A report published by the Public Accounts Committee expressed said the Green Homes Grant Scheme "underperformed."
After some investigation, the report found that only 47,500 homes has been upgraded using the scheme out of the 600,000 originally suggested, using only £314 million of its £1.5 billion budget - £50 million being administration costs alone.
The scheme’s failure “continues government’s troubled record of energy efficiency initiatives and risks damaging the Department’s future efforts to harness both consumer and industry action to deliver Government’s net zero commitments," the PAC report said.
The scheme was created to not only reduce carbon emissions from homes, but also provide jobs as a direct response to the COVID-19 lockdown crisis, with the aim to create jobs at a time of risk for the economy. Despite the BEIS having its business case rejected by its own Projects and Investment Committee, they proceeded with the scheme none-the-less.
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier MP, said:
“It cost the taxpayer £50 million just to administer the pointlessly rushed through Green Homes Grant scheme, which delivered a small fraction of its objectives, either in environmental benefits or the promised new jobs. We heard it can take 48 months – 4 years – to train the specialists required to implement key parts of a scheme that was dreamed up to be rolled out in 12 weeks. 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.”
Source: Politics.co.uk
