£200,000 on council company doing ‘hee-haw’ - John McLellan

The company's remit included encouraging local energy generation

Not content to spaff £700,000 keeping people in jobs which don’t exist, on Tuesday Edinburgh councillors also agreed to salt away £200,000 on a company which doesn’t do anything.

Again, readers might think I exaggerate, but no, a report into the performance of a little-known council-owned company called Energy for Edinburgh could not be clearer, the first paragraph stating that since its launch in 2016 it “has not carried out any activity”.

Its aim was “delivering the council’s energy aspirations, supporting Edinburgh’s citizens and businesses in becoming more sustainable by reducing energy demand and encouraging local energy generation,” and even though it had achieved nothing it was allocated £200,000 in last year’s budget “to allow a zero-carbon energy project to move forward”.

All very laudable, but since then the project has not moved forward one millimetre, saving not a single watt of power. Under normal circumstances this would be ample reason to call it quits, but Tuesday’s policy and sustainability committee rejected the option of winding it up and voted 15-2 to keep going, despite the report emphasising it had “no clear role”.

Why? Because apparently it “could be used to progress heat network projects,” as if “could” is justification for tying up £200,000 which is badly needed elsewhere. This is an authority which faces a budget shortfall of £69 million over the next three years so it can ill afford to squander money on the off chance a company which has delivered the square root of hee-haw can suddenly spring to life.