STC heating scandal still not explained

The seven-page report produced by Civil Servants on energy consumption in STC buildings was completely ignored at the last STC meeting. Allegedly due to lack of time. In my opinion, it was omitted for political, financial, and image reasons.

It was the first time a film camera recording the councillors’ behaviour was present at a meeting so that in-depth discussion would reveal a complete lack of justification for the high use of pellets before the by-election of 2021. For STC, there is no good-sounding explanation for the 50% drop in heat consumption in STC buildings after the first ever councillor from the Conservative Party joined STC.

Any attempt to explain this fact will sound wrong, suspicious, weak, twisted, deceitful, deluded, false. However, at this point, I’m sure anyone who observed my struggles will admit without a shadow of a doubt- there was something wrong, and the current leadership of town dropped the ball on this issue.

The explanation for this whole affair is fairly straightforward. Still, it seems that the current ‘elite’ of the town prefer the matter to be swept under the carpet, passed over in silence and ultimately forgotten. Like many others in the past. I admit that I have detected something more exciting and would be happy to focus on another investigation as the current one has been going on for ten months, and I am fed up with it. However, before I move on to yet another dodgy deal made by Labour-led STC- I owe the residents a ‘report of the report’ I received from STC. Question by question, answer by answer- we will examine whether I am correct in saying that the lack of transparency and oversight has led to gross abuses that cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds.

I apologise in advance for the “scribbled” pages– I received the response in paper form only, even though I had clearly stated in the FOI request that “I would prefer an electronic version of those documents”. Unfortunately, it was too late when I realised that I was scribbling my notes on the only copy of the response I had. I highlighted the most interesting sentences of the answer, crossed out the connecting elements, and made notes on the results of the mathematical operations. I hope this does not detract from the value and clarity of the report below.

As always, I will first provide a copy of the reply so that readers can read it for themselves and draw their conclusions. Only underneath the screenshot of the response do I include my comment. The red colour of the reply is STC; the blue is AMP. All ‘highlighted’, and handwritten comments are my notes and preparations for writing this article. I also need to point out in advance that one of my handwritten comments contained information I want to keep private for now, so you will see ‘redacted’ excerpts on one of the pages.

PAGE 1


I sent the first FOI at the end of April. I received no response. After the 21 days provided by the Act, I decided it was time to start asking for a response. Due to work commitments, I don’t always have time to act immediately after a decision has been made – hence the slight delay on my part in pushing things forward.

My e-mail allegedly did not arrive, so I had to send it again. This happened on the first day of June. In the end, the (partial) answer to my questions landed on my desk on 12 August despite the fact that, as you can see from the last line of text on page one of the report-it was already drafted in June 2022. Why the delay in sending me the report? Isn’t that puzzling? A month and a half! For quite a long time, it was kept in a drawer…

One last comment on page one of the report: why did I add the word “partial” in brackets in the previous paragraph? Because to date, I have not received: a copy of the contract between the taxpayer represented by the STC and the company supplying the heating appliance and fuel and a copy of the invoices for the deliveries in 2013-2018. These two facts make the following report profoundly incomplete.

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Question1
I have been asking for months about the unit of measurement for pellet deliveries. The answer is 1 tonne. Why did Chris Kane avoid this answer for so long? I do not know. I can only guess that he didn’t know, and when he did, he took some strange, perverse pleasure in hiding the fact. Anyway, the last page of the report is a copy of the last invoice from AMP-not even a description of what ‘quantity’ is on it. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Question2:
So, after more than nine years, the fuel supply company decided to offer that “we can arrange a suitable solution” to the glaring lack of information on both the consumption of pellets and the heat produced by the equipment. Moreover- the amount of pellets delivered does not necessarily equal the amount of pellets used to produce heat. In any operation, there is spillage, waste and sometimes theft. When the contract was signed, both the supplier and the Labour Party, which ruled indivisibly in the STC at the time: should have implemented mechanisms to check and control consumption. Why was this not done? I could develop many hypotheses here, but I won’t – make your guess.

