FOI request (FOIR-327124898)

Energy companies owned by HBC

Requested Mon 19 April 2021
Responded Mon 26 April 2021

This is an information request relating to energy companies owned by your local authority.

Please provide the following information for 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 for any energy companies owned by your local authority:

1. What is the profit of loss of the company for each of the five financial years?

2. How much capital has been put into the energy company from local authority revenue? This includes any initial and additional purchases of share capital after the initial investment or setting up of the energy company. It also includes any rights or scrip issues (which were purchased or given to the local authority), additions to cash or cash equivalents in the statement of financial position by the local authority or additional bolstering of reserves with cash not derived from accumulated profits by the local authority.

3. How many customers has the energy company had (on average) in each of the five financial years?

Ownership means the following:

• Where the energy company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the local authority (or a holding company of the local authority).

• Where the energy company is a partially owned subsidiary of the local authority (ie. the local authority or a holding company of the local authority owns more than 50 per cent of the share capital of the energy company).

• Where the local authority has significant influence on the energy company, such as with representation on the board of directors and participation in the policy making process. Whole or partial subsidiary ownership is not necessarily a prerequisite for this.

• An energy company is one that sells either gas or electricity to residential or commercial customers. The source of energy (gas, solar, wind and so on) is not relevant. It is also not relevant whether or not the gas or electricity sold is available mainly or exclusively in the same geographic area as your local authority.

Response

Hastings Borough Council does not own any energy companies. It purchases its gas and electricity through the Local Authority Southern Region energy buying consortium (LASER). It also uses a small amount of solar powered electricity from its roof mounted solar panels on Muriel Matters House.