Our News

Image credit: Pexels

In June, the UK Government’s Spending Review confirmed multi-year funding for councils, alongside investment in energy efficiency, clean energy and sustainable transport. But with budgets still tight, local councils must align their teams with these ambitions to deliver real impact.

What is the Spending Review? 

The Spending Review, published in June 2025, sets out the UK Government’s day-to-day spending over the next few years within the public sector, including investment in health, education, social care, transport and energy. Outlining where resources are most needed and how to plan for the future, local authorities play a vital role in delivering essential services using these allocated funds. With over £20 billion committed to creating more sustainable energy, transport, and homes, how can local authorities ensure they deliver on these ambitions?

Key highlights from the Spending Review 2025

Here are the headlines for how much has been allocated in key areas for sustainability and the targets to be met.

• Warm Homes Plan – £13.2 billion between 2025-26 and 2029-30 for the Warm Homes Plan, helping to upgrade homes to be more energy efficient by installing heat pumps, solar panels and battery storage.
• Sustainable Transport – £2.6 billion investment to decarbonise transport from 2026 – 2027 to 2029 – 2030. This includes building and maintaining cycle and walking infrastructure, supporting uptake of electric vehicles, including vans and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), and funding local public transport.
• Resilience – £4.2 billion over 3 years to build and maintain flood defences, protecting communities across England from the dangers of flooding. Plus £2.7 billion a year in sustainable farming and nature recovery.
• Clean Energy – £300 million to support Offshore Wind supply chains, including £80 million to support floating offshore wind deployment in Port Talbot.

How can local authorities achieve these targets? 

Carbon Literacy training can help empower councils to meet the Spending Review targets.

A recent poll conducted by the Energy Saving Trust found 22% of people felt Carbon Literacy was needed to help deliver on what the spending review sets out around energy and transport. ‘Carbon Literacy basics’ were deemed as important as funding and financial know-how.

From planning to procurement and housing to waste, Carbon Literacy equips council staff with the knowledge and tools to deliver on these goals. Carbon Literacy training helps learners across local authorities to understand what climate change is, what influence local authorities have and gives them the confidence to create real climate action.

Knowledge about a council’s plans and initiatives

Learners across a council gain in-depth knowledge about their local authority’s climate plan and how they’re delivering on this. The Spending Review will help drive new initiatives and create much needed grants and funds to create climate ambition and action. Through Carbon Literacy, employees become better informed and confident to deliver this to the local businesses and residents they support.

Understanding their own influence

Carbon Literacy helps learners gain a stronger understanding of what impact they can have within their job role. Every person in every role within a local authority has the potential to create real change. Whether that’s a senior leader embedding climate policy within their directorate, a social worker supporting vulnerable people towards a just transition, or a councillor investing in green skills and training, Carbon Literacy gives all staff the confidence for climate action to be at the root of their role, creating a more sustainable workforce and community.

Builds stronger relationships

Local authorities of all sizes can struggle, at times, with collaborative working. Carbon Literacy brings those at every corner of the organisation together to participate in something positive and can help create strong relationships across teams. Delivering on what the spending review sets out involves effective collaborative working. Wirral Borough Council, one of our CLAD Catalyst Award Winners in 2024, trained 200 of their workforce as part of the Carbon Literacy Action Day! Officers from pest control, highways, libraries and adult social care all came together to participate, which led to great discussions and built stronger relationships.

Clearer conversations

The Local Authorities Carbon Literacy course helps learners understand how to communicate about climate change with colleagues, residents and businesses they work with. Creating positive and clear messages and highlighting the co-benefits of Net Zero initiatives play a key part in the successful delivery of a more sustainable future. Buy-in from local residents is instrumental for the successful delivery of the actions outlined in the Spending Review.

Helps turn goals into action

Learners don’t just gain the knowledge to create action; they commit to this as part of their training. Each learner creates an individual and group pledge, ensuring positive changes happen throughout the council. To deliver on the Spending Review, new ways of working, where climate action is embedded within every role, are needed. Read below from council employees that have made that commitment –

“I personally am currently involved in 2 planning applications for large scale housing developments. Currently our planning policies do not have a strong requirement for developers to design in renewable energy sources for housing other than the need to install EV charging for cars. I am going to commit to encouraging and negotiating with the developers on both of these schemes to go above and beyond and provide renewable energy sources for these developments.”

“I will be introducing a new method of procurement for the vehicles within the council Fleet, which will include a programme for decarbonising all vehicles that we procure on lease or buy outright. The framework for procurement will include only suppliers who are able to provide either an Electric or Hybrid vehicle for those specific vehicles we are wishing to procure for the council fleet. The new framework should be in place in 6 months’ time and will allow all the tendering to be put through this. I have put a hold on all new tenders for vehicles until this has been implemented, so that all vehicles will be now electric or hybrid. This will include cars, vans, min-buses, and specific commercial vehicles for other services within the council.”

“In the coming year, I will work with my colleagues to implement a scheme to allocate bicycles from Recycling centres to children who could otherwise not afford them. We aim to co-ordinate this with schools who provide cycling proficiency encouraging children to cycle more (hopefully causing a Mindshift at a young age).”

For councils to meet the expectations of the Spending Review, upskilling employees plays a vital role. Carbon Literacy can act as a catalyst for action within any local authority. So, is your council ready to create a Carbon Literate workforce? Find out more about our training resources for the Local Authorities Sector here or get in touch – [email protected].