Question3:
I am not an expert – but the fact that the company has changed ownership could have been the perfect opportunity to renegotiate the contract. To improve it, to create more precise control mechanisms. Anyway- the answer to my question is: NO. Both the owner and the fuel supplier have changed. Let me guess- NONE of the residents outside the “Labour family” knew about it.

Question 4:
I wanted to bring for discussion a motion to inspect these devices. Check the seals on the meters. Check whether it is possible to “pull out” the pellets before they reach the furnace. Only in this way can it be determined without any doubt how much potential for abuse there is in the system and solutions put in place to solutions to PREVENT it. My proposal was not even discussed, let alone voted on. Inspection? What is that for? God forbid something should be discovered…

Question 5:
The answer from STC is confusing. I would like to see the consumption since the installation of the system. I can do this on the supplier’s website on my home system. In the case of STC, as you will see on later pages- I only received information for the period 31.01/2019 to 31/05/2022, although the system has been running since 2013. Where is the rest of the data?

Data for five years is missing. I think the word “detailed” has also been used with unusual recklessness. These ‘detailed’ records contain data from one meter, only to switch readings to the other meter at some point. I mentioned this in a previous article.

If the word ‘detailed’ can mean half data for a period of two out of nine years- I guess I need to go back to school because I have a completely different understanding of the word.

Question 6:
This is a change in the right direction. Until now, the only thing councillors “controlled” was the amount of the bill that appeared on the “cashbook” sheets. No, wait! Labour councillors didn’t even control that – I was the only councillor who bent his head over that. From now on, e.g. Operations Committee can discuss pellet consumption at meetings. This won’t make much of a difference at first, but in the long term, it may alert councillors that consumption is rising inexplicably, and the system needs to be looked at to prevent losses.

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Question 7:
There’s a saying: when you get something for free, it means you are the product. So a free heating system sounds like a good deal until you delve into the details of that agreement.

Committing to a specific ‘heat load’ automatically puts the taxpayer at a loss. Even if STC staff invented and put in place mechanisms to save consumption-we would still pay the same. In these times of rising heating costs, we are FORCED to use the same amount of heat over and over again. No wiggle room. No incentive to develop saving methods.

240,000kWh per year is 20,000 kWh per month. The SUPPLIER determined this figure, so the natural reflex is to think he did it to his advantage (overestimated consumption). In addition- from now on, the claim that this system operates on a “top-up” basis is a gross misrepresentation because, in a real “top-up” system, you only top up your account when you start running out of funds (fuel). In “our” system, we have to buy fuel even if we still have enough. If we don’t buy it and use it up-we still pay for it. The proof? In the cash-book. I need to clarify that with Town Hall, but I saw some strange notes on one of the recent payments from AMP. If I’m right- this deal, in my opinion, is rotten and corrupted and needs to be revisited.

One more thing- as you will see on one of the next pages of the report- during the period June 2021 to May 2022 (12 months of data), consumption exceeded 20,000 kWh only five times. The average consumption over the whole period was 15,000 kWh, so if I understand the contract correctly- the taxpayer will pay for the THOUSANDS of “unused” kWh as if we had used them (50,000 kWh at 0.06 is 3,000 pounds thrown out of the window in just one year- the deal is signed for 20 years). In other words- since I joined STC, pellet consumption has gone down, but this will not affect the final bill as much as it should because the contract for STC is unfavourably structured for a taxpayer.

Question 8:
Error? Admin error? Really? Don’t say! So AMP says there were shenanigans right after I won a seat at STC. BIG shenanigans.

What is noteworthy is that neither AMP (blue) nor STC (red) answered the last question in this section: “do I understand correctly that in one month of summer, STC used more ‘pellets’ than in the two coldest months of winter???”

This question was very cleverly omitted. Why?

