BEIS has ‘persistently failed’ to learn from energy efficiency schemes

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has “persistently failed” to learn lessons from previous energy efficiency schemes, according to the latest damning report into the botched Green Homes Grant (GHG) voucher programme.

The report, published on Wednesday (1 December) by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), calculated that the aborted scheme upgraded less than a tenth of the 600,000 homes originally envisaged.

The PAC, which polices spending by Whitehall departments on behalf of the Commons, concluded that BEIS has “persistently failed to learn lessons from previous energy efficiency schemes.”

The committee said it has seen “a number” of domestic energy efficiency schemes fail to achieve their ambitions, including the Green Deal and the Renewable Heat Incentive, which both saw low uptake by consumers due to their complex design.

The report said: “We are concerned that despite the department retaining personnel with experience of previous initiatives, the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme suffered from many of the same issues that we have seen before. This calls into question how the department maintains and uses its corporate memory, and whether it is truly learning lessons from the delivery of these schemes.”

The department’s failure to deliver a viable GHG scheme has “damaged confidence” in its efforts to improve energy efficiency in private domestic homes

The six-month timeframe initially announced for the scheme limited the number of installers who were willing to register for it, and its “abrupt” closure in March this year had “significant negative” impacts on some of those participating.

This “fragmented, stop-go activity” has hindered stable long-term progress towards the government’s energy efficiency ambitions, the report added.

“We are not convinced that officials fully acknowledged the breadth and scale of what went wrong, which included a whole host of design and implementation issues.”

Despite “clear warning signs”, the department proceeded with an “unrealistic” implementation timescale for the GHG voucher scheme of twelve weeks from announcement to launch.

This “limited timeframe” put “immense constraints” on the department when its delivery capacity was under strain due to pressures created by its other response to the pandemic.

By this August, 52% of voucher applications had been rejected or withdrawn, which the PAC blamed mainly on the scheme’s “complex” design.

When planning and implementing its new Boiler Upgrade Scheme, recently announced in the Heat and Buildings Strategy, BEIS should engage “closely” with installers to “properly” understand the challenges they may face training sufficient numbers of appropriately skilled workers, while ensuring there are sufficient suppliers available across the country.

The PAC said when the department responds to its latest report, BEIS should set out how it will ensure lessons from past failures are applied to future energy efficiency initiatives.

It said: “The department needs to regain the confidence of consumers and industry if it is to realise the ambitions set out in the recently published Heat and Buildings Strategy.”

The GHG voucher scheme “underperformed badly”, according to the PAC, upgrading only about 47,500 homes out of the 600,000 originally envisaged.

The project only spent £314 million of its original £1.5 billion budget, including £50 million on administration costs.

Describing the GHG as “pointlessly rushed through”, PAC chair Dame Meg Hillier said: “It was never going to work at this time, in this way, and that should have been blindingly obvious to the department. That it was not, is a serious worry. I am afraid there is no escaping the conclusion that this scheme was a slam dunk fail.

“We will need this massive, step change in the way our homes and public buildings are heated, but the way this was devised and run was just a terrible waste of money and opportunity at a time when we can least afford it.”