Government’s green homes grant dubbed ‘slam dunk fail’
The government’s green homes grant voucher scheme has been slammed as a failure after upgrading only 7.9 per cent of homes envisaged.
The scheme, which offers to cover up to two-thirds of the cost of home improvements with a government contribution cap of £5,000, upgraded just 47,500 homes. It had envisioned upgrades to 600,000 homes.
The scheme was slammed as having “poor design and troubled implementation”, ia report published by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today.
The project accounted for just £314m of its original £1.5bn budget, with £50m being administration costs.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) was criticised for not having “ully acknowledged the scale of its failures with this scheme.”
By August 2021, 52 per cent of homeowners’ voucher applications were rejected or withdrawn, and 46 per cent of installer applications failed.
PAC chair, Dame Meg Hillier MP, said: “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.”
The report reccomended BEIS outline “how it is embedding lessons learned,” in Treasury Minutes.
A government spokesperson said the scheme was “designed as a short-term economic stimulus and was delivered during a global pandemic.”
BEIS said all applications had now been processed, with almost 80,000 vouchers having been issued.