Welsh councils face £5.25m power station pay-out
There are serious questions to answer over why a legal row over a defunct power station has left a group of ten Welsh councils footing a bill in the millions, a senior Tory has said.
Earlier this year a High Court judge declared that a contract to demolish Aberthaw Power Station for the Cardiff Capital Region was awarded unlawfully.
At a Senedd committee the chair of the consortium, Mary Ann Brocklesby, said the region will pay a settlement of £5.25m to a rival company that lost out.
Andrew RT Davies, Conservative MS for South Wales East, said it was "frankly unacceptable".
Brocklesby told the Senedd's economy committee, which Davies chairs, that an independent review handled by accountancy firm Deloitte is underway.
The region's director Kellie Beirne assured Members of the Senedd (MSs) the region will take steps to ensure it does not happen again.
Ms Beirne admitted it had caused "a lot of pain and anguish for many, many people".
Under the region's plans the site, which hosted a coal fired power station until 2019, will be used to support the production of renewable and green energy projects.
The region says the legal settlement has been funded from "commercial returns on interests" generated, and that no further public money is required for it.
Is this old power station about to turn green?
Power station set to close, risking 170 jobs
End of Welsh coal era at Aberthaw
A company set up by the city region - a consortium of a number of local authorities including Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan - awarded a contract for the demolition of the power station last year to a company called Erith in 2023.
Cardiff council - which had run the procurement - admitted liability in court after lawyers for a rival company, Brown and Mason Limited, challenged the contract.
According to a court document, High Court judge Justice Jefford declared that the procurement "was unlawful" and that the claimant would have otherwise been awarded the contract.
Brocklesby, who is also Labour leader of Monmouthshire council, told the economy committee "the amount of the settlement... was £5.25m".
"I'm not able to say much more at this point, because we are undergoing an independent review, which we commissioned as political leaders," she said.
Ms Beirne added that the region was "taking this extremely seriously - we recognise the gravity of it."
She indicated the body was in touch with Audit Wales "throughout this process".
The director added: "When that review concludes and we have findings, we'll be able to be much more open about what happened and take steps to ensure that this can't happen again."
Brocklesby added that the figure was "final", but said there were "legal processes that we need to go through".
Andrew RT Davies, who chairs the committee, questioned the pair on how the region was securing "hundreds of millions" needed to seek the project through.
He asked how the body was "giving confidence to the private sector, and the independent sector more generally, to come in as partners in light of what's gone on".
Brocklesby said the future of Aberthaw "does actually look very bright, and we're not feeling any effects from the impact of this highly regrettable procurement issue".
Challenged on that point by Davies, she added: "I wouldn't be so foolish as to say that there is no risk to reputation or to Aberthaw. What I am saying is that we are mitigating it in various ways".
Bernie said that "maybe bigger figures" than "hundreds of millions" could be needed for Aberthaw. £38.6m is being invested on acquiring, clear and remediating the site.
Davies said: "Taxpayers will pick up this £5.25million bill thanks to the Labour-run Cardiff Capital Region's bungled handling of this contract.
"This is frankly unacceptable, as this cash should be going towards improving our public services.
"CCR's Labour leadership have serious questions to answer."
A statement from the region said: "A legal challenge was made following a procurement exercise for the demolition contract relating to the Aberthaw Power Station, which was awarded in July 2023.
"A mediated settlement with the claimant has now been reached and an independent review of the procurement arrangements is underway.
"The settlement has been fully funded from commercial returns on interest generated on balances held, with no impact on core programme budgets or any requirement for further public funding.
"In line with Cardiff Capital Region's commitment to transparency and accountability, the independent review will examine the procurement process in full in order to ensure that all issues are identified and acted upon.
"While the independent review is being conducted and until that process is concluded, we are unable to comment further.
