Public bodies have a key contribution to make in helping Scotland reduce emissions and build its resilience to a changing climate, and several have published their own climate change action plans. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act places duties on public bodies relating to climate change.
As part of the Scottish Government's work to achieve a Greener Scotland, and meet the highest standards in terms of its own environmental performance, Sir John Elvidge, the previous Permanent Secretary, established a High Level Group to provide leadership on environmental performance across the public sector.
Two separate but complementary High Level Groups have been established: an Internal Group to look specifically at the environmental performance of the Scottish Government itself, and an External Group to look at the public sector as a whole. The overall remit of both groups is to examine environmental performance across the Scottish public sector and put in place appropriate actions and measures to ensure it leads by example on environmental performance.
Through Scotland's Climate Change Declaration, all of Scotland's local authorities have committed themselves to take action, in partnership with the Scottish Government, on climate change. All 32 Local Authorities have also been through the Carbon Trust's Carbon Management Programme. The Scottish Government funds the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) to provide assistance to local authorities taking forward their Declaration commitments. The Declaration has been in place since January 2007 and annual statements of progress are available online. The Scottish Government is a member of the Climate Change Officer Support Group, chaired by COSLA, which supports COSLA's Elected Member Climate Change Task Group in developing and reviewing the local government climate change response.
The Scottish Government has also entered into Single Outcome Agreements with each local authority and their community planning partners, including many measures to tackle climate change at the local level. Guidance for Public Bodies has been produced to ensure that they too are aligned with the National Performance Framework, with a specific requirement to contribute to the National Outcome on reducing the local and global environmental impact of our consumption and production.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency ( SEPA), Scottish Natural Heritage ( SNH), Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) and Historic Scotland are government bodies with responsibilities for different aspects of Scotland's environment and heritage. They have published a joint 'Action on Climate Change' statement, outlining their respective roles in taking forward action on climate change.