In the last week or so, we have seen the publication of two government documents vital for the future of local government and – if I may be dramatic – our future prosperity as a species.

My take on both the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan and John Denham’s Strengthening Local Democracy Consultation is that they see an important role for local government in a technical capacity, but little expectation of a truly strategic, placeshaping role. There is, though, a chink of light.

No-one can dispute that local government is a vital part of the delivery mechanism for creating low carbon communities as part of a low carbon UK. But should there be a more strategic role for local authorities and partnerships as well?

With any set of initiatives, it pays to ask where the leadership is going to come from, and who is going to be accountable. And I am concerned that we risk applying a classic centralist approach to going low carbon, which wouldn’t make the most of what local government can offer.

Let’s take this back to basics. The Climate Change Act – a groundbreaking piece of legislation - commits the UK to an 80% emissions reduction by 2050, and interim reductions on the way. Two things are worth stressing. First, this applies to all the emissions created by UK activity; not just the activity of the public sector. Second, these are not simply targets: they are budgets on which we cannot overspend.

The Transition Plan maps out how this is going to work. Every government department now has a carbon budget sitting alongside their financial budget. So all the UK's emissions are now deemed to be the responsibility of one department or other. As it stands, none of the accountability for reducing the UK’s emissions – that is, keeping to our steadily reducing UK carbon budget – rests with local government.

Which brings me to the chink of light I mentioned. I’m delighted that Strengthening Local Democracy tentatively raises the prospects of local carbon budgets, and asks what role local government could have in meeting carbon budgets.

Let’s hope that we are able to develop some firm ideas on how this could work. As things stand, there is little discussion about carbon budgets in local government circles. At least in part, this must be because the concept is a new one. We are used to targets, which assess our progress towards a policy goal. But when the policy IS the target … well, that takes some getting used to. As does the idea of operating carbon budgets alongside financial budgets, though this concept is starting to be accepted, thanks to the Carbon Reduction Commitment, at least in respect of local authority operations.

I think we need to do this. Carbon budgets are the backbone of the Climate Change Act. They will change the way that decisions are made. And I’m sure that local authorities should be at the heart of these decisions, not simply implementing the policies that result from them.

I’ll blog soon with some more detail and some ideas going forward.