‘No corruption’ in failed NI heating scheme

BELFAST: A multiplicity of errors and omissions led to Stormont’s cash for ash green energy scandal not political corruption, a public inquiry has found.

The inquiry made some criticism of current DUP leader and First Minister Arlene Foster’s role in developing the ill-fated Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme and also highlighted “unacceptable behaviour” by several of her party’s special advisers.

But the probe, chaired by retired judge Sir Patrick Coghlin, said it would be wrong to blame specific individuals or groups for the design flaws that saw applicants “perversely incentivised” to burn excess heat to turn a profit.

He said responsibility should be shared among a wide range of people and public bodies. The report was particularly critical of the Stormont department in charge of the scheme, the then-named Department for Enterprise, Trade and investment (DETI).

“Corrupt or malicious activity on the part of officials, ministers or special advisers was not the cause of what went wrong with the NI RHI scheme, albeit the inquiry has identified some instances where behaviour was unacceptable,” stated the report.

“Rather the vast majority of what went wrong was due to an accumulation an compounding of error and omissions over time and a failure of attention, on the part of all those involved in their differing roles to identify the existence, significance or implications of those errors and omissions.”

It added: “Responsibility for what went wrong lay not just with one individual or group but with abroad range of persons and organisations involved, across a variety of areas relating to the design, approval, management and administration of the NI RHI scheme through its life.”

The RHI incentivised businesses and farmers to switch to eco-friendly boilers by paying them a subsidy for the wood pellet fuel required to run them. But mistakes in its designs saw the subsidy rates set higher than the actual cost of the wood pellets — with applicants finding themselves able to burn to earn.

The controversy over the RHI led to the collapse of Stormont powersharing after the late Sinn Fein deputy first minister resigned in protest at Foster’s handling of the affair in January 2017.

The RHI had left the administration facing an overspend bill of hundreds of millions of pounds. Subsequent cost-control steps have prevented that happening. The report said it could give no guarantee the same mistakes will not be repeated.

The inquiry said the RHI scheme was a “project too far” for the Northern Ireland executive. “While motivated by the laudable aim of encouraging the use of renewables rather than fossil fuels in heat production, the Northern Ireland stand-alone scheme should never have been adopted,” it stated.

Foster was the DETI minister at the time the scheme was developed in 2012. The inquiry found she had been incorrectly informed by her officials that the project was value for money. However, it criticised her for signing off on a draft regulatory impact assessment which highlighted risk but did not include adequate costing information.

“While the minister should not have been presented with a document which lacked all the necessary cost information, she equally should not have signed it in those circumstances,” it found.

The inquiry also highlighted concerns about Foster working arrangements with her then-special adviser Dr Andrew Crawford — particularly in respect of his role analysing key documents.

The probe also criticised civil servants who shared information about imminent cost curbing steps to third parties before they were otherwise publicly announced.

In respect of ministerial special adviser, the inquiry found “repeated failures” to comply with the code governing their appointment.

It found that the relationship between energy regulator Ofgem and DETI was “unsatisfactory” and said the former had failed to pass important information to the latter. The inquiry said the ultimate closure of the scheme in 2016 was not well managed.