LONDON — In a significant move, the U.K. government awarded contracts exceeding £70,000 to a firm led by the brother of a high-ranking official within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request reveal that three contracts were granted to Amelio Enterprises for the installation of solar panels on school properties.
Details of the contracts
The procurement process was overseen by Crown Commercial Services, an agency operating under the Cabinet Office. The funding for these projects, announced by the DESNZ in September 2025, has been sourced from Great British Energy (GBE), the government’s publicly-owned clean energy entity.
With a budget of £8.3 billion allocated for clean energy initiatives, which includes nuclear projects, GBE is principally funded by DESNZ. Ed Miliband, serving as energy secretary, is the sole shareholder of GBE.
Connection to DESNZ leadership
Amelio Enterprises was acquired by Good Energy Group, which is led by CEO Nigel Pocklington, in October 2024. At the time these contracts were awarded, Jeremy Pocklington, Nigel’s brother, was serving as the permanent secretary at DESNZ. Jeremy held this position from February 2023 until November 2025 before transitioning to become the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence.
In his role at DESNZ, Jeremy Pocklington had acknowledged his brother’s affiliation with Good Energy in his register of interests. He committed to recusing himself from any direct engagements with Good Energy while serving at DESNZ, delegating such matters to a director general instead.
While DESNZ did not provide official commentary on the procurement process, a representative from the Department for Education stated that the contracts were issued in accordance with U.K. procurement regulations as part of government efforts to fund the deployment of solar panels across educational and healthcare institutions.
“We strongly reject any suggestion of a conflict of interest in this contract. The work was awarded following an open, competitive tender process and assessed against the same objective criteria applied to all suppliers,”
declared a spokesperson for Good Energy. They emphasized that Amelio Solar Enterprises had established a robust track record in delivering solar projects for schools and had been engaged in similar work for several years prior to Good Energy’s acquisition of the business.
The contracts awarded to Amelio Solar form part of the latest funding tranche from GBE aimed at installing solar panels in schools and hospitals across the U.K. This initiative is designed to reduce energy expenditures in public facilities, with DESNZ asserting that the savings will allow for reinvestment into key areas such as education and the National Health Service (NHS).
During the announcement in September, Miliband emphasized the importance of this funding, stating it would enable schools and hospitals to “save money on its bills, to be reinvested into the frontline, from textbooks to teachers to medical equipment.”
Additionally, it is noteworthy that a different company was tasked with manufacturing the solar panels utilized in the contracts awarded to Amelio Solar.