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Answer:
Re-open the envelope, add all the documents and then reseal.
Answer:

The HSE has clear guidance on cleaning and risk reduction. Read through it to help you plan out what cleaning needs to be done both before you open and you’re your services are up and running again.

a) Your building may need to be deep cleaned prior to opening.  Consider whether this can be done by staff/volunteers or whether you need to bring in professional cleaners.

b) Encourage all users of your building to follow the guidance on hand washing and hygiene by washing their hands frequently and thoroughly. 

c) Where handwashing is not possible, visitors shoud use alcohol-based hand sanitiser (minimum 60% alcohol content).

d) Provide hand sanitiser around the workplace, particularly at entrances/exits.

e) Enhance cleaning for busy areas, and frequently clean and disinfect objects and surfaces that are touched regularly.

f) Can you ask staff and tenants to help, e.g. cleaning individual workstations before and after use, keeping communal areas clean after each use?

g) Consider leaving internal doors (not fire doors) open throughout the building to improve ventilation and reduce contact with door handles.

h) When meeting people you do not live with, it is important to do so outdoors where possible, or to make sure that any indoor venue has good ventilation (for example by opening windows so that fresh air can enter).

Answer:

Your risk assessment will help you to decide whether you are ready to re-open your building, how your services might need to change, and what you will need to do in order to re-open safely.

a) Where possible, consult with your client group and community to find out what people are likely to need from any re-opened services and how confident they are about coming back to your building.

b) Community facilities following COVID-19 Secure guidance may be exempt from mixing rules if they are hosting people ‘for work, or the provisions of voluntary or charitable services’.  We advise organisations to think carefully about whether they would designate themselves as a service, and wherever possible to follow the above measures to protect the population.

c) Consider how ongoing concern about coronavirus and the restrictions on group sizes and mixing might affect the quality of your services. If the quality and effectiveness of your activities are likely to be reduced, it might be more appropriate to delay reopening and focus on other delivery methods.

d) Consider whether reopening would disadvantage any of the service users – for example, where switching a service from online to in person might leave out those unable to attend. How can any disadvantages be reduced?

e) Consider any additional costs associated with COVID-19 safety measures.  How will these costs be covered?   Keep in touch with funders and commissioners about how delivery may need to change and whether resources can be reprofiled.

f) Before re-opening, secure and set up the equipment you need to support social distancing throughout the building, e.g. screens or dividers to reduce contact, signs and stickers.

g) In planning for re-opening, consider whether you can pool resources with other organisations.  Can you offer space to other projects who are providing support to the community?

Answer:

If you are notified that someone has tested positive for Covid-19 who visited your setting during the infectious period*, contact theLondon Coronavirus Response Cell (LCRC) if you have not already heard from them:

Email:  LCRC@phe.gov.uk or call 0300 303 0450

Please also let Tower Hamlets Council know by emailing: PHCov19@towerhamlets.gov.uk.

LCRC will help you to undertake a risk assessment and tell you what to do next.

As a minimum, once a case is reported you should undertake a deep clean.

*People are infectious 48 hours before, and 10 days after, the onset of symptoms (or the date of their test if they do not have symptoms).

Note

A single case at a setting is classified as a situation, which puts LCRC on alert for any future cases that might be linked to the same place.

When there are two or more linked cases within a setting, this is classified as an outbreak.

If anyone who has been to your workplace reports a positive test, the risk assessment that LCRC will undertake will help them identify any potential close contacts who have also been there. Close contacts will then be contacted to request that they self-isolate and take a test if they develop symptoms.

If any close contact returns a positive test, this would then be classified as an outbreak and trigger additional action.

  1. Nominate a key member of staff to represent your organisation when dealing with a situation or outbreak. They will be the main contact person for the LCRC and/or Tower Hamlets Council.

    If necessary, an outbreak incident management team may be convened, with one of your senior staff invited to attend to help enable joint decision making.  

  2. Have your visitor log ready: LCRC will want to use it for contact tracing.  You will need to work with LCRC to identify who has been in close contact with the positive case.

    A ‘close contact’ is a person who has been close to someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 while they are infectious.

    ​Close contact includes​

    - Household contacts

    - Sexual partners

    - A person who has had face-to-face contact (within one metre), with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, including: being coughed on, having a face-to-face conversation within one metre, having skin-to-skin physical contact, or contact within one metre for one minute or longer without face-to-face contact

    - A person who has been within 2 metres of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes

    - A person who has travelled in a small vehicle with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 or in a large vehicle or plane near someone who has tested positive for COVID-19

     Think about communication with your employees and the community, as advised by LCRC and/or Tower Hamlets Council.

  3. Check that all staff on the premises are symptom-free and have not been told by NHS Test and Trace/LCRC to self-isolate.

  4. If anyone in your team does have symptoms, or has been told to self-isolate, send them home and ask them to follow self-isolation advice/guidance for contacts. Consider what support you can offer them to help with self-isolation.

  5. For large outbreaks, LCRC and Tower Hamlets Council may discuss mass testing of your employees with you.
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.

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