People Complain about The Royal Mail

  they do...

I'm trying to find out how a letter from DEFRA took nearly a year to make it from Thérèse Coffey's office - a 10 minute walk from  Parliament and the office of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee  at Parliament.

Had it fallen down the back of a sofa? 

Considering that the missive went by email that seems unlikely.

Computer error?

Climate Change?

Brexit?

Putin?

- or did William Wragg MP hide it for 11 months? 

PACAC Select Committee and EA Non-Compliance with PHSO

There is something very, very wonky about the handling of the EA's non compliance with PHSO that has not been adequately explained. 

 

William Wragg MP has not volunteered the timing of his receipt of the James Bevan-EA response to his "on the record" letter dated 19th July 2022.

When the Bevan-EA response finally appeared on the PACAC SC correspondence web site/archive in June 2023 the only relevant correspondence date available was 31st August 2022. 

It is too easy to believe that Mr Wragg was in receipt of the Bevan-EA response the same day as the dating of that document in the absence of other supporting information.

Given the on the record nature of the 19/7/2022 Wragg letter it isn't unreasonable to expect that a response would be presented/published "to Parliament", on the record - on the PACAC correspondence web site immediately on receipt.

I feel it is important to discover if members of the PACAC Select Committee were aware of the content of the Bevan-EA reply before it was made public on the PACAC web site.

I am not claiming that Wiliam Wragg hid documents and egregiously delayed the business of Parliament - effectively misleading the House of Commons - but on the evidence - that must be a possibility - that, in my opinion should attract scrutiny by The Office of The Speaker.

There was a delay of almost 10 months where the Environment Agency's response to PACAC Chair's letter about non compliance with PHSO Earl Report was missing - this requires explanation.

 *******************

Yep... there is something very, very wonky about the handling of the EA's non compliance with PHSO that has not been adequately explained. 

We keep recovering the ball from the long grass....

The publishing of the reply from Sir James Bevan was (handily for EA officials) delayed past the annual PHSO scrutiny, and the EA has not protested it's innocence of causing the egregious delay - although it's clear that the EA's notional supervisory body DEFRA via Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey aren't satisfied at the way this matter has been handled... 

Parliament's off on recess - so the 4th September might just  see some action....

To save digging - here's a post from earlier this year that provides some context:

https://avoncliffmills.blogspot.com/2023/03/in-2009-we-applied-for-2-water-licenses.html

 

20 Million Miles in a Nissan Leaf?

20,000,000++ Miles in a Nissan Leaf?

If North Mill Avoncliff had not been defrauded out of their water impoundment and abstraction license by EA officials in 2010 - electricity generating turbines would have been operational at Avoncliff from December 2011 and the integrity of structures in the river guaranteed. Lots of Green power.... NOT.

That's over 10 years of generation - using the numbers made up for The Environment Agency's hydroelectric scheme comparison at Avoncliff  taking one of the lower estimates for power from Avoncliff  weir of 422 MWh per year I've put together a table of some of what's already been lost....

Comparisons like  - how many London buses is that?  - are a bit difficult since the supposedly electric buses are having battery problems....

but the best available numbers have been thrown in... :-)  (the answer is v.roughly 15 buses a year).

So in terms of road transport / houses / tons of CO2 - here are the numbers of what's been lost through EA fraud, lies, incompetence, egregious waste plus £3 million++ (+/- 10% imho) of public money on lawyers, consultants, courts and The Ombudsman over the last 12 years:

Road Vehicles over 5 years
	Battery	Recharges	Miles (Manf claimed)
Tesla Roadster	53 kWh	39811	9,713,962
Tesla Model S	90 kWh	23444	6,212,778
Nissan Leaf	24 kWh	87917	10,550,000
Boris Bus	75 kWh	28133	2,813,333
"Standard" Houses a year
	Annual kWh		Houses supplied
Small	1650 kWh		256
Medium	3300 kWh		128
DECC "Average"	4800 kWh		88
Mansion	5000 kWh		84
"Tons of CO2" over 5 years
DECC 2014 average	0.527	kg per kWh	1,112

I have to say these are only guideline numbers and much could be quibbled in the detail - but the magnitude of the loss of "Green Electricity" here is hardly a national catastrophe - it is though - decidedly non trivial.