Question 9:
I know that most of my readers have never run a business. Therefore, the STC and AMP explanation may sound reasonable. However, I have run a business, and I know that no normal businessman or accountant would agree to “round up goods supplied” on invoices. That is simply not done in the real world. You pay for what you get or don’t pay at all. You dispute the invoice and ask for a corrected version. I have issued hundreds, maybe thousands of invoices in my life. I have paid just as many. I would NEVER pay a ’rounded’ invoice.

Question 10:
Finally! We know what mysterious quantity means. By the way: even after the price bump, 0.06 per kWh is still quite a good deal- if it’s scrutinised and pellets are used to heat STC buildings, not “used” in other means.

Imagine how much you could save money if you could afford a “free” heating device like that in your home. (EDIT: A few days after publication, one of my friends contacted me and pointed out that it is impossible for me to pay 0.32p per kWh. I was sure I was. But when I checked on the EDF page, it was 3.2p, so it’s half what STC pays, not five times more. That’s why I had to strikethrough this paragraph and add this explanation) For example, I pay 0.32 per kWh for heat from gas delivered by EDF (I’m writing this just before the price rise- I’m kinda scared to go on the EDF website to check the new price…). That is five times more than STC pays! So, to be honest- the idea of pellet heating was a good idea. But then, STC dropped the ball on oversight and scrutiny, and we ended up with something costing us twice as much as it should cost us. For how long? At the moment- only Labour “insiders” know.

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Question 11:
Both answers are puzzling, to say the least. Red’s answer (STC) suggests that NO ONE at the time of signing the deal thought about supervising consumption. Normal? Or is it rather corrupting?

AMP’s response (blue) suggests that meter readings are not given on bills to avoid confusion. How does it work for us? Because there is a hell of a lot of confusion at the moment!

Question 12:
I just asked that! I wanted those “deliver notes”. That’s why I wrote that point! I want to compare the data with the invoices. The problem is that I still do not have invoices! So what will “delivery notes” give me? The second fact- I am soooo fed up with this issue. Labour has tired me of being uncooperative, delaying, and confusing at every step of the process. I am alone in STC- this is precisely the moment I would need at least one ally in Chamber to pat me on the back and whisper: “You’re doing a good job, keep going! You have my sword! I will say “seconded” if you make a motion to inspect heating devices”. NONE of the labour councillors publicly admitted that there is something wrong with heating in STC. I assume they read the report. I assume they noticed WEIRD data right at the moment of the byelection in 2021. So why are they so quiet???

Imagine a football match where one team has 15 players on the field, and another has just one player. That is the current state of STC. I’m ready to fight to the last whistle, but if you know anything about football, you should know that… this metaphor doesn’t really work because there are only 11 players on the field, not 15 😉

PAGE 5 and 6

You can see a bit more data on these two pages. The data, in my opinion, are deliberately manipulated: they give readings of only one meter, only to jump to the other counter at the exact date of my election to the STC. Why? No idea. At least two invoices are missing from this data. Why? No idea. Five days before my election, consumption is HIGHEST in this whole, three-year-long period. Why? No idea. We don’t know if the ‘credit notes’ were included- I can’t see this in the data provided either in consumption. The data from March 2020 to May 2021 was for a period when LC was closed, meaning consumption should be lower, but it’s twice as high as after fully opening Leisure Centre. Why? No idea.

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Here is the latest bill from AMP. Still misaddressed, still missing any consumption data, and doesn’t specify what “quantity” is.

The report was made on 28 June 2022, and I only received it in August. Why the delay? Why did I not receive a copy by e-mail? Why did the Chair of STC refuse to discuss this report at the STC meeting? Why do the figures show 50% more consumption in the lockdown year compared to the same period after the Conservative joined the STC? Why do I still not have invoices from the 2013-2018 period? Why do I still not have insight into STC’s contract with the supplier?

I think Labour thinks that at some point, I will give up this issue. Well, they need to rethink that. Does it look like I’m giving up?

Sylwester Zwierzynski