Ministers slated for ‘unacceptable’ delivery of Green Homes Grant

Government auditors have slammed the ‘unacceptable’ delivery of the £1.5bn Green Homes Grant scheme designed to help fund 600,000 green domestic retrofits, but which was ultimately closed this spring after paying out just £36m in vouchers.

英国国家审计署(NAO)今天发布的一份报告得出结论称，该计划的实施时间表过于宏大，而且“没有按照可接受的标准执行”，NAO负责人加雷斯·戴维斯(Gareth Davies)形容该计划“过于仓促”。

MP Meg Hiller, chair of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee (pictured), said the scheme was “set up to fail”, with its design taking “little account of supplier and homeowners’ needs”.

The NAO report said the scheme, delivered by the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was currently estimated as likely to fund just 47,500 energy improvement measures, less than 10% of the 600,000 forecast, with a total scheme spend of £256m.

The report blamed the failure on the rushed implementation of the scheme, which was opened just 12 weeks after being announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak as a post-lockdown stimulus measure.

Sunak曾表示，15亿英镑的补贴应在短短6个月内全部用完。

This gave the department just three months in which to design the Scheme, consult with stakeholders and procure a grant administrator. The report found that none of the potential grant administrators approached by the department felt the timetable for setting up a digital voucher system was deliverable, however the one chosen, ICF Consulting Services, said it could have a system up and running in the quickest timeframe. In the event, the system was not fully functioning at the point the scheme was closed in March this year.

The average time the administrator took to issue a voucher under the scheme, following application, was 137 days, with more than half of applicants either failing the application process or withdrawing their application before a decision was taken.

The NAO also revealed that the department’s accounting officer decided to go ahead with the scheme despite the department’s investment committee having rejected it as too risky. This was justified on the basis the scheme was “intended to play a key part in the government’s response to mitigating the pandemic’s economic impacts”, and would deliver value for money in any event, even if not all the cash was spent.

However, ultimately, the scheme incurred administration costs of more than £50m – equating to more than £1,000 per house, a number Hiller described as “astonishing”.

希利尔补充说:“如果政府不从这个拙劣的计划中吸取教训，它就不能指望实现净零目标。”

The report found that despite one of the lessons from previous energy schemes being that schemes should be designed following a proper evaluation of stakeholders’ views, the scheme was announced in July 2020 without any consultation at all, with the department only consulting with installers afterwards.

考虑到方案设计和快速的时间表，国家审计署发现一些安装人员不愿意投资获得适当的认证来参与该方案，这意味着一些房主无法找到安装人员。

A BEIS spokesperson said the Green Homes Grant was designed as a short-term economic stimulus and delivered during an ongoing pandemic. “Despite this, and challenges with delivery, 99.9% of applications have now been processed, meaning almost 80,000 upgrades to homes,” the spokesperson said.

该部门表示，英国在改善其家庭能源性能方面有着良好的记录，目前有40%的家庭在能源性能(EPC) C级以上，而2008年这一比例仅为9%，政府已承诺投资90亿英镑用于改善建筑的能源效率。