Recommendation 18

The Department argued that it had learned lessons from previous schemes.50 The design of the Scheme was based on the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund – itself a voucher scheme launched in 2014 which saw rapid uptake by consumers, and which had also encouraged certain energy efficiency measures over others in a similar manner to the recent scheme.51 It also stated that the requirement for PAS and MCS certification and Trustmark registration were drawn from the Every Home Counts review, which set out recommendations for government in ensuring that homeowners were not at risk from poor quality work.52 Nonetheless, it is of concern that the Department did not fully 43 Qq 83–85 44 Q85 45 Q83, Committee of Public Accounts, Household energy efficiency measures, Eleventh Report of Session 2016–17, HC 125, July 2016 46 Committee of Public Accounts, Oral Evidence: Achieving Net Zero: Follow Up, HC 642, 25 October 2021, Qq 24, 27, 69 47 Committee of Public Accounts, Home Energy Efficiency Measures, Eleventh Report of Session 2016–17, HC 125, 11 July 2016 48 Committee of Public Accounts, Renewable Heat Incentive in Great Britain, Fortieth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 696, 16 May 2018 49 Committee of Public Accounts, The Warm Front Scheme, Thirty-Ninth Report of Session 2008–09, HC 350, 29 June 2009 50 Q63 51 Qq 31–32 52 Q94 14 Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme learn from and overcome the issues of complexity and poor performance on the previous schemes.53 This is especially so given departmental staff with knowledge of these previous schemes were present during the development and implementation of the recent scheme, raising questions around how the Department maintains and uses its corporate memory.54