Publication - Progress report
Home Energy Efficiency Programmes Scotland: annual review 2016-2017
A review of how the Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme has performed and made progress towards meeting the scheme's stated objectives.
Part 8: Conclusions and Recommendations Summary
Conclusions
The following matrix shows whether Warmer Homes Scotland is on track to meet its stated objectives
Recommendations Summary
| Fuel Poverty | Recommendation 1 - In light of the changes to the fuel poverty definition, review the eligibility criteria to ensure Warmer Homes Scotland continues to meet its stated objective to reduce fuel poverty. |
| Recommendation 2 - Carry out an in-depth analysis of the reasons why applications that do not qualify post-referral are being referred to Warmer Homes Scotland and make recommendations as to how these numbers can be reduced. | |
| Recommendation 3 - To identify if there are any noticeable changes in rates or anomalies by region or year, the 2017/18 review should carry out a trend analysis of rates of fuel poverty by region and analyse this when compared to Warmer Homes Scotland installations data from launch in 2015 to end of Year 3. | |
| Recommendation 4 - Continue to monitor cancellations rates to identify any emerging trends and use lessons learned from other related projects to make any necessary improvements in managing the Warmer Homes Scotland customer journey. | |
| Housing Stock | Recommendation 5 - Given some of the measures are deemed to be more suitable for new builds and that it was suggested that the design of some of the measures, for example flexible thermal linings and water efficient taps, could be redesigned to increase their suitability, the existing list and design of the measures available under the scheme should be reviewed and updated to reflect the on-the-ground experience and insights of surveyors and their understanding of the suitability of the measures when taking the circumstances of customers, sensitivities around property type and need for any associated educational activities due to installation of unfamiliar technology. |
| Recommendation 6 - Consideration should be given to building on current training provision for surveyors and establishing a formal programme of annual refresher training for them to ensure any gaps are identified and addressed. Due to their pivotal role in the customer journey, this should include engagement with Scottish Government officials on the contract requirements relevant to the survey process. As part of this engagement Scottish Government should provide Warmworks with details of the scenarios where some of the more underutilised measures were deemed suitable for use during the schemes development. All current surveyor training and manuals should be updated to reflect the outcome of this review. | |
| Recommendation 7 - Agree an appropriately robust process to enable suitable measures to be suggested, appraised and tested for future inclusion in the scheme by either Warmworks or the Scottish Government. | |
| Recommendation 8 - To identify any gaps or areas for improvement in the customer journey, a review of the handling, follow up, recording and action taken on any comments provided by surveyors in completed household surveys should be conducted. | |
| Recommendation 9 - An evaluation of the corresponding action taken, monitoring and audit process followed by Warmworks and its sub-contractors in response to remedial work identified by Pennington Choices should be undertaken. The outcome of this evaluation and any resulting actions that are made should be reviewed in the 2017/18 Annual Review. | |
| Value for Money | Recommendation 10 - A full appraisal of the strategies, processes or protocols Warmworks has in place to leverage additional financial support into Warmer Homes Scotland should be undertaken. This should focus on challenges faced in leveraging additional funding and how these can be overcome, seeking opportunities for leveraging funding from new sources and making any recommendations for improvement where required. This should also include an assessment of how this funding is being used on the ground i.e. what are the most common ‘enabling’ activities, the least common, the most expensive, any regional variations in activities, etc. |
| Recommendation 11 - A review of Home Energy Scotland Loans should be undertaken to establish if their purpose should be widened to include enabling measures for Warmer Homes Scotland. | |
| Community Benefits | Recommendation 12 - The outcome of the Community Benefits audits should be evaluated as part of the 2017/18 review. |
| Recommendation 13 - The progress being made on the Community Benefits requirement under the Warmer Homes Scotland contract should be a key focus of the 2017/18 Review. |
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