Greater protections to restore families’ trust in home upgrades

Families will be better protected when upgrading their homes, giving them confidence to make improvements and cut their bills. 

Ministers are taking action to hold the retrofit industry to account for delivering home upgrades through a new consumer protection service, under proposals announced this week (Wednesday 17 June).

Plans being consulted on would create:  

• A transparent public register of Government approved installers.
• A single advice and support service covering the entire time a home is being upgraded.
• Powers to hold installers and delivery partners to account, including bans from working on Government schemes if they don’t meet high standards.
• A new data-backed system that spots risks and installer performance issues earlier.

This will simplify the process for consumers, providing a single point of access offering end-to-end support, quality checks and routes to redress. 

In the past, people have faced a broken and fragmented system when installing energy efficiency measures and been left frustrated and let down when things have gone wrong, with no clear way to resolve issues. 

Ministers are therefore acting to ensure issues which resulted in flawed insulation under legacy Government schemes are never allowed to happen again.  

Consumers will also be supported with faster and fairer compensation in the energy market under new measures to strengthen the Energy Ombudsman, which helps people solve disputes with their energy suppliers.

If companies are not able to resolve issues directly, customers will be able to escalate their complaints to the Ombudsman within a shorter time frame, getting a decision more quickly – cutting overall waiting times by a month, to a maximum of 10 weeks.

The Ombudsman will be empowered to fine companies if they do not comply with their ruling, with new measures set to clarify the route for consumers to go through the courts to hold suppliers to account as a last resort.

Minister for Energy Consumers Martin McCluskey said:   

“This Government inherited a broken system that left too many people in homes damaged by work that lacked clear oversight, without support when things went wrong. 

“That is why we promised to change that system and today we are setting out how we propose to do that. 

“We are building a system that puts consumers first – holding companies to account while introducing better compensation and protections for customers.”

The changes mark the latest step to support families as Government accelerates the drive for clean power to protect billpayers from the fossil fuel rollercoaster. 

By bringing forward the biggest investment in warm homes in British history – including making plug-in solar available in shops, giving homeowners living in properties heated by oil and LPG £9,000 off the cost of a heat pump, and taking decisive action on delinking electricity prices from international gas prices – the Government is driving forward with plans to upgrade as many homes as possible to cut bills.

gov.uk