There’s an interesting debate to be had about how external affairs departments should interact with those they are trying to influence – in most cases this being government (both Ministers and officials).

Should engagement be low key, behind closed doors or should it be loud and public? I suspect the answer is “it depends” and both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s take a couple of examples EUA has been involved in. Remember the “cash for ash” scandal in Northern Ireland, where their version of the Non-Domestic RHI was being abused because it was badly drafted. Well, EUA through one of its specialist groups blew the whistle or rather tried to. Very quietly, we contacted Ofgem and told them about the experiences we had seen. Nothing happened.

Years later, in a public inquiry, Ofgem had to apologise for not acting. £ millions were wasted. So much for the low key, behind the scenes approach.

During the David Cameron era, EUA made the case both publicly and privately, in favour of support for seasonal gas storage – some of our members disagreed with what we said but we felt there was a public interest. The government refused to support our call, and now it is acknowledged that their decision was a mistake and energy bills would now be £100 lower if our approach had been adopted.

A few years ago, we publicly, very loudly, made noise around the Clean Heat Market Mechanism aka the boiler tax. At the time fines would have been levied at £5000 for every unit short of the target, or £270 on the price of a boiler. Eventually it was levied at one tenth the amount (and the political party that introduced the scheme have now said they would scrap it).

Was this achieved by being low key or not making a fuss – not a chance.

So, when we do say something, it isn’t to be awkward or contrary; it isn’t to score points or be partisan, it is because we genuinely believe what we say and we do so with the consumer/voter/taxpayer in mind. I hope these examples are evidence of this.