Could you please help me understand this STC invoice?

Today I’m going to start unusually with a request. Dear reader- could you help me understand the STC invoice for heating? I present it below. First, you will see the bill without any comment from me- as I received it after sending an FOI (Freedom of Information) request to STC. Please look at this invoice and try to see what I found strange enough to raise it at STC full council meeting on 20 of April 2022.

I will now present a few paragraphs of text to separate the two images and give you time to think. Then, finally, I will show the bill again, pointing out the places that caught my attention. I wonder if you have noticed everything that is puzzling in this invoice, but even if you have managed to see what I see, I still have to warn you. What you see on this bill is just the tip of the iceberg I will describe in this article.

ICEBERG IS… HOT! HOT! HOT!
We will climb this iceberg together, my dear reader, to see the astonishing landscape of hidden facts, understatements, astonishing sums, the mysterious deal with AMP Clean Energy Ltd and the total ignorance of Labour Party councillors on this issue.

As is usually the case with icebergs – what is on the surface is a small part of the truth. The time will come for us to dive beneath the surface of the icy water to assess together the true size of this mountain. But, in the meantime, I would like you to look at just the top of this hot iceberg.

HEATING BILL- USUALLY SIMPLE
Heating bills are usually straightforward and easy to understand. I’m not the sharpest tool in the drawer, but I understand my household bills without a problem. I assume you too. However, when I came across the bills for Leisure Centre heating, it made me dumbfounded. Time to look at the above bill again. Here is what caught my eye:

These bills are so unclear to me that I have to admit outright – I do not understand them. Maybe you can help me decipher how much and for what we as taxpayers are paying? To understand what this situation is all about, I asked it directly at the STC meeting. The answer? According to Labour Party councillors and Town Clerk- everything is fine.

What do I see? No opening meter reading, no closing meter reading, no serial number of meter, the unclear volume of delivery and wrong maths in the calculation of money owed. You know- only key details.

LET’S DIVE IN UNDERWATER!
I will stipulate in advance – I am not accusing anyone of anything, I am not insinuating anything, and I do not want to suggest anything. I just want to point out that AMP Ltd’s heating bills are incomprehensible, and I can’t deduce whether the taxpayer is getting a good deal from them. So, for the first time in the history of our town, I am giving residents the opportunity to see these bills and ask that everyone draw their own conclusions.

Some of the screenshot you will see are out of this world. Prepare for it!

IT’S COMPLICATED!
The issue of LC heating bills is not as simple as it looks. Firstly, the LC is heated with “wood pellets” using a special heating system. From what I understand – many years ago, STC signed an agreement with a private company, on the basis of which this company installed the system, and STC undertook to buy pellets only from this company. Unfortunately, the installation was probably done before I arrived in town, as I don’t recall residents being informed about any of the details of this agreement.

On the face of it, this agreement does not sound like a good deal – being tied to a single supplier raises concerns that prices for pellets may be inflated. Therefore, I will make a separate Freedom of Information request. I would like to know how much STC paid for the system and how long they have committed to buying pellets from one supplier.

The bill does not help allay my fears that this deal is not beneficial. First, we are supposedly paying for 3kWh, but this amount of energy is tiny. There is no way that you can heat your home with 3kWh, let alone a building like LC. According to information on the internet, you can get up to 4,800kWh from a tonne of pellets. According to the bill, we are paying £190 per 1kWh! That is an insane price. Finally: when you multiply the quantity by the price, the total does not add up.

AMP has created a special kind of mathematics for STC. The result is different from what any calculator in the real world will show you. What’s more – after a quick search on the internet, you can easily see that the price for 1kWh of energy obtained from pellets varies from 5p to 9p. So I can say with 100% certainty that the “quantity” on this bill is undoubtedly not kWh.

The average price per kWh of electricity in the UK is 19p. How much is it in Shirebrook Leisure Centre? I have no idea. Labour councillors have no idea. STC civil servants have no idea. Residents have no idea. LC workers? I don’t know- I was forbidden to talk to them. Yup! You read this right! I CAN’T ask even one question without the “supervision” of Labour Party operators. Democracy! Scrutiny! Labour style!

