Council in hot water after school heating oversight

Published on Friday 10 June 2011 12:21

A PRIMARY school racked up an extra £5000 in heating bills after council workmen accidentally left on an immersion heater for nine months.

BOILING POINT: Leith Primary's heater was on for 9 months

The emergency immersion was brought in to heat the water at Leith Primary School after the school's boiler broke down.

But instead of the system being switched off once the heating was up and running again, it remained on, undetected.

Staff at the school had wondered why their bills had increased so dramatically on the previous year, but the reason did not come to light until nine months later.

The council held its hands up to the mistake and said it would meet the 5000 additional costs in full so it did not have a direct impact on the school's budget. The incident has been described as a waste of taxpayers' money.

Smart meters have since been installed in Leith Primary and other schools across the city to "allow accurate monitoring of energy".

Elaine Ritch, chair of the parent council at Leith Primary, said: "Our heating broke down at the school last year and someone came along and put an emergency immersion in so there was hot water.

"Once the heating was fixed they didn't come back and switch off the emergency immersion.

"The school contacted the council and asked why our energy consumption had increased so dramatically and they were told not to worry about it. Months were passing and nothing was done about it. This went on for nine months."

The Evening News revealed at the start of the year that schools across the Capital were struggling to pay heating bills after their budgets were slashed.

Schools joined forces to plead with the council for help with their energy bills as they faced having to use money for books to keep the heat on.

Some schools spent their entire energy fund with months still to go after the worst winter in decades, while others faced taking as much as 10,000 from the budget, which pays for basic education supplies, to pay heating bills.

It prompted education bosses to give headteachers up to 571,000 as a "one-off" payment to help pay bills.

Green councillor Alison Johnstone described the oversight at Leith Primary as a "complete and utter waste of money".

She said: "While I appreciate the need to replace the boiler with an emergency immersion, it appears that there was no training or information given to staff to ensure that they knew that this emergency replacement had to be turned off. Similarly there seems to have been no return visit by the installer to check that it was being used properly."

A council spokeswoman confirmed that the emergency immersion was left on and that the authority met the subsequent 5000 bill.

A spokeswoman added: "Leith Primary School actually carried forward a budget underspend of 10,784 from 2010/11, which will enhance their budget in 2011/12. We recently installed smart meters in our buildings to allow accurate monitoring of energy."