(Title Image: © Copyright Jaggery and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence BY-SA-2.0)
Bridgend Council’s cabinet has finally been presented with a damning report into the failures of a home insulation scheme in Caerau (pdf).
The Contract
Arbed is a Welsh Government scheme to improve energy efficiency for households facing fuel poverty. Funding for the first phase, totalling £60million, came from a mix of sources including the Welsh and UK governments, energy companies, registered social landlords and local authorities.
For further background on issues with Arbed read Senedd Home: Will Arbed leave more than green slime behind?
In 2012-13, an opportunity arose for Bridgend Council to make a bid for Arbed funding for internal and external insulation work. They did so in partnership with Green Renewable Wales (GRW) Ltd – which counted then Cabinet member, Cllr. Phil White (Lab, Caerau), as a director and secretary.
This work was undertaken on 25 properties in Caerau and the total value of the bid was just under £316,000. GRW Ltd appointed sub-contractors to carry out the work itself.
In total, 150 properties in Caerau had some work carried out on them one way or another (including work funded through different schemes) with 70 of those properties having work undertaken using funding administered by Bridgend Council.
It quickly became clear the standard of work carried out was poor – regardless of how the funding was administered and who carried out the work – and trading standards got involved in 2014.
The Missing Paper Trail
In 2018 an internal audit – launched at the request of the then Chief Executive, Darren Mepham – began into whether Bridgend Council’s procurement procedures were properly followed during the 2012-13 Arbed bid. The former Chief Executive became concerned there wasn’t an audit trail.
The BCBC report doesn’t go into any real detail (perhaps understandably) but:
“The findings of Internal Audit highlighted a number of internal procedural issues relating to the governance, decision making, procurement, monitoring and control aspects of the funding that the Council administered for this scheme at this time.”
Needless to say that when an audit/paper trail disappears, you need to ask questions of everyone involved – councillors and officers (some of whom no longer work for the council).
GRW Ltd was wound-up in 2017. In a recent story in the South Wales Echo, Cllr. Phil White accepts criticism of the poor workmanship and blamed the winding-up of the company on debtors who didn’t pay what was owed. He also denied his recent departure from the Cabinet was in any way related to the report – which had been due for publication for the best part of a year.
The Damage
An independent evaluation of the work in Careau was undertaken by Nuvision Energy Wales (pdf).
They surveyed the external insulation work on a representative sample of 32 homes (all privately owned) which took part in Arbed 1. Internal work like boiler replacements and loft insulation were excluded from the survey.
They found recurring common faults on all of the properties (though different faults on different properties), including:
- Poor finishing of guttering which led to water running down walls causing stains and mould growth. Green algae grew at 22 of the 32 homes surveyed.
- Staining of render (because a cheaper acrylic render was used instead of silicon-based render).
- External insulation had been cut around gas pipes and stone walls without any remedial measures causing damp and mould growth. Service pipes hadn’t been sealed properly on 18 properties.
- 11 properties didn’t have properly sealed window sills while 14 homes had window sills which were too short.
- Windows at 12 properties were jammed against the render.
- In the worst examples, there was clear evidence of damp and black mould inside the property.
The Cost
Nuvision Energy presented two options – do nothing (at a homeowner’s request), or making good and removing all of the “improvements”.
They estimate reconstruction work would cost up to £16,000 per property (though this will vary depending on what work is needed).
For the 25 homes involving GRW Ltd, that’s up to £400,000. Across all 70 properties where BCBC administered funding (presumably including GRW’s 25), it’s potentially a bill for anything up to £1.12million.
