will not transfer your data outside of the EEA.

Automated decision making and profiling

No automated decision making or profiling will be carried out using your data.

Your rights

You can find out more about your rights on our Data Protection page and this includes details of your rights about automated decisions, such as the ranking of Housing Applications, and how to complain to the Information Commissioner. 

Answer:

Funding is one of the big barriers to completing actions. The council has a grants programme to support Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) make environmental changes that they can’t afford to carry out.

This programme provides 50 per cent grants up to £10,000 to SMEs who want to install heat pumps or renewables and 50 per cent grants up to £5,000 for all other energy efficiency projects.

This programme has been running since 2018 and has been successful in awarding all its available funding to SMEs. 

Summary

  • The council is committed to providing support to businesses and organisations to respond to the climate emergency
  • Council delivering the third phase of t support for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) to deliver energy efficiency measures and reduce operating costs. 
Answer:

The council’s calculated emissions do not include the whole supply chain due to the complexity of calculating this. However, we are very aware that we are responsible for emissions throughout the supply chain.

To tackle this our Procurement Team is developing a Sustainability Matrix to be used when procuring goods and services to ensure sustainability and climate change is considered throughout council processes.

Through embedding climate change considerations into the procurement process the Council will be encouraging, influencing, and rewarding businesses for climate action. This will also reduce emissions in our supply chain.

Summary

  • The council reports carbon emissions in accordance with the Government BEIS/DEFRA Environmental Reporting Guidelines
  • Reporting currently covers energy use and fuel consumption for buildings and transport
  • developing sustainability matrix for all procurement processes to embed climate change considerations into procurement process the council will be encouraging, influencing, and rewarding businesses for climate action
  • investigating how to accurately report whole life cycle of services, products, and processes into future reporting.
Answer:
As part of bringing the waste, recycling, and street cleansing service "In-House" from April 2020, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH) needed to replace vehicles previously supplied and operated by our contractor Veolia. 
Most of the old Veolia fleet was aged and non-compliant with the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).  Only diesel vehicles with a Euro 6 low emission engine standard, Euro 4 petrol engine or electric vehicles, can enter the ULEZ area without being subject to an additional charge. 
We allocated £10 million in capital funds to procure most of these vehicles. We spent approximately £9 million on larger cleaner diesel waste, recycling, and cleansing vehicles, all of which meet the current Euro 6 reduced emission standard.  
Whilst the council plans to increase the use of electric powered vehicles, at the time we needed to deliver a fleet that could operate efficiently and costs effectively. The lack of widespread charging infrastructure, the need to maintain essential waste services, high cost and short operating range of large electric waste and cleansing vehicles did not make this possible. 
The remainder of our fleet have been replaced on short term leases to enable us to introduce electric cars, vans, and some larger vehicles. This will happen when we have installed the required electric charging infrastructure and suitable vehicle can be supplied.
Further trials and early introduction of electric and electric / hybrid vans and cars is a priority in 2020/21. In addition, we are reviewing options and monitoring vehicle technology developments to plan for wider introduction of clean fueled vehicles in 2023.
Answer:

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

There are ongoing discussions on green washing but to a certain degree LBTH are bound by local authority procurement regulations. However, this has been highlighted across the utility sector and changes are being implemented to ensure all green supplies are transparent.
LBTH are looking at CPPA’s (Corporate Power Purchase Agreements) for future supply.

Canary Wharf Group

Canary Wharf Group (CWG) have been procuring renewable electricity backed by industry accepted Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin certificates (REGOs) since 2012.

In addition, CWG are a member of RE100 which promotes the use of renewable forms of electricity. In 2020, CWG published long term science-based targets which recognises this form of electricity procurement.

However CWG are, like the rest of society, continually looking to achieve best practice and in conjunction with ongoing supplier performance reviews and long term procurement cycles, CWG can confirm that Corporate Power Purchase Agreements are a part of the CWG long term energy purchasing plans of the Estate.

Without doubt credible REGOs have been a helpful ‘stepping stone’ to enable many consumers to make the transition from brown energy procurement.

Summary

Renewable energy purchase - The council is continually looking to achieve best practice and ensure transparency through emission reporting and energy purchase. LBTH are looking at CPPA’s (Corporate Power Purchase Agreements) for future supply.

Answer:

We don’t have previous experience of this. However, it is something we are keen to look at and develop. Although there will be an increased cost to getting to net zero the benefits of this will outweigh the financial costs to ensure we are addressing the climate emergency.

Summary

Delivering a net zero carbon borough has many challenges. In some instances there could be an increased cost to getting to net zero, however the benefits of this will outweigh the financial costs to ensure we are addressing the climate emergency through minimising future retrofit costs and mitigating against financial and social costs associated with climate change.

Answer:

We are engaging with one Tenants and Residents Association (TRA) and the work they are doing on promoting renewable energy amongst residents on that estate. We are always open to providing support to TRAs on climate related work.

 

Answer:

Q7. Will the council commit to opposing national infrastructure projects like the silvertown tunnel. There is evidence that these projects increase traffic rather than reducing it. How can the council support green renewable projects while expressing support for projects that will increase emissions and pollution in the borough?

Q8 Part of the council strategy is a reduction in HGV emissions. How will support for the Silvertown Tunnel help to achieve this?

Silver Town Tunnel

Assessment of traffic impacts by TfL suggest that the scheme (compared with no implementing) will reduce CO2 emissions in 2021 (projected scheme opening at time of submission) but will increase them by 2036.

Throughout the Development Consent Order process, the Council offered ‘in principle’ support for the scheme recognising the potential benefits to substantially reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality in an area with sharp exceedances of NO2 legal limits.

Support was, amongst other matters contingent upon the forecast air quality improvements being fully secured and any possible adverse impacts upon air quality fully mitigated.

Any increase in GHG emissions from the scheme does not change the targets set to the borough via the Mayor Transport Strategy to reduce carbon emissions from transport sources in the borough by 72 per cent by 2041 (from 2013 baseline).

Find out more on the Project details. In here you will find details of LBTH representations to the Planning Inspectorate setting out our position throughout the Examination in Public.

Answer:

We already have a portal for residents to identify sites for housing, this could be used to identify land for community spaces.

Answer:

You will need to conduct a risk assessment for your work setting (i.e., the place where you base your team and/or where you run activities for the public) in line with government guidance.

The Health and Safety Executive has advice on how to do this including a template risk assessment to fill in.

  1. Make sure the right people are involved in the risk assessment process, e.g. board/trustees, senior team, staff, volunteers, services and building users.

  2. The risk assessment should help you to compare the risks of staying closed vs. opening. If you decide to re-open your building and/or start running activities in person again, you should consider which activities are essential and which need to stay suspended.

  3. Check the restrictions and exceptions carefully and take them into account in your risk assessment and decision making.

  4. Your assessment should consider the risk of people mixing or being unable to maintain social distancing. Under the High alert level groups can gather outside in groups no greater than 6 in adherence to social distancing rules. However, activities where there is a significant likelihood of groups of six interacting, and therefore breaking the law, should not take place.

  5. Check if any changes you make will impact on your insurance cover.  You may need to contact your insurers to discuss this.

  6.  A fire risk assessment should be undertaken if your building or space is repurposed, for example when there is any change in the way you use the space or to exit arrangements.

  7. Where possible, share your risk assessments with any other tenants in your building.  Make sure the risk assessment is communicated to all of your own team and to other building users.
Displaying 281 to 290 of 682
Previous … 27 28 29 30 31 … Next