§ Vernon CoakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what assessment she has made of the number of people experiencing delays when seeking improvements to their homes under the Warm Front initiative. [56205]
(2) what assessment she has made of the progress of the Department's Warm Front initiative; and if she will make a statement. [56204]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Home Energy Efficiency Scheme for England is marketed as the Warm Front Team. To date Warm Front has assisted over 350,000 households and spent over £180 million on installing measures.
The two Scheme Managers have target times for completion work. These are set at 40 days for insulation measures, and 120 days for heating measures. The table below shows the number of households receiving either a central heating system or insulation measures and the time taken from survey to completion of work:
Waiting times between 1 June 2000 and 31 March 2002
Central heating Total number of households in sample 66,600 Waiting time less than 120 days 33,100 Waiting time greater than 120 days 33,500
Insulation Total number of households in sample 311,200 Waiting time less than 40 days 91,900 Waiting time greater than 40 days 219,300 There is usually a period of 1–8 weeks between the date of actual installation and receipt of the invoice from installers.
The Scheme Managers provide monthly performance reports covering delivery against targets, customer care and heating capacity. There have been delays in the installation of measures under the scheme, but my Department is working closely with the Scheme Managers to address these problems.
Some applicants to the scheme have experienced delays due to the national shortage of gas heating engineers. To help address this problem my Department has funded training courses to provide additional qualified engineers to work under the scheme.
241WIn addition, over 290,000 households receive assistance in 2001–02 against an original target of 228,000. This will also have impacted upon timelines, although it is not possible to quantify the affect at this time.
We will carry out a review of Warm Front during this financial year to look at how effective its delivery has been, the issues faced, solutions found, examples of best practice and future priorities.