25 June 2013: Ahead of Thursday’s (27th) release from DECC of their first detailed quarterly Green Deal statistics, which should include information on the take-up of Green Deal in London, the department have issued a press release highlighting findings from two Green Deal surveys.
Some findings from the Household Tracker Survey include:
- In Wave 1, which was conducted prior to the official launch of the scheme, awareness stood at 10%. This increased significantly to 19% in Wave 2 and increased further to 22% in the May dip.
- Despite the increase in Quality Mark recognition there was no increase in the level of reassurance offered by it.
- The levels of claimed solid wall insulation and loft insulation were considerably higher than DECC’s own estimates, which are derived from official insulation statistics and robust evidence from the English Household Survey. These discrepancies are important as they suggest that there is a lack of awareness and understanding about different types of energy saving improvements which could affect take up of improvements offered under the Green Deal scheme.
Points of interest from the Green Deal Assessment Survey Report include:
- Paying for an assessment: 85% of respondents said they did not pay for an assessment, with 59% saying the assessor company did not charge a fee and 26% saying it was paid for by a landlord, local authority or other organisation. Eight per cent paid for their assessment in full. [page 10 sets out why so many assessments were at no charge – which is mostly down to incentives being offered by Government earlier this year through the Green Deal Pioneer Places programmes to local authorities]
- Overall, 64% said they would recommend a Green Deal assessment to a friend.
- The data tables for the survey highlight that respondents to the questionnaire comprised 83% ‘Owner occupier’; 5% ‘Private rented’ and 12% ‘Social housing’.
Disappointingly, there doesn’t appear to be any breakdown of responses by region – and hence no data on whether assessments/recognition of the Green Deal are stronger in one part of the country than another, and why this might be happening.