Crawley Borough Council overspends on electricity bill by £400,000

A report to the overview & scrutiny commission, which met on Monday (June 26) said the £403,000 overspend during the final quarter of 2022/23 came about ‘because of multiple unexpected increases on electricity bills’.

Councillors were told that bills which were previously lower than £1,000 per quarter came in at £15,000 or higher between January and March.

Officers said work was being carried out to find out why there had been such a massive increase – if it was down to price rises or excessive usage – and they would report back.

Hazel Hellier (Con, Furnace Green) said: “That’s an awful lot of money to not know what it is.

“We would certainly welcome more detail so that we can look at ways of mitigating it if we can as a council.”

As well as the electricity overspend, councillors were told that there had been an overspend of £138,000 on gas.

This was put down to the council’s principal gas contractor enduring ‘significant increases in sub-contracting prices’, which resulted in higher costs to the authority.