The scheme aims to upgrade 300,000 homes by March 2026. However, climate change think tank E3G estimates that at the current rate of delivery, it would take around 146 years to complete this many homes.
“Upgrading Britain’s leaky homes is essential to lower bills and cut emissions” said Juliet Phillips, Senior Policy Advisor at E3G. “However, recent progress has been glacial. For months, installers and local authorities have warned of the severe delivery challenges faced by UK retrofit schemes. This is reflected in today’s statistics. It’s shocking that the new Great British Insulation Scheme has supported just 1,026 homes in 6 months – a miniscule fraction of the 300,000 total properties the scheme seeks to upgrade by 2026. At peak, industry was delivering over 1 million loft insulations in 2005. With the right long-term plan in place, installers can gear up towards a similar scale. However, urgent attention is needed to address the collapse in supply chains. According to analysis by the Installation Assurance Authority, there are now fewer than 10,000 people involved in the industry, whereas in 2012 there was 54,000. This can mean customers struggle to find installers in their local areas. With energy bills double what they were before Russia invaded Ukraine, fixing our leaky homes should be a national priority. We hope today’s statistics act as a wake-up call to spur action to address delivery challenges.”
The E3G research has highlighted key delivery challenges being faced across the UK’s retrofit schemes:
Short-termism and boom–bust policies: The key issue hindering delivery is the short-term horizons of schemes and the stop–start nature of policies. This has undermined industry confidence to invest in skills and supply chains.
Skills and supply chains: Installers are warning of the collapse of supply chains required to deliver the UK's flagship fuel poverty schemes. According to analysis by the Installation Assurance Authority, there are now fewer than 10,000 people involved in the industry and public-funded schemes, whereas in 2012 there was 54,000. This can mean customers can struggle to find qualified installers in their local areas.
Increased cost of delivery: Increased supply costs, caused by inflation and labour crunches, has undermined the delivery of schemes. Cost assumptions within impact assessments do not reflect current market conditions.
Delays in the publication of key documents needed to support delivery: Delays to the publication of standards underpinning the scheme meant that in reality, delivery couldn’t begin in earnest until summer.
High upfront costs and bureaucracy limit up-take: While standards and assurance are critical for building the market, the standards used for the scheme (PAS 2035) requires more manpower to administrate, and installers are reporting significant challenges recruiting labour. While installer firms are trying to expand the availability of labour in line with the scale of the schemes, the extra input needed on every PAS job makes it a slow process to get staff trained to a satisfactory level. According to one installer, for PAS measures the productivity is about 10 percent of the volume achieved on schemes which are not PAS – meaning for every one job a PAS project coordinator delivers, a non-PAS one can deliver 10 in the same timeframe.
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