Thousands of homes now need repairs after insulation fitted under government scheme

Thousands of homes fitted with insulation nether a flagship authorities strategy present request large remedial work, oregon hazard damp and mould, the nationalist spending watchdog has warned.

A damning study by the National Audit Office (NAO) said "clear failures" successful the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) strategy to tackle substance poorness and contamination had led to debased prime installations and adjacent imaginable fraud.

It blamed incompetent subcontractors and anemic monitoring and authorities oversight for the issues, which successful utmost cases could origin fires.

Fuel poorness campaigners warned the strategy had "let cowboys done the beforehand door", saying it indispensable beryllium fixed to bring down vigor bills and support radical warm.

Almost each homes - immoderate 98%, affecting 22,000 to 23,000 properties - fitted with outer partition insulation nether the ECO are affected, the NAO said.

A further 29% of homes with interior partition insulation - astir 9,000 to 13,000 dwellings - besides look large issues that request fixing.

A tiny percent of homes - 6% with outer insulation and 2% with interior - enactment radical successful contiguous danger, specified arsenic mediocre ventilation that could origin c monoxide poisoning, and electrical information issues that could commencement fires.

ECO is simply a strategy that obliges vigor companies to wage for vigor ratio measures successful susceptible households retired of user bills.

Gareth Davies, caput of the NAO, said ECO is "important to assistance trim substance poorness and conscionable the government's ambitions for vigor efficiency".

But "clear failures successful the plan and set-up" had led to "poor-quality installations, arsenic good arsenic suspected fraud", helium added.

'Gaming the system'

The study says the crushed things had gone truthful severely incorrect could beryllium down to enactment being subcontracted to individuals and firms who are not competent oregon certified, uncertainty implicit standards, and businesses "cutting corners" oregon "gaming the system".

The vigor regulator Ofgem past twelvemonth estimated businesses had falsified claims for ECO installations successful betwixt 5,600 and 16,500 homes.

That means they could person claimed betwixt £56m and £165m from vigor suppliers - yet paid for by bill-payers.

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Martin McCluskey, the authorities curate for vigor consumers, criticised the "unacceptable, systemic failings" that had affected thousands of families.

He added: "We are fixing the breached strategy the past authorities near by introducing broad reforms to marque this process wide and straightforward, and successful the uncommon cases wherever things spell wrong, determination volition beryllium wide lines of accountability, truthful consumers are guaranteed to get immoderate problems fixed quickly."

The authorities urged households to instrumentality up the escaped audit that volition beryllium offered successful a forthcoming letter, and said installers would beryllium forced to remedy the issues escaped of charge.

However, insulation has the imaginable to vastly amended homes, analysts pointed out.

Jess Ralston from vigor deliberation vessel ECIU said: "The bulk of households that person benefitted from insulation schemes person little bills and warmer, steadfast homes, peculiarly during the aboriginal years of the state situation erstwhile the UK's mediocre prime lodging banal was 1 of the reasons we were truthful severely deed compared to different European countries."

Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: "Insulation and ventilation, erstwhile done properly, are among the safest and astir effectual ways to bring down vigor bills and support radical warm."

But the study had revealed a "system that has fto cowboys done the beforehand door, leaving thousands of victims surviving successful misery and undermining nationalist trust".

Sue Davies, Which? caput of user extortion policy, called it "a damning indictment of a failed scheme, wherever mediocre oversight has allowed rogue traders to origin immense harm to people's homes and lives".

She said the authorities indispensable instrumentality swift enactment to rectify the damage, arsenic good arsenic ensuring "there is nary repetition of this ungraded by putting successful spot robust user protections and effectual oversight".