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The publication of the Sir Patrick Coghlin-led report into the non-domestic renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme last Friday probably draws a line under the fiasco for the general public.
The main finding was that there wasn’t any “corrupt or malicious activity” on the part of officials, ministers or special advisers, but instead what went wrong was due to “an accumulation and compounding of errors and omissions over time”.
That is perhaps not that surprising a conclusion. Ultimately the civil servants working on the scheme must take a sizeable share of the blame for what went wrong. It is also a reminder for other government departments, such as DAERA, of the importance of having core technical staff (veterinary, farming and food background) who understand the industry which they serve.
At a total cost expected to be over £12m, it is appropriate to ask whether the inquiry itself delivers value for money
In the end, the Coghlin report has 319 findings and makes 44 recommendations. However, for RHI participants there is little in the report that relates directly to them, given that the remit was principally about restoring public confidence into the workings of government at Stormont.
At a total cost expected to be over £12m, it is appropriate to ask whether the inquiry itself delivers value for money, or if the same conclusions could have been reached in a much shorter timeframe and at much lower cost. In the meantime, what it has left behind is a new sense of nervousness among civil servants and special advisers, that will only lead to even slower decision making than before.
Unsustainable
The one thing that is clear is that it is the RHI participants who have lost out most of all, with 2019 tariffs cut to totally unsustainable levels, and NI now faced with handing back around £25m annually in unspent RHI money. The Stormont deal, ‘New decade, New Approach’, promised to close RHI and create a new scheme to cut carbon emissions in NI –there aren’t too many in the farming community eagerly waiting on that.
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