Milton Keynes Council has around 70 primary schools in its area. As a part of its communication work around energy certificates and energy efficiency in public buildings it held workshops during the EU Energy Awareness Week for school caretakers. The intention was to raise awareness of the various ways of both ensuring energy use in the school was recorded accurately for budgetary purposes, and of reducing the use of energy. This results in both financial savings to the schools, energy and carbon dioxide savings. There are also often improvements in environmental conditions i.e. lack of overheating in summer. Most schools have both electricity and gas use, while some also use heating oil.

All the schools were invited to attend the event, and 25 caretakers from 24 schools attended. The sessions were of two hours duration, and topics covered were ;

 Reading the meters,
 Checking heating / cooling periods,
 Making sure the system controls were set correctly
 Fitting more energy efficient heating, lighting and IT equipment
 Reducing stand-by energy use
 Opportunities for installation of renewable energy systems

Help was also given with how to fund the capital measures and the renewables loans and grants. Feedback from the event was very positive and it is hoped that these workshops will result in ongoing cost savings. There are plans to extend the workshops to other building users before the end of 2010.