HMRC has been accused of burning money after lighting up its new Nottingham office right around the clock.
Nottingham South Labour MP Lilian Greenwood said that HMRC’s Unity Square building had an electricity bill of £557,805.20 for its first six months of operations.
The most expensive month, she tweeted, was August when the bill came to more than £113,000.
She said: “The good news is that action does seem to be underway to address concerns about the lighting and energy efficiency.”
Nottingham City Labour Councillor Sally Longford called the waste of energy “a disgrace”.
Around 1,000 employees moved in in April, with a further 4,000 expected to have moved in by May this year.
HMRC said they had been fine tuning the light control system at the nine-storey Queensbridge Road building.
In a statement Finance Minister Victoria Atkins said the average number of HMRC staff on-site overnight was just four – but the matter was being dealt and technical problems were being ironed out.
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The statement from the minister, shared by Ms Greenwood, said under normal daytime operation the lights were triggered by low light levels and people moving about.
The statement said: “As part of the normal process of delivering a new building and ensuring it is operating effectively and efficiently, HMRC is working to address issues with the way the lighting system in Unity Square is currently programmed which are leading to lights being switched on for longer periods than expected.
“It has had contractors on site this week to fix this and has reported an improvement, with more work to take place shortly.
“HMRC will be carefully monitoring whether the changes implemented have been effective.
“Once fully implemented, we expect the length of time the lights remain on after the last detected movement will be reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes.
“In addition, after 8.15pm, the lights will be switched off with activation after that time only if movement is detected and will remain on for five minutes.
“HMRC is also reviewing out of hours operating procedures to further reduce energy usage.”
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The statement added: “HMRC's core hours are 7am until 8pm. Since 1st October 2022 the average number of HMRC staff in the building between 9pm and 6am is four.
“Unity Square is a government hub and HMRC shares the building with five other government departments. Additionally, there are varying numbers of contractors on site.”