 Swerving many "Tons of CO2" using the "Grid Carbon Intensity" figures from renewables industry information sources would be ca. 2000 tons of CO2   

The willful intransigence and waste continues apace - via the repeated, deliberate and malicious awarding of further abstraction licenses (after the first was quashed at JR)  - now we have EA officials seeking to set their own punishment for Ombudsman found maladministration of the 12 year rolling renewable energy debacle at Avoncliff

 

Those additional abstraction licenses could not be implemented at Avoncliff since the license holders do not (and are unlikely to) own the land to build on. The EA have been aware of the blocking land ownership and covenant issues at Weavers Mill from the awarding of the first bent license and shows that EA are abusing their powers to indulge in vindictive antics to damage those who seek to challenge their mistakes and wrongdoings.

 

To save digging - here's a summary from earlier this year giving some context.

******** - Bonus Feature - ********

Very little news on the other purported hydroelectric scheme in Bradford on Avon - at Greenland Mills.

 

 - what happened there? 

Is it working ?

How many homes is it powering ?

Have more of identical design been built ?

Why hasn't one been built at Avoncliff ?

 

Some Deletions and Additions

 Hmmmm....

Well, things change.... one file disappears and another appears! The Environment Agency non compliance with The Ombudsman's recommendations persists.

Going back to look at the PACAC correspondence archive (i.e. on the Parliamentary record) I found the pdf  embedded below which perhaps... notionally replaces the document bundle saved here in a previous post...  All a bit stealthy really - even our MP's office (Michelle Donelan) has been trying to get sight of the full text reply for literally months...

 Well... "what could have caused this?" indeed!

Another document has appeared though, - by digital magick

Wouldn't have anything to do with swerving controversy around Sir James's March 2023 leaving do? - would it? /sarc. 

It's useful I feel to compare the August 2022 apparent receipt of Bevan's reply to the PACAC timeline laid out in the previous post

It would seem (given the date on Bevan's letter) that PACAC chair was aware of the EA's decision to evade compliance and chose not to share that with PACAC committee members and our MP Michelle Donelan. So did Mr Wragg make an "on the record" inquiry to the EA and hide the reply - for 9 months - past the annual PHSO scrutiny meeting where the matter in question was raised?

Given that Sir James's / EA peer reviewers have explicitly stated that no proper assessment of damages can be performed without a forensic financial audit - it seems rather clear that the EA have little interest in proper procedure where they can try and force through a minimization of their financial exposure and try and place themselves beyond any reasonable expectation of accountability...

The EA did the dirty deeds PHSO found, agreed to PHSO's recommendations as to remedy - and now seek to set their own punishment well outside the scope of what was the lowest estimate of their liability to damages (from PHSO).

It's worth repeating that the EA's own peer reviewers declared that any proper settlement of damages was reliant on a forensic financial audit - not some arbitrarily low figure arrived at by officials keen to distance themselves from their wrongdoing and set a figure that they know does not cover their victims out of pocket direct costs over the 12 years this debacle has been running let alone the actual financial impact on the people they harmed.

 

It looks like Sir James has expunged / deleted his EA Twitter account @JamesBevanEA

Absurd Hardly Covers It

 We can't store the power so National Grid spend £9.4 million dump it...  

The financial arithmetic of utility scale electricity storage is unworkable any way you slice it. The trick with balancing the grid it to have just enough dispatchable power available - that National Grid can't do this means that they are NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

Looks like they're deficient in the arithmetic department too!

