The Green Deal

I was phoned a couple of weeks ago by a former energy supplier offering me loft or cavity wall insulation. I did my loft insulation shortly after moving into the house and I don’t have cavity walls. I said in passing that I wouldn’t mind if they were offering solid wall insulation and whilst the call-centre slave on the other end realised that he wasn’t going to be on to anything he did mention in passing that there are grants available for solid wall insulation. This came as news to me.

I had a search around and discovered that there are indeed grants available up to 75% or £6,000 for solid wall insulation via a revision to the “Green Deal” scheme. This was originally a convoluted and rather expensive loan scheme to allow home owners to insulate their houses or replace old boilers with a more efficient model. However, there is now a new grant scheme (called the Green Homes Cashback) which is meant to offer money towards energy efficiency measures. This sounds like exactly what I am looking for – until I actually tried to access the thing.

Initially this seemed easy enough – I phoned the helpline and then ended up having a rather long-winded discussion about energy efficiency with the call centre staff but I was eventually sent the details of the scheme. Rather than dealing with a single government agency this is all provided through independent contractors and one is advised to “shop around” or, to put it another way, waste vast amounts of time phoning people up to be asked the same questions over and over again. The first step is to contact a Green Deal Assessor to carry out a survey on the house (at a cost of around £150, from what I could tell). I would then need to apply to the scheme which would then result in a discount voucher being sent to me via email. Then, I would have to apply to a Green Deal Installer to supply a quote (or, in fact several quotes as I would have to “shop around”) and then arrange for them to install the agreed features and pay up-front. Following that I would then have to arrange for another Green Deal assessor to determine that the work had been carried out as specified in the first report and send this report along with the voucher signed by the installer back to Green Deal headquarters who will process the claim and pay the previously agreed amount into my account within 25 days – allegedly. Got that?

Given that I would like to get the solid walls insulated it is still worth going through all this palaver. The first step is to contact an assessor. There are many listed via the Green Deal website but very few give any indication as to what they charge. I sent a few emails out and didn’t receive any replies – apart from one who said he was booked up for the next couple of months. I ended up phoning a few of the firms listed. The conversations I had where a bit odd. The first place I called asked me what type of new boiler I was looking for. I’m not. The next place said that they carry out assessments but only if I want loft or cavity wall insulation. I then phoned a third firm who said that they can carry out an assessment but if I went to another installer they would want to do their own assessment (at my expense). I was starting to smell a rat here.

I recalled one firm that I know do external wall insulation and that were signed up for the Green Deal. They were actually quite helpful but they were fully booked up with work for the next 10 weeks and would have to do an assessment anyway. So I’m not bothering. At least, I’m not bothering with the Green Deal. I had some insulation work done a couple of years ago which was done by a local joiner-cum-plasterer. The work has made a huge improvement to that room and he seems to have a great understanding of U-Values and the varying properties of building materials and their appropriate uses. He also understands what I am trying to achieve and will specify insulation models that are far in excess of the laughingly poor British standards that most building firms will grudgingly adhere to. I won’t be able to claim back the money, of course, but I suspect that the Green Deal is like those Sainsbury’s “20% off on a £60 shop” offers whereby once the discount has been achieved one would have been better off going to Lidl and ending up with a cheaper, better value purchase.

So what of the Green Deal? As I write there are reports that the money set aside for solid wall insulation  (£25million) has already run out. This doesn’t surprise me as I would estimate that it would cost in the region of $40-50billion to sort out the nations solid walls. However, I suspect the whole scheme is a political scandal in waiting as whilst there is taxpayer money out there to fund it, there doesn’t appear to be much in place in terms of auditing to determine that money is spent appropriately or in the householders’ best interests. Most of the Green Deal companies appear to be legitimate, respectable businesses but there is a huge incentive to ensure that the money is spent on those measures that will benefit the installers rather than condition of the country’s housing stock. What is more worrying is that there is a great scope for connivance between assessors and installers to vastly overinflate costs or possibly even make claims for work that is not required. I can see many parallels with the disaster that was Individual Learning Accounts.

So how would I do things differently? Firstly, I’d suggest that the assessments would be better arranged, performed and monitored by local authorities. They are already well set up for this as they control planning and building inspectorates. They also have significant property portfolios of their own so they are already dealing with the likely players. I would ensure that the assessments are carried out for free – they are suggesting that £100 can be reclaimed via the scheme but it would make far more sense to simply absorb this cost up front. Also, by centralising the assessments any discrepancies in the energy performance certificates can be easily detected and when grants for improvements are available it would be much quicker and simpler to target it at those homes that would benefit most. As far as the installations are concerned, local authorities are in a much stronger position to negotiate bulk discounts which would benefit everyone.

Will any of this happen? Given the wanton idiots who have run successive governments I’m not holding my breath but we do need to take energy efficiency seriously. There are over 6 million homes in Britain with solid walls and they leak heat ridiculously. All of that means that our energy requirements are far higher than they need to be and the costs are not merely financial or ecological. We have benefited for over a generation from being self-sufficient in gas but supplies are rapidly running out. If we have to rely on imported fuel supplies it leaves us susceptible to blackmail and bullying from hostile external forces be they corporate or governmental. How much better would it be if we could merely turn round and tell them to go to Hell?