Unlike residential customers, STC does not pay a fixed rate, which is an average annual heating cost. In the words of the Town Clerk- when the supply of pellets falls below a certain level, the computer sends a message to the supplier. The supplier delivers the pellets, replenishes the stock to the required level, and then issues an invoice. So we have a top-up system.

WHY NO ONE ASKS THE QUESTIONS?
Since I have been on STC, no one but me has asked about the cost of heating LC. However, I was the first councillor to notice from the cash book that we pay almost the same in January as in July, which piqued my curiosity. That is why I asked for a copy of the pellets bill and why I am probably the first councillor to notice some anomalies. Since Labour councillors ignored my concerns and signals, I decided that I would inform residents and S247 readers. What else can I do?

The most shocking thing is that of all the councillors at the last STC meeting, only ONE Labour councillor asked me to show him the bill I brought to the meeting. It was the first time he had ever seen it. No one else was interested in it. That is the level of Labour Party councillor’s ignorance. I heard that ignorance is bliss, but come on! Look at it! It cost you nothing! I printed it on my home printer! Just for you to see!

I emphasise: I am not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just saying that certain things have been ignored in the STC when they should be looked at carefully so that the taxpayer doesn’t lose money on it. Maybe this deal is super beneficial. But to me, at first glance, it looks…. bad. Unless that’s just my impression. I’m extremely curious what readers think of this bill.

LOOK AT IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
I have reviewed the bills I received from STC in response to my FOI request three times and then one more time when creating a spreadsheet. The first time superficially after receiving them. The second time more thoroughly before the STC meeting. When I returned from the STC meeting, I decided to look at them again in more detail. Why? Because it was only when I got home that I realised I had asked the wrong question. 

Don’t get me wrong- the question I asked didn’t receive any answer, but while I was trying to pique the interest of other councillors that there are no meter readings on the bill- something else skipped my attention.

I still don’t understand why, being a councillor, I have to use FOI to find out anything about how STC works, but that’s a topic for another article. Anyway – what I didn’t see at first glance struck me like a ton of bricks when I threw all the data into a spreadsheet after I got home. I’ll present that data a bit below in the text.

NOT ENOUGH DATA POINTS
On this point, I must stress that I have too little information to draw far-reaching conclusions. My first FOI request only covered the last two years because in drawing it up, I thought I should only be interested in the period during which I acted as a councillor candidate and as a councillor. But now I think I need to look further back. The data I have only goes back to January 2020. That year was marked by pandemics, lockdowns and people’s general fear of getting together in larger groups, so I suspect it is fair to presume that energy consumption in LC was severely reduced.

ANALYSE THIS! 2020- YEAR OF LOCKDOWNS
Before I start analysing the bills I have in hand, as usual, I need to draw the background. So let us start with the bills. Please, reader- retake a good look at them and say honestly: do you understand how much and what you paid for? Does it not seem that something is not right in this bill? Would you like to receive such a heating bill at home? The invoice with wrong calculation, no meter reading, no explanation of what you are paying for? I would be furious if my supplier treated me that way.

BIG PICTURE… OF BIG ICEBERG
I would now like us to look at the bigger picture. Below is a summary of all the bills in 2020 and then a quick analysis of what happened, in my opinion.

JANUARY 2020
After the New Year – gyms are besieged by people with a solid and usually short-lived determination to get back in shape and lose weight. News from China does not yet reach the MSM. However, alternative news media start to inform about something weird going on in China at the end of December. I even sent my brother links to the first articles reporting about a strange disease in China, thinking that it was the return of MERS or SARS. At that time, I felt that the communists in China were creating a potent newsworthy event to divert the world’s attention from what was then happening in Hong Kong. Do you remember what happened there shortly before the explosion of the pandemic? Hardly anyone remembers today… The Communists succeeded in distracting attention from human rights violations and the destruction of democracy in Hong Kong. Anyway- let’s go back to the subject.

The season in the LC is in full swing! The heating bill? 1238 – for what? If you have analysed the picture of the bill above, you know that it is for… 5.43 kWh(?!?) Again- I think this number has nothing to do with kWh. I’ll be honest – I don’t know what this number means. Tonnes? Kilograms? Pallets? Sausages? Some special unit of measurement used only by AMP? I don’t know. Do you?

