Victory Energy - A failure of Local Government

Legacy_user

Quote: Last month (Aug 18) the Lib Dem cabinet pulled the plug on Portsmouth City Council-owned Victory Energy believing it would not be financially viable or in the best interest of its potential customers. At this point the council had invested more than £1m in the company with additional costs around contracts and developing the company thought to bring the total to around £3.5m of taxpayers' money. Unquote

It would seem that a report from PwC suggested that the business plan re future customer numbers might prove to be overly optimistic as, inter alia, Southampton had recently set up its own white label supply company with RHE as the energy provider. I am sure that local taxpayers are not best pleased.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/portsmouth-city-council-agrees-to-look-again-at-decision-for-to-scrap-victory-energy-and-write-off-3-5m-1-8643755

Update: At a special Cabinet Meeting on the 27th November it was Agreed that:

DECISIONS:

The Cabinet considered the options set out in the new report and in reconfirming their previous decision, taking account of the potential risks and rewards, determined that:

(1) Option 4 should proceed, i.e. to seek to enter into a "White Label" agreement with an existing fully licensed energy supplier and cease investment into Victory Energy Supply Limited

(2) external support be sought to enable the Council to cease its investment in Victory Energy Supply Limited (VESL) and seek to dispose of the Council's interest at the best possible value for the Council and to delegate to S151 and City Solicitor to conclude all of the necessary agreements to facilitate a sale

(3) any solar PV contracts entered into by VESL continue to be honoured by the Council;

(4) the Council develops a comprehensive campaign for tackling fuel poverty and looks to resume the promotion of PCC's energy saving website;

(5) an Outline Business Case be brought forward by the Council's in-house Energy Savings Team to re-evaluate commercial opportunities (previously approved by Cabinet 8 December 2016).