Here is the interesting, if rather unattractively presented, DECC Business Plan; part of today's government announcement. The much more user-friendly version can be found here.

Quick points to note:

• regarding data the department will publish, it seems that while a GHG inventory will be published detailing source and end-users, there is no mention of the breakdown by local authority area as produced in recent years to support the (now defunct) NI186. Does this mean local authorities will have to produce their own data if they want to monitor performance in this area?
• the department won't be funding any economic development activities previously funded by RDAs.
• communities will be allowed to keep the business rates generated by renewable energy projects (previously announced in the Local Growth White Paper).

In line with the abolition of National Indicators and Local Area Agreements, CLG had already announced a radical reduction in the amount of data that local authorities would be obliged to report to government. While NI186 data has been centrally collected, local authorities have had to supply data on their own emissions for NI185, whether or not it was one of their 'core indicators'. It's worth noting that the CLG milestone J – a 'single data list published of requirements placed on local government by the centre' – is scheduled for April 2012. The user-friendly CLG Business Plan is here, the PDF version can be found here.