How can I judge the cost-effectiveness of a heating system when I do not know what the bill is for? Until I find out what this mysterious number means, I will only focus on the invoice amount.

MARCH 2020
The first lockdown. Since then, the country has been slowing down at an alarming rate. Heating bill? 3,228.48!!! Hmmm… something’s not right here. All locked up, people at home, and we pay not one but three bills in one month totalling well over three thousand pounds! For heating! When no one is using the LC! When we know, we are sure that no one will enter the LC for several weeks, maybe months! What the hell is going on here?!?

FOLLOWING MONTHS
Everything closed. People at home. Temperatures are rising, so people use less heating in homes and businesses. Despite this, the Leisure Centre still receives a regular supply of pellets. You would think that a huge delivery in March should satisfy the demand for some considerable time. But, no! Deliveries to the closed LC are coming in month after month. Heating bills? 1000 in April, 2500(!) in May, 1380 June.

WARMEST MONTH OF THE YEAR
Here we arrive at the warmest month of the year- July! Every company, every individual consumer does not turn on the heating even for a moment. The cost of heating in LC? 1055! Look at the invoice below and note that there is no explanation of the quantity on this bill. Neither kWh, nor bags, nor tonnes, nor dwarves in pointy hats. Just 4.63.

Call me a fan of conspiracy theories, but isn’t it probably possible that skipping entering the meter reading helps to hide actual consumption? Of course, allegedly, it is possible. After all, you can write anything on the invoice without a meter reading. No one will be able to analyse it later and compare the consumption year on year or to other systems of this kind. You can put 2.50 of something into the system and the rest into your pocket, and nobody will notice because it’s impossible to check how much energy has been used. Very handy. Allegedly. Wink wink.

I am not saying that someone is stealing pellets. I am not saying that the company supplying the pellets is cheating us. I am saying the same thing I have been saying for a long time- STC does not care about transparency and does not control spending. The bill comes, the STC pays without a second thought, the councillors ask nothing, check nothing, question nothing.

THE ONE! THE ONLY! REAL BILL!
Maybe LC does not have a meter? Ah, this theory doesn’t hold water because, among dozens of bills lacking this crucial information, I found one with a meter reading! ONE! The only one! The chosen one! A bill where someone made a mistake and showed me that you can. You can enter the meter reading! I received this bill along with all my other FOI requested STC bills.

This bill is also amazing for another reason- did you notice that it is not addressed to STC? Yup! STC got someone else bill, and it’s included in STC documentation. I hope it was sorted out later, but this bill proves that it is possible to have a meter reading on the AMP bill. Some APM customer gets a bill from which you can deduce everything, but STC gets what it gets, and NO ONE asks questions. No! Wait! There is one pesky councillor who pays attention to details.

This bill tells us more than just a fact that AMP can include meter readings. This customer used 47,787 kWh. Looks like they paid 0.064 for each of them. AMP charged them 3,039.25 for that. But when I put those numbers into the calculator I got 3,058.36! Looks like AMP have some problem with maths. Regardless- it tells us the probable cost of kWh. If we pay the same price- this deal is not that bad (unless we overpaid for a heating system installation).

STC appears to receive a bill of someone in Inverness… Did we pay for it? I don’t think so- STC got a “Credit note” the same day, but for a completely different amount. I don’t know what this is all about! Meanwhile, Labour Party councillors don’t even want to look at ONE bill, let alone analyse all of them like me… eh, never mind. To be fair and honest, I have to add the name of one Labour councillor who actually asked me to show him the bill. It was Cllr Dale Smith.

I tried to show my printed bill to another councillor who sat at my right hand- he didn’t want to look at it. And I silly printed two copies to spread out. The paper well wasted…

YOUR HOME HEATING BILL
When you look at your home heating bill, you should see some essential data right away. For example, my bill tells me the meter reading and compares the reading with the previous year, tells me exactly how much energy I used during the billing period, the price per kWh, and many other things.

I’ll brag- I used 30% less gas in 2021 than in 2020. How did I get those savings? The mild winter helped, but I also replaced the front door to the house and put new seals in the windows. So two expenses are now slowly paying off in reduced heating bills. That’s what STC should do – councillors should look at every bill and wonder: can anything be done to pay less.