Reply (partial) from Sir James Bevan re: EA non compliance with PHSO

 There is a bundle of documents "On The Record" at the PACAC Select Committee parliamentary web site correspondence section (dated 22nd March 2023) relating to EA CEO Sir James Bevan's response to an inquiry by William Wragg - Chair of PACAC Committee almost 1 year ago in July 2022 (See prior post and original letter).

Oddly, somebody at PACAC sees fit not to post the entire missive from Sir James and as one can see in her 5th March letter in the bundle - Thérèse Coffey The Secretary of State at DEFRA feels this is not proper....? 

 

  Then, again, rather oddly - a couple of weeks later a letter from William Wragg appears.

Then there's the "meat in the sandwich" - the broken out section of Sir James Bevan's response - not that we here believe for a moment that the EA CEO typed it up himself...

 

I absolutely dispute the veracity of much of the edited out "annex" above - but that can be addressed elsewhere.

In my reading of the "annex", the official who wrote the document cites their own peer reviewer negating all their claimed diligence:

S4.4

It is not possible to properly assess compensation in accordance with [the PHSO's]
guidelines in their Principles for Remedy, guidance on financial remedy and HMT's
guidance on Managing Public Money, without obtaining independent expert opinion of both a forensic accountancy and also a medical nature We are unable to make a recommendation as to what the amount of a future compensation payment should be.

As in : The peer reviewers say : “It is not possible to properly assess compensation without obtaining independent expert opinion of both a forensic accountancy and also a medical nature”

No evidence of any accredited expert opinion has been volunteered at any time by EA officials.  

 

Assessment of damages is a speciality skill which in many cases carries a requirement for training and accreditation. An assessment usually has a mandated report - no assessment documentation has been shared by the EA with the Earls at any time.

We have had an independent Forensic Financial Audit performed that the EA know that they are free to use - but they choose not to.

 

The EA are refusing to expose their methodology and evidence used for computing the damages they've agreed (eventually....NOT) with PHSO to pay - which is I think fair to say is exactly what William Wragg initially asked about nearly a year ago in July 2022.

In all, it seems that the EA are intent on finangling / evading paying what essentially they've agreed to - by any means they can dream up and are behaving in ways that the Ombudsman determined to be maladministration in the first place imho...  

The EA also have essentially refused to answer several FoI requests on whatdotheyknow.com (example) - related to the way that the damages are being handled by EA officials and seeking an explanation of the withdrawal of their chosen barrister-assessor and the clear cut evasion in employing a replacement. 

Private Eye

 

An Update......

 

 

 

 

 

In 2009 we applied for 2 water licenses (impoundment+abstraction)  to operate a hydropower water turbine at North Mill on Avoncliff weir. As per the extant process we applied and the application was determined by a local statutory official and a draft license was issued.

Six months later an EA official from the EA National Permitting centre in Nottingham awarded the actual physical license to a 2nd applicant - who was known to him. Rules were broken, policy ignored and the EA officials behaved very badly in other areas...  We had to go to Judicial Review to get the license award quashed (It should have been a mandating order) - we then had to re-apply for a licence £50k out of pocket...

We were ready to go and had civil engineering works + planning in place and an order in for a turbine etc. The other applicant had no turbine even specified and did not even own enough land at the weir to build a scheme,  no planning approval and the enduring enmity of his neighbour whose land he proposed to build on (and an obstructive interaction covenant was in place on both their property deeds)  ... 

 

The EA plainly ignored the Judges Instructions in the JR quash.

The EA then conducted an unprecedented determination of two applications simultaneously and proceeded to torture the process with a faked up conclusion to a Flood Risk Assessment and fake performance figures for a turbine design that had never been built before. EA officials threatened the North Mill owners - Steve and Ewan Earl that "you'll never get a scheme here - you're at the back of any queue"

Given the procession of procedural irregularities, lies and contrived arbitrary decisions our then MP Duncan Hames placed a complaint with The Ombudsman - who chose to investigate.

