Recommendation 10

We welcome the Government’s introduction of a scheme for owner occupiers to fund energy efficiency improvements. Such a scheme is essential in order to achieve the ambition to reach energy efficient homes by 2030, given this is by far the largest pool of housing stock across the UK. But the Green Homes Grant has been rushed in conception and poorly implemented. In its haste to create a scheme to deliver economic stimulus, the Government failed to consult industry adequately on its delivery, set a timescale which was overly short term and has presided over scheme administration which appears nothing short of disastrous. If the ambition for the scheme to retrofit 600,000 homes envisaged completion of the work by the end of the current financial year, then the Government has been wildly optimistic in its scheme planning and industry engagement. The impact of its botched implementation has had devastating consequences on many of the builders and installers that can do the work, who have been left in limbo as a result of the orders cancelled and time taken to approve applications.