The scheme aimed to support jobs during the heights of the Covid-19 crisis in the UK while helping reduce carbon emissions associated with home heating, providing grants towards energy-efficiency upgrades. It was given a 12-week timescale for implementation, and was implemented despite the department for business, energy, and industrial strategy (BEIS)’s own Projects and Investment Committee rejecting its business case.
The PAC concluded in its report that the scheme had an unrealistic timeline, “poor design”, and “troubled implementation”. The scheme upgraded 47,500 of the 600,000 homes originally envisaged and accounted for £314m of its £1.5bn budget, of which £50m was administration costs (more than £1,000 per home upgraded). By August 2021, 52 per cent of homeowners’ voucher applications were rejected or withdrawn and 46 per cent of installer applications failed.
Most damningly, given that its primary aim was job support, the MPs concluded that it...