7 years passed and the other turbine applicant sold out as he could not build as he did not own the land to build it on (and that restrictive covenant) ...  another owner materialised and inherited the duff license which the EA arbitrarily renewed...

The Ombudsman investigation trundled along and in 2021 they finished their findings report which adjudged the Environment Agency to have committed multiple counts of maladministration and pervasive, egregious bias against the hydropower scheme at North Mill.

The EA formally accepted The Ombudsman's finding and appointed an Independent Assessor to scope the damages to the Earl brothers business consequent from their officials' malign antics. It turned out that the EA appointed assessor (a  barrister) lacked the credentials or training to be an independent assessor and we believe he shared a forensic financial audit (which we'd had performed largely at the suggestion of PHSO at a cost of £80k) with EA officials contrary to his independent status. The EA officials then decided that they would NOT  pay damages under the agreed PHSO process and would dispense with an independent assessor and decide for themselves what the damages were ....

The act of dispensing with the Independent Assessor triggered what's known as "non-compliance with The Ombudsman" and actually ends the Ombudsman process - the only remedy then such as it is - is for PHSO to "place the report before Parliament" which PHSO duly did and the matter went to the PACAC Select Committee. The PACAC Chair wrote publicly to Sir James Bevan asking for an elaboration of the EA's decision process in dispensing with an independent assessor and their decision to pay what damages they felt like paying... 

- and that's where we are today - the EA's response to William Wragg, PACAC Chairman is still not  on the record and procedural delay has been inserted by Bevan relaying his response via DEFRA... (Seemingly no problem showing up at @CommonsEFRA and other parliamentary venues to push their interests though it would seem)

The EA has spent (well) in excess (from FoI) of £1.4 million in direct costs spitefully punishing people who challenged a decision about a couple of licenses for which they charged £145. What really irks is that the Ombudsman's finding and report are not binding so that a misbehaving public body has an ejector seat from being held to account - they agree one day with the Ombudsman and then the next day they say - nah...  - we didn't mean it, we're not going to do what we said we'd do and there's nothing you can do about it. - the Ombudsman has zero power to compel a public body to do anything beyond investigation - they are not in control of the remedy.

13 years and counting - we've been told government lawyers say that damages keep accruing until this is settled.... 

 

The EA's antics continue undiminished. Freedom of Information requests are ignored or evasively responded to. Another trip to The Information Commissioner and another censure from that body to add to the one we've already triggered?

 

Timeline:

31st March 2022

PHSO lays "The Earl Report" before Parliament d/t non compliance 

19th July 2022
Letter from PACAC Chair William Wragg MP to EA's Sir James Bevan re PHSO Earl Report - with a correspondence deadline.

31 August 2022 Sir James Bevan/EA purportedly responded - response relayed to/via DEFRA

 

- no public response to PACAC advising that the response had been lodged - this was only claimed by the EA in Feb 2023 via FoI.

12th September 2022 

PACAC-EA correspondence deadline expired.

 
78 days elapse

29th November 2022 

PACAC annual PHSO scrutiny meeting where Rob Behrens (The Ombudsman) raised the matter of non compliance briefly.

9th January 2023 - 119 days after PACAC deadline
- Defra officials and in particular SoS /Minister are/is still withholding the EA's response to the PACAC Select Committee.

While there have been significant, profound national events over the time elaborated above,  and one might accept "Force Majeure" -  *no reply* has been forthcoming - for what is essentially a procedural relay task.

It is not hard to perceive this as deliberate, orchestrated obstruction of the business of Parliament by a government department (or "NDPB" depending on how the EA officials feel on any random day) where officials appear to be showing contempt  for a Select Committee through targeted delay evading scrutiny at PACAC PHSO annual review where the Earl Report was brought up and then subsequent refusal to give PACAC sight of the EA's response to William Wragg.

Note for any legislators reading this:

We wouldn't be here if acceptance of The Ombudsman Report + recommendations by a public body constituted a contract in law / was legally binding.