Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Highland Council 'corporate failure' likely to cost £13.8 million

"Highland Council has been strongly criticised for its management of a failed community heating project that is likely to cost £13.8million of public money.

Watchdog body the Accounts Commission investigated the council’s involvement with Community Heat and Power (CHaP) and found that a lack of appropriate risk management and effective governance arrangements added up to a corporate failure by the council."

more on the Press & Journal site

3 comments:

APTSec said...

http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/news/newsreleases/2011/March/2011-03-02-01.htm

HC response at the link above

Anonymous said...

This story about the Caithness Community Heat and Power (CHaP) is the one that really raises the frustration levels at a time when there are severe CUTS across the Council services. The Councillor who chaired the group still thinks it was a "good concept" but does not apologise for the group not being able to deliver on the OBJECTIVES.
I hope there is an investigation like the one undertaken for the funicular railway (Aviemore)
See full details of how £1.0 million of Highland Council money was used to bail out the project at the Public Audit Committee Report SP Paper 393 PAU/S3/10/R2
- www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/publicAudit/reports-10/paur10-02.htm
We need public services that take a PROFESSIONAL approach to identifying and dealing with the RISKS associated with major projects. This applies, especially, to those Councillors who are closely associated with projects and who may have a high degree of OPTIMISM BIAS

Graisg said...

Anon, we could find no online reference for the story you mention in Badenoch and Strathspey so we deleted that from your comments. Perhaps it will show up later in the week in other papers.