98% of residences which received improvements as part of the Energy Company Obligation programme now face damp, mould and fire risks unless further work is carried out.
The National Audit Office has slammed ‘clear failures’ in the insulation upgrades carried out on behalf of the last Conservative government. Contractors were poorly incompetent and monitoring processes were weak.
Work was supposed to help vulnerable households bring their energy bills down, but is likely to have had the opposite effect. Almost all addresses which qualified for the scheme’s external wall insulation now need repairs – up to 23,000 properties – and a further 29% of those which had internal wall insulation fitted, around 12,000 dwellings, also now need to be fixed.
Worse still, 6% of internal and 2% of internal insulation recipients present an immediate danger to occupants. Issues include poor ventilation, raising the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, and electrical problems which could lead to deadly fires.
Concerns have been raised about businesses ‘gaming the system’, with Ofgem estimating up to 16,500 homes had been used on falsified claims by contractors looking to profit without carrying out work or severely cutting corners. This could be worth up to £165million, which is paid for by taxpayers.
‘We are fixing the broken system the last government left by introducing comprehensive reforms to make this process clear and straightforward, and in the rare cases where things go wrong, there will be clear lines of accountability, so consumers are guaranteed to get any problems fixed quickly,’ said Martin McCluskey, government minister for energy consumers.
Image: Erik Mclean / Unsplash
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