Serious concerns have been raised about the Green Deal, amid fears of a repeat of the scandal whereby thousands of DEAs handed over huge sums for training, only to find that neither the work nor the lucrative earnings ever materialised.
It is one of a series of warnings that the Green Deal could fail at the first hurdle. Trade body IDEA (Institute of Domestic Energy Assessors) has called for it to be postponed.
It says that it should launch in December, not October, this year, and only for domestic properties. It says that the Green Deal can be rolled out for commercial properties later.
IDEA is one of several bodies to issue warnings, including the Green Alliance, which says the scheme is at risk of low take-up by consumers, while the Federation of Master Builders has said it needs a radical boost in order to succeed. The Royal Institute of British Architects says ‘significant obstacles’ need to be resolved.
IDEA’s concerns include the independence of assessors who it fears could be tied to a large provider – for example, a national DIY chain – training requirements and costs, and what the going rate for an assessment will be.
It warns that without these issues being addressed, “there is the likelihood of a very poor take-up rate by existing energy assessors”.
IDEA said: “It is not satisfactory for the Department of Energy and Climate Change to say that ‘market forces will dictate’ the fee rates. This works against any ‘independence’ and works in favour of those assessors that are ‘tied’ to a large, blue chip Green Deal provider, who will be able to hide the true cost of the assessment within their subsequent Green Deal Provider quotation.
“We are also concerned that those tied assessors will not be offering impartial advice even with the conditions currently set by DECC. This is not in the best interest of the consumer.”
The institute also said it was concerned that, even if the National Occupation Standards for Green Deal assessors had been finalised, there would still not be time for enough to have been trained to meet the existing October deadline.
IDEA said: “The number of hours training required for each element of the National Occupation Standards is likely to total somewhere in the region of 200 training hours. This equates to almost 30 full training days, without any home study. For this to be achieved within a current practising energy assessor’s time, and prior to the October start date, is unrealistic.
“Costs for training have also not been finalised, and until they are, energy assessors will not be able to make an informed business decision about whether or not to train for the Green Deal.”
IDEA also warned against a repeat of the fiascos and rip-offs that marked the training of DEAs, leaving many broke.
Jim Gillespie, chief executive of IDEA, said: “The UK has a perfectly good national network of further educational colleges, so why not restrict Green Deal Adviser training to them only? That way it is easier to keep tabs on the numbers of people training per region and provides those who wish to take up training with far more local options. It will also allow for a more uniform quality of training under a perfectly good existing UCAS regime.
“The previous unregulated training regime for domestic energy assessors resulted in over 20,000 unsuspecting individuals paying for training courses where, in reality, the market could only offer sustainable employment for 2,000 to 3,000 of them at best.
“The DECC must act now to ensure history is not allowed to repeat itself with Green Deal, otherwise this whole ambitious initiative could be thrown into jeopardy.”
%20-%20IMAGE%20Client%20Accounting%20%E2%80%93%20what%20are%20your%20options.jpg)
.jpg)
Comments
In relation to my last post :-
If you want to know more about Landlord EPCs click here.
Legislation to come in April 6th 2012 is stating that all commercial properties must now have a current Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) on any property that is to be marketed. This is prior to the April 2018 legislation that states any property (commercial or domestic) that has a low performance grade i.e. F or G will not, by law be able to go up for market in 2018. If you want to know more about Landlord EPC's click here - http://www.justepc.co.uk/landlord-epcs.html
The qualification still hasn't been finalised yet, but Nationals like British Gass will be training up their own Advisors to offer free reports...reasons?...obviously sales and commissions.
Kingfisher have acquired NES/NHER which as one of the main accreditation bodies for DEA's shows blatant vested interest gearing up for the same purpose.
There will be no money in it for the 'independent' report unless conflict of interest is ignored and all independent Green Deal Advisors earn commissions off the back of recommendations...no doubt such payments would have to be disclosed to the Consumer as IFA's do making the whole thing a con. The Consumer will no doubt see these commissions added to their 'Loan'.
This is nothing more than Politicians being seen to assist carbon reduction from the building stock, hitting targets for 2020 and 2050 without the money to do it through public funding trying to eak out support from the private sector.
Complete and utter rubbish scheme very badly handled and ill conceived.
I've lost track of the number of times I have heard minimum fee rates for reports cannot be written in, yet MOT tests still have prescribed fees. Is this not really an MOT for buildings!!
With 20 odd thousand qualified DEA's scratching around for an existence and fighting each other for ever diminishing returns on standard RdSAP based EPC's, they are all facing requalifying anyway by April this year for wide changes to the EPC otherwise effectively suspended, this extra over qualification is madness.
The Government clearly doesn't accept the average DEA or even high time DEA's as being of suitable ability to handle the role.
More training course, more exams, less or no return = 'Kerching' all over again.
Cynical and mistrusting, yes I am!
I thank one thing onyl that I am qualified for every single strand, work 90% on Building Regulations compliance and no longer rely on DEA work to provide an income.
If DEA's had unity then the power of 20,000 downing tools would bring this nonsense to a grinding halt enough to iron out the bugs, squash the conflict of interest and provide the Consumer with an indpendent unbiased report, clear and qualified recommendations backed by feasibility data ,thus allowing the Consumer the choice to negotiate their own package deals with competing suppliers.
Ho Hum!...here we all go again!!
having attended the so called pilot traing for the green deal Advisor qualification it was clear that even Asset Skills had not sorted out whether their training was going to cover all qualification units and further top up training would be needed..so why bother training until the qualification had been decided then allow 12 months for training up before hitting the streets?...because of Political postering.
Politicians and Bankers STILL cannot be trusted, they have learned nothing since all of their scams came to light.
Feed in Traiff...yet another Political joke, 43 pence per kWh, then 21 pence, now back to 43 after Judicial review, but vowed to be back to 21 pence by end of March.
Disgruntled green deal advisors will seek to recover their training fee's once they realise they have been conned, they may have to lie. cheat or twist reports in order to get commission payments and recoup training fee's, thus making the green deal a joke, and it's all DECC's fault for allowing market forces to prevail on advisor fee's, can't wait to see the daily mail stories on the impending fiasco that is the green deal.
Another bright idea badly executed.