Salix Finance has admitted it was wrong to claim it didn’t hold information about how £7.5 million in government funding is being allocated across five Wandsworth council buildings, but still refuses to disclose project details that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero already made public in December.
The internal review response, received last week after a 133-day wait, marks a partial victory in Putney.news‘ six-month transparency battle over the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grant. But it creates a stark contradiction: the government department funding the scheme concluded disclosure serves “transparency and accountability for taxpayers’ money,” while Salix Finance, delivering the scheme on DESNZ’s behalf, maintains identical information must remain secret.
Wandsworth Council, which applied for the grants and will be using it to improve a number of buildings including Putney Leisure Centre has been the least forthcoming, refusing to supply any information about the programme, and even running a sham internal review process when we challenged its refusal. Millions of pounds of Putney taxpayers’ money is going into the scheme.
What Salix disclosed
Julie Ellis, Salix’s Head of Governance, reversed the organisation’s October refusal and provided indicative percentage ranges for how the £7.5 million grant is allocated:
- Putney Leisure Centre: 40-60%
- Wandsworth Town Hall: 30-50%
- Oakdene Residential Unit: up to 10%
- Gwynneth Morgan Day Centre: up to 5%
- Falcon Grove: up to 5%
“We interpreted your original request narrowly,” Ellis wrote. “However, as we held some information, we erred in referring to Regulation 12(4) at all.”
The percentages broadly confirm what DESNZ disclosed in December: Putney Leisure Centre receives approximately 51% of the grant (£3.85 million), more than the other four buildings combined.
What Salix refused
Salix withheld all project documents, including Wandsworth’s original application, milestone schedules, expected carbon savings, and progress monitoring data. The organisation cited Regulation 12(5)(e): commercial and industrial confidentiality, claiming disclosure would harm ongoing procurement.
“Tendering processes for contractors to implement these works have yet to be completed,” Ellis wrote. “Access to this information would influence how bidding contractors would frame their bids.”
The refusal extends to “methods for calculation of carbon savings,” which Ellis claims engage “confidentiality issues and intellectual property rights” for contractors’ preferred technologies.
A £299,000 discrepancy also remains unexplained. The per-building total (£7.5m) exceeds the technology total (£7.2m) disclosed by DESNZ in December by this amount, suggesting project management fees, consultancy costs, or contingency budgets that haven’t been disclosed.
The DESNZ contradiction
This position directly contradicts DESNZ’s December decision. After Putney.news challenged their initial refusal through internal review, the government department disclosed detailed technology breakdowns and per-building allocations, with Director Rob Hewitt stating: “The primary reason for reversing the decision is that releasing the requested information allows the public to see how funding is being allocated across different technologies and workstreams, supporting transparency and accountability for taxpayers’ money.”
In her response, Ellis acknowledges this: “We note that DESNZ has provided a site breakdown and aggregated figures according to technology and workstream in the course of the internal review of a decision they made.”
She provides no explanation for why Salix’s position differs from the department that awarded the funding.
Tendering argument weakened
The commercial sensitivity argument faces a critical timing problem: DESNZ disclosed the technology breakdown and site allocations in December. Any contractor bidding for the Wandsworth project since then already has access to those figures through DESNZ’s Freedom of Information response or Putney.news‘ published story.
The project was announced in May 2025, eight months ago. If tendering genuinely remains incomplete after this period, questions arise about project management. Ellis suggests procurement should finish between July and September 2026, by which point any commercial sensitivity argument would expire entirely.
Ellis also rejected application of Regulation 12(9), which limits commercial confidentiality claims for information relating to emissions. She argues the information concerns “operation of programmes designed to reduce emissions, rather than to emissions themselves,” citing a European Court of Justice case.
Pattern of refusal
Salix’s position mirrors Wandsworth Council’s continued refusal to disclose how its £3.3 million contribution is allocated. The council has maintained commercial sensitivity claims since August despite multiple other councils disclosing similar information without issue.
In September, Putney.news provided examples of councils that had disclosed PSDS information without commercial sensitivity concerns: Lambeth published a full breakdown by site and technology, Bristol and Leicester disclosed costs per building and expected carbon savings, and Cambridgeshire included detailed financials in public audit reports. Salix’s position ignores this precedent.
This creates a situation where neither the council spending £3.3 million nor the organisation administering the £7.5 million government grant will explain how £10.8 million in public money is being spent on public buildings. This is despite the government department providing the funding concluding such disclosure was in the public interest.
Technical concerns unresolved
Without project documents, technical questions raised in our December transparency victory remain unanswered. DESNZ’s disclosure revealed 57% of the technology budget (£4.3 million) goes to air source heat pumps, while only 16% (£1.2 million) funds insulation improvements.
Building energy experts typically recommend prioritising insulation before installing heat pumps, particularly in buildings like Putney Leisure Centre, built in 1968 to thermal standards 6-10 times worse than modern requirements. Without business cases or technical specifications, residents cannot assess whether this technology mix is appropriate.
Next steps
Putney.news is filing a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office challenging Salix’s refusal on several grounds:
- The contradiction between DESNZ’s disclosure and Salix’s refusal of identical information
- The “not held” error as evidence of inadequate initial assessment
- Insufficient weighing of public interest in transparency for £10.8 million in public investment
- The weakness of commercial sensitivity claims after DESNZ’s December disclosure
The ICO process typically takes 6-12 months. Once procurement completes (Salix suggests July-September 2026), the commercial sensitivity argument will expire entirely, creating a strong basis for renewed requests and escalation.
Putney.news has also requested specific details on procurement status and timeline to test Salix’s claim that tendering remains genuinely ongoing after eight months.
Salix Finance internal review response: 23 January 2026 | Original request: 12 September 2025
Excellent, dogged work thank you