Net Zero Secrecy Clause in UK Council

Imagine asking to inspect the terms of a public-sector deal and being told to sign a secrecy agreement first. In Bristol, that requirement appears in the published instructions for accessing an energy-services procurement framework. It deserves far more attention than another glossy announcement about a green partnership.

The principle is simple: when public bodies make commitments on behalf of citizens, those citizens should be able to understand the bargain. Who gets paid? Who carries the risk? What happens if the promised benefits fail to arrive?

Bristol City Leap is a twenty-year partnership whose joint-venture company is owned equally by Bristol City Council and Ameresco, working with Vattenfall Heat UK as its essential subcontractor. Its advertised ambitions include more than £1 billion of energy investment, expanded heat networks and improvements to schools and social housing.

The scale makes scrutiny essential. Families need affordable heating. Businesses need dependable power. Taxpayers need evidence that public decisions serve those practical needs at an acceptable cost.

Then comes the paperwork.

A published procurement guide offers public authorities across south-west England access to a single-supplier framework for energy-project development, including feasibility studies and consultancy. Prospective public-sector clients are instructed to sign and return an NDA before receiving the full framework terms.

The accompanying confidentiality template restricts disclosure and provides for obligations to continue for five years after termination. It permits legally required disclosure, expressly addressing freedom-of-information requests where no exemption applies.

That statutory opening matters. It gives citizens a route to demand information, and public bodies a responsibility to assess disclosure properly.

But why make confidentiality the starting point for sharing the terms of public business?

A resident should not need professional persistence to discover whether a public commitment represents value for money. Nor should a councillor have to rely on promotional summaries when explaining a deal to the people paying for local services.

The obvious next step is publication of the provisions governing public financial exposure. Put the charging arrangements, performance obligations, review mechanisms and exit provisions where residents can inspect them. Explain any necessary redactions individually.

Commercial confidentiality should have a defined purpose and a defensible boundary. The embarrassment of a poor bargain is no reason to conceal it. Neither is the political inconvenience of discovering that an expensive promise rests on optimistic assumptions.

The questions are ordinary ones that any careful household would ask before signing a major agreement. What is the total commitment? Can charges rise? Who pays when costs overrun? What remedy exists if delivery falls short? How much would it cost to leave?

For a public body, those questions carry an additional obligation: the people accepting the arrangement may be gone long before its consequences have worked through the accounts.

A twenty-year partnership spans several elections. Future representatives may inherit promises, infrastructure and financial obligations shaped by predecessors whose policies voters have rejected. The public deserves a clear explanation of how much room remains to change course.

Councillors should therefore publish an intelligible account of the choices future administrations retain. Which terms can be renegotiated? What triggers a review? What liabilities could arise from termination? Those answers belong beside the headline investment figure.

Supporters of private enterprise should insist on this discipline. Open scrutiny helps distinguish productive investment from arrangements that protect established providers at the public’s expense. A company confident in its offer should be willing to have its public commitments judged against delivery.

The same standard belongs on the government side. Officials and elected representatives negotiate and approve these arrangements. They must account for their decisions rather than shelter behind the complexity of the documents.

An attractive environmental objective cannot settle questions of price, risk or accountability. Every project must earn its place through measurable benefits and terms the public can examine.

The demand is straightforward: disclose the bargain, explain the risks and make performance visible. Where information is withheld, identify the precise justification and subject it to challenge.

Public money comes with a public obligation to answer questions. The paperwork should reflect that.

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”
– Louis D. Brandeis