Only 626 households have live Green Deal plans in place after the first full year of the scheme that allows householders to repay the cost of energy efficiency improvement son their home through savings in their fuel bills.
Ministers had expected 10,000 in place by now.
Climate change minister Greg Barker yesterday addressed the issue at a UK Green Building Council conference and insisted that the scheme had had a solid start, despite the paltry take-up.
“As I look back on the Green Deal’s first year, despite the critics, the programme has seen an encouraging start.”
He admitted that “it has not exactly developed in the way we anticipated” but asserted that: “This is the year when the Green Deal goes up a gear”.
He sought to shift the focus onto Green Deal plans in the pipeline rather than those already in place. “I don’t want to raise unrealistic expectations,” he said, “but over 129,000 Green Deal Assessments in 11 months, leading to over 80% taking action with over 87% satisfaction rating – this is a great base to build on, to scale up and mobilise, and in 2014 we will.”
The supply chain was now in place, he said, with more than 125 authorised Green Deal providers, 2,900 advisors registered to carry out Green Deal assessments and 2,300 organisations officially Green Deal approved to carry out installation.
Mr Barker said that the newly established Green Deal Working Group, led by Kingfisher chief executive Sir Ian Cheshire, would lead to procedures being simplified.
He also said that in the next few weeks the government would be announcing further improvements to the Green Deal, such as enabling consumers to complete a Green Deal finance plan in one day and adjustments to Green Deal finance.
There is also to be the marketing campaign to generate better public awareness of the scheme.
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