Energy professionals call for review of CERT

The newly formed Association of Property and Energy Professionals (APEP), a body, created to provide organisations involved in energy and condition reporting with a collective voice and stronger lobbying power, is seeking a judicial review into the recent changes announced to the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT).

The new body claims that in light of the newly created Home Energy Advisor role, the Government has completely by-passed Domestic Energy Assessors (DEAs), who are already trained and qualified to give homeowners advice on improving the energy efficiency of their homes.

Lesley Sorridimi of APEP, comments:

“The Government has pulled the rug from underneath the feet of the nation’s 10,000 plus DEAs. It has clearly ignored industry feedback obtained during its recent consultation paper: Heat and Energy Saving Strategy and instead, has opted to plough ahead with the creation of a new role, the Home Energy Advisor – a costly and totally unnecessary duplication of the existing job, already being carried out by DEAs.

“This latest decision smacks of incompetency and is a sorry reminder of what the Government did to the thousands of individuals who trained as Home Inspectors prior to July 2006. The Government effectively created a new profession, encouraging thousands of individuals to invest their own money in a new training scheme so that they could deliver the newly devised Home Condition Report, a then mandatory part of the Home Information Pack, before pulling the very product they had trained and paid to deliver, leaving them out of pocket and out of work.”

Sorridimi, continues:

“A further announcement from British Gas today, that it plans to create 2,600 new ‘green’ jobs is clear evidence that DEAs are being totally bypassed. The Government cannot allow this to happen. We are calling on the Department of Energy and Climate Change to review its plans for the new Home Energy Advisor role or face a judicial review into why it has effectively created a new DEA profession and is now choosing to take away the very work which these people are trained and qualified to do.”