Mr. Paul Kenny:

One thing that is very welcome, and Mr. Fogarty mentioned it earlier, is that the Department has a high level support scheme that specifically states it wishes to have community-led developments, so people have listened to us a little. On the local authorities issue, there are 31 local authorities. A climate plan was delivered to them recently that contains a wide range of new supports or services they must provide. They do not have any extra finance to support these. Somebody carried out an analysis and found that it would take 300 extra staff to deliver what they are asked to do in the climate plan. They do not have any revenue for that. We have engaged, including yesterday, and will continue to engage over the next couple of months to try to present the opportunity of a local energy agency as a method of delivering local energy support.

The 20% community ownership is not enshrined in legislation.