EEH0131
Written evidence from Ann Barradine
We are approved installers under TrustMark for the Green Home Voucher Scheme, to say this scheme has been badly promoted and administered is an understatement. My company like others have spent tens of thousands of pounds preparing and gearing up for the launch of the scheme which was announced by Boris Johnson on the BBC news at 9pm on Tuesday the 7th July 2020 stating there was 2 billion in funding and vouchers would be available from the first September the same year.
Where my multi-award-winning company had a full order book of clients wanting their homes insulated we like other companies lost every order we had as customers were obviously going to apply for funding.
The scheme was not even launched until November and as yet in our specialist field of insulating park homes, to this date not one voucher has been issued for insulation for a park home.
The TrustMark web site announced to all installers we could continue insulating under our PAS2020:17 certification, I even phoned Trustmark speaking with XXXXXX to confirm this.
As a company I then produced 15,000 brochures posting out 6,000 promoting the scheme to residents of park homes in Devon, Cornwall and part of Dorset and surveying and sending out written quotations to clients we secured over 200 clients wanting to go ahead with the works based on installing under PAS2030:17, we took on two office staff and two new surveyors, purchased new computers, desks and chairs to help answer the 50+ enquiry phone calls a day we were receiving from park home owners wanting their homes insulated. Only to find out on the 15th September that park homes were put in the high risk category and would need to be installed under PAS2030:19 / 35 and then specifically B13, this meant spending £1000,s to be compliant with the newly announced scheme rules.
From here it was one scheme change after another, we renamed the scheme the Hogwarts staircase, (it didn’t just move a little the changes were inter-dimensional)
It was evident the scheme was no way ready to be launched and processes and procedures were not in place or even a scheme administrator appointed, BEIS and Trustmark had no idea what they were doing and making it all up as they went along. The energy advice line was and is a joke, I have a 15-minute recording where staff admitted that the website is useless and best to try the TrustMark find a trader one instead. We had to lay off the two office staff and one surveyor, the other surveyor then went part time.
I have had to lay off three of my install teams and am hoping and praying they will come back when we actually get a voucher, it takes years to fully train an installer in our specialist field and some of my men have been with me for over 15 years.
The scheme regulations were not even sent to installers until the 13th November. As part of the requirements for being an approved installer we had to sign the scheme terms and conditions however, we could not see all the content for the terms and conditions as we had to agree to the content and requirements of the Sightline App (that you could only see if you signed the terms and conditions). THIS IS AN ILLEGAL PRACTISE, not only were BEIS asking us to sign an agreement that we could not see the full terms and conditions, they made us complicit in their illegal practises by insisting we had to supply email addresses for our installers so that they could sign the same terms and conditions again without being able to see the Sightline App and the full terms, conditions and requirements if everything involved. The problem was if we did not sign, we could not be an approved installer, therefore we would not receive any vouchers for our clients and thereby no income for our company.
Are you aware that on Christmas Eve over 40,000 emails went out to people in error who had applied for a voucher, stating the quotations were overpriced and to contact the quoting installation company, this caused those home owners untold stress and anxiety over the Christmas period? This email followed another sent in error in mid-November, where again 40,000 emails were sent saying all the quotes were detailed incorrectly and all the costings needed breaking down between materials and labour. How on earth was an installer supposed to know how the quotations should be sent to clients when no guidelines had been provided to installers?
My company had £100,000 in its bank accounts before the launch of this scheme and an order book with three months’ work lines up for my 4 install teams. Covid did not cause the downturn of my company, this bloody Green Home Voucher Scheme did. I have spoken with many other insulation companies and most are in a worse situation than I am, one company director I spoke with today told me he had to re-mortgage his house to pay his staff wages and again lost his entire order book due to this scheme.
I have spent nearly 20 years fighting for the rights and fair justice for park home residents that are treated like second class citizens and looked down on as they live in a park home. Some of these homes now cost over £500,000 and are absolutely beautiful places to live and in a community of likeminded people. There are over 250,000 people who live in park homes and this number grows each year as traditional bungalows are not really built any more so for people who have health issues or simply want to retire and live in a single storey detached property, park homes are perfect.
I write this email wanting to know when vouchers for park home residents will be issued, or are they to be discriminated against, ignored, forgotten and ridden rough shot over again?
I also write wanting to know how we the installers who believed in this scheme, invested time, money and the belief this scheme would make a difference to our companies’ profitability and work flow, now find our companies on the brink of liquidation as a pure direct result of the atrocious lack of administration, organisation, coordination and information provided by BEIS and Trustmark.
IT IS NOT COVID THAT HAS CAUSED MY VERY PROFITABLE COMPANY TO HAVE LOST TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POUNDS, IT WAS THE ANNOUCEMENT OF THIS SCHEME AND THE WAY IT IS BEING ADMINISTERED.
We need help, the Government have caused this mess not just for me but for every insulation company registered for this scheme, if you do not believe me go to the Energy Efficiency Association and ask them what their member think of the Green Home Grant Scheme, send a questionnaire to every PAS or MCS certified company who has signed up for the Green Home Grant scheme how has the announcement of this scheme effected your company? We will all say the same, this GHGS has destroyed good, sound companies and put many on the brink of liquidation. Would you agree to spend £6000 to £8000 of your own money on insulation if you could get a grant? Of course, not and I would not want my clients to do that.
What we the installers want is, compensation for the damage the Government has caused insulation installers through the early announcement of a scheme that was not even ready to be launched and to this day has still not got all the processes, procedures and guidelines right.
Please investigate, do a survey, speak to insulation installation companies, BEIS, TrustMark and the newly appointed scheme administrators, this cannot be allowed to continue as is, we need help and now.