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Roper Rants at Green
Deal SoftwareFailure
An investigation by the editor,
John Roper, of leading industry
journal The Fabricator has
highlighted some major flaws in the
Govrnemnt’s Green Deal. He writes:
The Green Deal was launched last
October but you will not have
noticed people clamouring to buy
windows either. This is the flagship
policy of the coalition tohelp
households reduce energy bills by
improving insulation.
However, atthe moment this is
all hypothetical because so far
nobody has been able toapply. It
isn’t that assessment firms have
been without enquiries. But,
according toaninvestigation by the
BBC’s You and Yours consumer
programme, they have been turning
enquirers away. When you consider
that assessment and approval
requires specific computer software
and then consider where the
software is coming from it starts to
make sense. Government
departments do not have avery
good track record when it comes to
software and computer systems.
Previous delays and failure are
almost too many tolist.
In this case assessment requires
two pieces of software. The first is
to produce energy performance
certificates, the second measures
how many people in the property
use gas and electricity. It is the
second piece that is not available.
So the Department for Energy
and Climate Change has fessed-up
that to date the number ofrecorded
assessments for The Green Deal is
zero.
Teething troubles
This may be just teething troubles,
the word is that the software will be
available in January. But itdoesn’t
bode well for apolicy that is a
mainstay of the government’s policy
on energy conservation –‘Flagship’
was their word not mine –and we
are still waiting to find out if
windows and doors will actually
make it through the ‘Golden Rule’.
The Rule is to do with payback
against energy bills within the time
allowed. Ihave heard speculation
by people who should know that, in
the end, fenestration will not be
able toqualify because the payback
period is too long.
The ‘Golden Rule’ states that the
charge attached to the energy bill
should not exceed the expected
savings and the length of the
(re)payment period should not
exceed the lifetime of the measures.
Money lenders
The idea of putting aloan onto a
property rather than an individual
and thus, if the property issold,
passing it on to the next owner, still
smacks of agood idea dreamed up
in apub on Friday night. It all
sounds very reasonable if you read
the Department for Energy and
Climate Change’s booklet. The fact
that the repayments form part of
the household energy bills is
supposed to guarantee that the
lender will get his money back but I
don’t suppose that the people who
wrote this are the kind ofpeople
who have difficulty paying their
bills. What happens ifa
householder gets behind? It
happens. And what about credit
ratings? The house won’t have one,
the occupants will; how will that be
taken into account? Ihave never
met abanker who would not ask
for apersonal guarantee if he can
get one. You can’t, after all, send
the repo-men along torip-out the
cavity wall and loft insulation,
though they might have more luck
with the windows and doors. i
The Crystal Column
Crystal’s Sales Director Matthew Burt says window companies need to adapt and find new markets in 2013
George Osborne has unveiled his Autumn
Statement. Further spending cuts and the UK’s
growth forecasts cut too.
It’s been the same story for four years now but
perhaps this is the new ‘normal’. The economy may not
return tothe boom days of the late nineties and early
noughties. So it’s sink or swim. Businesses need to
adapt to survive.
In the good old days, window companies could do well
without too much effort. Credit was easy to come by
and homeowners were queuing up to replace their tired
old windows or extend their homes with aconservatory.
But business won’t fall into your lap now, so you need
to look at new markets and opportunities.
For example, many Crystal customers have found
their niche in coloured profile. We’ve seen agrowing
trend for consumers replacing white PVC-U with
coloured and woodgrain windows and doors. Popular
TV programmes like Homes Under the Hammer, 60-
minute Makeover and Grand Designs have inspired
homeowners to improve their homes and add their
personal stamp with colour.
The Green Deal
You may be sick to death of hearing about it, but The
Green Deal will be big news in 2013 even if it’s unlikely
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