"This matter does not affect the wider work of Cardiff Capital Region or the progress of the Aberthaw project. The redevelopment of the site into a flagship green energy park is progressing at pace."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Carney launches ‘One Canadian Economy' Act to unify trade, approvals
-- Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled sweeping legislation Friday aimed at accelerating the approval of infrastructure projects and removing long-standing internal trade barriers, part of a broader effort to boost Canada's economic potential amid mounting global uncertainty. The One Canadian Economy Act, a centerpiece of the Carney government's pro-growth agenda, seeks to consolidate regulatory processes and create a unified domestic market across the national landscape. 'Canada's a country that used to build big things,' Carney said at a press conference. 'But in recent decades it's become too difficult to build in this country.' To address these concerns, the bill would cut federal project approval times from five years to two by creating a one-stop permitting office and applying a 'one-project, one-review' standard to infrastructure proposals. Projects deemed 'nation-building' by federal cabinet, such as railways, ports, pipelines, and transmission lines, would undergo streamlined assessments focused not on justification, but implementation. These proposals must satisfy at least some of five criteria, including economic benefit, Indigenous engagement, and contributions to climate goals, though officials stress these are considerations rather than strict thresholds. The new approach was partially galvanized by concerns over regulatory paralysis that has slowed Canada's ability to bring natural resources to global markets. 'When federal agencies have examined a new project, their immediate question has been: Why?' Carney said Friday. 'With this bill, we will instead ask ourselves: How?' The legislation also tackles internal trade barriers, which economists estimate cost tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity and economic output annually. A major provision of the bill would recognize provincial standards for goods, services and labor certification as meeting the federal benchmark, though actual interprovincial mobility will still require the cooperation of provincial governments. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has expressed skepticism over the bill's broader impact, calling the internal trade components 'a small step.' 'It's baby steps when we needed a giant leap,' Poilievre said Friday, while suggesting provinces be offered cash incentives to dismantle remaining trade barriers. While some provinces have already commenced bilateral trade agreements, others remain hesitant. The federal government says its own contributions include the elimination of all exemptions to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement by July 1, with the broader hope that harmonization efforts will follow across jurisdictions. Related articles Carney launches 'One Canadian Economy' Act to unify trade, approvals US job growth in May tops forecasts, but Macquarie warns cracks are emerging Fed's Harker says rate cuts this year still possible
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
SIMS: CBC set to get more money and power
Canada's government news organization is set to get fatter and more powerful. In the middle of the election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to pay the CBC more money, waving around about $150 million in fresh taxpayer cash. CBC covered that big scoop with a headline calling the CBC 'underfunded.' Think about that scene. Imagine being a CBC employee asking questions at a news conference during the election, with Carney saying that, if he won, the CBC would get more money, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he would defund the CBC. The CBC covered this funding story in the middle of the election. That's a conflict of interest so big it would dwarf Godzilla. Journalists should not be paid by the government and that scene in the election is a perfect illustration of why. In the speech from the throne, the Carney government announced: 'The government is determined to protect the institutions that bring these cultures and this identity to the world, like CBC/Radio-Canada.' To get an idea of what that protection could look like, consider the federal government report delivered on Feb. 20, before the election. Former heritage minister Pascale St-Onge said the government should nearly double the amount of money the CBC gets from taxpayers every year. 'The average funding for public broadcasters in G7 countries is $62 per person, per year,' St-Onge said. 'We need to aim closer to the middle ground, which is $62 per year per person.' If the government funded the CBC that way, the CBC would cost taxpayers about $2.5 billion per year. That amount would cover the annual grocery bill for about 152,854 Canadian families. St-Onge also pushed for the CBC mandate to be expanded to 'fight against disinformation.' 'I propose to anchor in CBC-Radio Canada's mandate its role in helping the Canadian population fight against disinformation and understand fact-based information,' St-Onge said. Carney's Liberal party platform pledged to 'fully equip them ( CBC) to combat disinformation, so that Canadians have a news source they know they can trust.' What does this mean? Will the CBC play a role as an official 'fact-checker' in Canada, or is this just clunky language urging the CBC to be more fact-based? What is clear is that the federal government is planning to hand the CBC more money and enshrine its funding into law, taking it out of the annual budget vote and clouding transparency. CBC hasn't improved its accountability after years of scrutiny from Canadians. Former CEO Catherine Tait was being paid about half a million dollars per year. New CEO Marie‑Philippe Bouchard has started her new role where Tait left off, as she is also set to be paid between $478,300 and $562,700. After years of criticism over executive bonuses, the government media company finally said it would get rid of the bonuses but hike the salaries of the executives instead. With so many Canadians struggling to pay for the basics, the CBC needed to read the room and end the bonuses and knock the CEO down a few levels in pay. Taxpayers are forced to spend a lot of money on the CBC, but only a tiny fraction of them choose to watch it. For CBC News Network's flagship English language prime-time news program, the audience is 1.8% of available viewers, according to its latest quarterly report. That means more than 98% of TV-viewing Canadians chose to watch something else. The CBC is a waste of taxpayers' money. Nearly nobody is watching it and it is a severe conflict of interest for journalists to be paid by the government. The CBC doesn't need more money from taxpayers; it needs to be defunded and raise money based on its work.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What Washington can learn from a legendary London meltdown