Nobody in STC is doing that. I’m trying, but as I’ve written many times: Labour can’t let me get any win because people would think we need to try something new in STC and would vote for new faces in the May 2023 elections.

YOU PAY TWO HEATING BILLS- FOR YOUR HOME AND YOUR TOWN
All I can do is show that things can be different with the hope that in 2023 people will finally go to vote, and Shirebrook won’t be in last place in voter participation (yeah- we were dead last in the last local election). I hope that if residents have a choice- they will go to show Labour that they want a change. No matter if it will be Shirebrook Together, Independents or Conservatives- I’m sure that with new people, three multiplied by 190 will always equal 570, not 640 as under Labour rule. Who made this calculation? Diane Abbot?

IT’S ALL GOOD. MOVE ON!
Of course, Labour councillors ignored my questions. Everything is fine according to them. Those who try to tell me that heating in July costs practically the same as in January are treating me like an idiot – I didn’t elaborate on this in the article. Still, if you scroll up and look at the 2020 spreadsheet, you will also see this curiosity. I asked this question repeatedly. No answer. Anyway- 2020 is nothing. Wait to see 2021.

I have to ask: is someone trying to hide something here? If so, the question is – what? Lack of control? Mismanagement? A dishonest supplier? An unfavourable contract? The fact that no one has thought about it a second time since this contract was signed, wondering if anything can be improved? 

What do Labour councillors see when they look at a bill that doesn’t tell you the meter reading and doesn’t explain the volume of delivered goods? I see incompetence, total disregard for my legitimate concerns and a lack of leadership.

It is also possible that I am wrong. It’s also possible that STC signed such a good deal that Donald Trump would envy us. How can I prove it if we don’t know what we’re paying for?

MATH IS TOUGH!
I found another curiosity in bills from 2021. In August and November, we received three deliveries of… 3. Yet, the end price was different each time, even though that unit price was still 190. What the hell is going on here? Same in December- two deliveries, same quantity, completely different overall price. How? Why? I see that decimal numbers have been removed from the invoices – but that only raises more questions.

DO YOU HEAT YOUR HOME IN JULY?
No. You do not use the heating in July. No normal person does. You must be rich as hell or have a cash cow in the form of the taxpayer to spend practically the same amount on heating and hot water in July as in January.

However, in 2021 at our Leisure Centre, the heating cost was 3,562. In July! In the same year, in January, the cost was…. 2,000 despite LC having received a delivery for 1,000 the month before. So yeah- I asked the wrong question. I should ask why the July heating bill is so much higher than in January.

MATH IS TOUGH PART 2!
This is a black comedy. Look at another bill below. AMP is creating new maths! STC is paying for it. I bet this zero delivered was prime quality!

WHAT NOW?
I will make an additional FOI request for access to all invoices since this mysterious agreement with AMP was signed. I will also ask for the opportunity to analyse this contract. This will allow us to compare spending in all years publicly. I will also do something else – I will request the leader of the Operations Committee to allow me to inspect this heating system and write down the meter every week for a whole year.

Only in this way will we deduce the actual fuel consumption of the LC heating system throughout the year. If Labour Party and LC have nothing to hide- there should be no problem with that, right?

IS IT A GOOD DEAL?
I have also tried to compare the price of the pellets delivered to LC with market prices, but I do not know what the number “quantity” on the bill means. Without this, it is not possible to compare the price. I will have to find out exactly before I start writing another article on this subject. Maybe we are overpaying. The deal may be actually quite good, and the only problem is the unclear bill. I doubt it, but one hopes…

If that were the case, I would be delighted because, to rectify this whole unclear situation, it would be enough to explain what is behind the mysterious item ‘quantity’ and then monitor consumption compared to previous years. Also, STC should direct the supplier to write down the meter reading on every bill.

Done! No more controversy. Problem solved! I have nothing to write about!

THE END
The whole conversation between myself and Labour Party councillors about heating in LC occurred at the STC Full council meeting on 20.4.22. I was going to add a report of that meeting along with this text, but it turned out that the article was over ten pages long in my text editor. So I have to publish this report later because it will contain vital information on crime and security. I do not want this information to get lost under a long article about something that nobody has been interested in so far.

Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com