Is Ofgem being responsible with cash during this energy crisis?

In this week's Gossage Gossip, our columnist ponders whether Ofgem is being responsible with the cash it earns from a fee levied on energy companies.

There I was, foolishly thinking that expenditure on installing a couple of display panels in a meeting room would be a matter simply for petty cash. Well, it might be for you and I, but not for those grand people at the nation’s energy regulatory body, Ofgem.  

In September, the regulators had some graphic display panels installed at their plush offices in London’s Canary Wharf. These panels cost the Ofgem purchaser, one Alfie Ellis, some £22,740. And which local East End installers actually undertook the work? Er, none.  

The installation was undertaken by a firm based in High Wycombe, in leafy Buckinghamshire. So, not local at all. That company’s name is withheld, apparently ‘for commercial reasons’. But we are permitted to know they have over 500 employees, so not a small outfit either. One thing we can all recognise — these installers can easily spot a very over-generous purchaser over one hundred miles away.