In a city where allegiance and proximity to power is everything, the leader's closest adviser portrayed himself as an outsider. He began the year by hiring a bunch of 'weirdos and misfits' and ordering them to rip up the entire 'rotten' system of government. The adviser loved to put noses out of joint and 'own the libs,' while building up his profile in the media as the real power behind the throne. Then, having realized that his easily-distracted and impulsive politician boss wasn't actually committed to building a tech-heavy, libertarian future, the disillusioned adviser quit — dedicating himself to publicly destroying his former employer. If you're British, watching the collapse of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's uncomfortable marriage has echoes of the end of the relationship between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chief Adviser Dominic Cummings in 2020. How that psychodrama played out in the UK could have lessons for the US — not least because Cummings eventually succeeded in undermining Johnson's political career, ultimately defenestrating the prime minister through relentless briefings and leaks. When someone who was inside the room and was perceived to be central to a political project says it's all a sham, the damage can be significant. For those who don't know, Cummings was the chief strategist of the successful Brexit campaign in 2016 but then largely disappeared from view when it came to actually defining what Brexit should look like. Unlike Musk, Cummings was a lifelong political operative, albeit one who cultivated a reputation for actually reading books. Three years later, with his political standing inflated by a film in which he was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch as an insane genius, Cummings returned to maneuver Johnson into Downing Street. Once inside government, Cummings broke all the standard operating procedures of the British state to finally 'get Brexit done' and sever the UK's relationship with the EU in January 2020. When I look back at my occasional text exchanges with Cummings from that era, usually while trying to check stories about the funding of the Brexit campaign or his desire to defund the BBC, they mirror what he said in public. He held a seemingly sincere belief that most of the British media was fake news, that the British state was not fit for purpose, and that the political party he was nominally working for, the Conservatives, was little more than a helpful vehicle for an insurrection. One ally approvingly described the chief of staff of a Conservative government to the BBC as a 'Leninist.' Ultimately, both Musk and Cummings believed that you can run the government as a high-performance start-up and that the defining failure of past civil service reforms was that they hadn't smashed enough things quickly enough. Both also have the fatal flaws of being undisciplined, delighting in picking public fights and getting bored easily. Their independent means also meant they were not as beholden to their political masters as other advisers. Cummings might not have Musk levels of money but he was wealthy in British terms (his father-in-law Sir Humphry Tyrrell Wakefield, owner of a 13th century castle, would write letters in support of his proto-DOGE policies) and connected (his wife was deputy editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine). The overwhelming impression Cummings gave was that politicians were the useful idiots who should give him the runway to remake the state. Iconoclasm was the point. When Cummings quit he took to publishing lengthy Substack posts portraying Johnson as a broken supermarket 'trolley' who veered all over the place based on the last thing someone said to him. Even more effectively, Cummings helped to leak stories about Johnson's pandemic lockdown-busting in a scandal known as Partygate. In an echo of what's happened with Musk, left-wingers who previously thought Cummings was the devil incarnate began cheering him on as he stuck the knife into Johnson. The attacks rang true among Tory MPs and Johnson's ratings never recovered, ultimately leading to his early departure from politics. Many people leaked against Johnson and his circle, but when Cummings did, the pair's previous closeness gave it the ring of truth. Musk and Cummings got opportunities because they went in to bat for fundamentally untrustworthy but opportunistic politicians, in the hope that they would be given the freedom to enact policies with limited scrutiny. The two men have even exchanged notes and acknowledged the similarity of their programs. Ultimately, these were political shotgun marriages — the very thing that made the attachments so powerful at a particular moment in time was ultimately their undoing: In each case, the leader learned that there was no real love there. As Cummings and Musk found, if you hitch yourself to an anti-establishment hero who eschews patronage and loyalty then it's only a matter of time before you find yourself the target. There is a case that a less bellicose, less in-your-face flavour of DOGE could work better — and that such changes are easier when they're not associated with a controversial figure. In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government, elected last year, is pinning its hopes on widespread use of AI technology to improve productivity, for person. And there are even people in Downing Street who quite envies the idea of taking a Musk-style wrecking ball to parts of the state; Health Secretary Wes Streeting recently abolished one of the main administrative levels of the National Health Service in an overnight raid. Attempts by the insurgent, right-wing populist Reform party — headed by Nigel Farage, who has courted Musk's funds — to launch a 'British DOGE' and find excess spending in local government have hit the rocks. Announced on Monday, the program's first leader had quit by Thursday. Cummings said in November that he was hopeful Musk could make the US government operate like Silicon Valley. Cummings was long on diagnosis but short on prescription, the London-based Institute for Government think tank wrote in November 2021. It sought to fill the gap with ideas of its own for civil service reform.
