Energy and Climate Change CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body

1. Executive Summary

1.1. Gemserv works at the heart of the UK’s energy, environment and water sectors. We provide a range of services to Government departments, regulators, trade associations and market participants.

1.2. Gemserv was appointed to the role of Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body (GD ORB) upon being awarded the contract in June 2012. Gemserv has since worked closely with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in developing the accreditation framework and shaping the necessary policy to ensure a robust and transparent Green Deal service delivery.

1.3. As part of the contractual obligations between DECC and the GD ORB, one of the key deliverables includes producing regular reports for submission to DECC. A detailed breakdown of the reporting parameters is provided under sections 2- 4 of this document.

1.4. We welcome the opportunity to participate in the Green Deal Watching Brief Inquiry and would be pleased to provide any other information requested by the Energy and Climate Change Committee.

2. Summary of GD ORB’s Role and Responsibilities Regarding the Green Deal and/or the ECO

2.1. Under the terms of the contract between Gemserv and DECC, the GD ORB is responsible for the following areas of the Green Deal scheme:

(a)Maintaining a register of authorised Green Deal Providers, Certification Bodies, Assessor Organisation and installers. (This data is publically available via www.decc.co.uk/orb);

(b)Authorise Green Deal Providers on behalf of the Secretary of State;

(c)Maintaining the Green Deal Code of Practice;

(d)Controlling the use and protecting the status of Green Deal Quality Mark;

(e)Monitoring of Green Deal participants to the Code of Practice;

(f)Non-compliance and redress;

(g)Data management;

(h)Gathering evidence of non-compliance and referring participants to the Ombudsman;

(i)Managing and providing secretariat support to the GDAA (Green Deal Arrangements Agreement) payment systems;

(j)Managing updates to standards for Green Deal Advice Services;

(k)Manage ongoing Stakeholder Engagement;

(l)Implementing the Communications Strategy;

(m)Evaluating product and installation performance in-situ;

(n)Contract management and reporting to DECC;

(o)Publishing an Annual Report. (A version of the report will be made publically available); and

(p)Development of a fee schedule in year 2.

2.2. Since the launch of the GD ORB helpdesk and website on 8th August 2012, the GD ORB has been dealing enquiries from potential Green Deal Providers, Installers and Assessor Organisations and as well as wider stakeholders. Calls to the helpdesk number (020 7090 1031) are manually logged for monitoring and reporting purposes.

3. Overview of the Nature of Data held by the GD ORB in Relation to the Green Deal and ECO

3.1. With regards to the Green Deal, the GD ORB holds the register details for the Green Deal Participants (Green Deal Providers, Assessors, and Installers), Green Deal Advisors (that are contracted or employed by Green Deal Assessors) and the Certification Bodies. The data held comprises; the GD Participants contact details, nominated contact person, the scope of their authorisation, geographical coverage, plus dates of certification and removal, where applicable. This data is uploaded at least weekly and is publically available via the GD ORB website: www.decc.gov.uk/orb

3.2. The GD ORB also holds confidential information relating to several areas of the applicant Green Deal Providers’ organisations including their plans of how they intend to operate in the market. Further detail on the nature of the information held, is provided in the Table 1 and 2 in Annex A (at the end of this report) of the data submitted in the applicant Green Deal Provider’s Pre-Assessment Questionnaire and Fitness Test.

3.3. The GD ORB assesses the information provided and compiles a recommendation report pertaining to the applicant’s fitness to act as an authorised Green Deal Provider. The recommendation report is sent to DECC for review and signed off on behalf of the Secretary of State.

3.4. A number of Green Deal delivery organisations also send data through to GD ORB on agreed timeframes, more detailed information can be found in paragraphs 3.5 to 3.10 below.

3.5. From March 2013 onwards DECC/EPC Register Operators will be providing GD ORB with the following record level information:

(a)Green Deal Plan information: the Green Deals that are “new” (where a unique Green Deal Plan ID has been created and initial checks were carried out, but no notification sent to the Bill Payer), “pending” (where the first notification of a pending Green Deal Plan has been sent to the Bill Payer, but measures are not yet installed) and “live” (Green Deal charge information has been sent to the Green Deal Licensee and the required Bill Payer notification regarding pending Green Deal Charges has been generated by the Green Deal Licensee); measures installed, Green Deal Advisor ID; Domestic/Non-domestic Green Deal Plans;

(b)Occupancy Assessments and EPCs produced and lodged.

Please note that the information transfer described in this paragraph is still being finalised at the time of writing and may be provided directly to GD ORB by EPC Register operators in England and Wales, and separately in Scotland.

3.6. DECC will also be providing GD ORB with the following record-level information from the Green Deal Central Charge Database on a six-monthly basis up to the end of June 2013 and December 2013 and every six months until the end of Gemserv’s contract with DECC:

(a)Green Deal Plan ID;

(b)Green Deal Provider;

(c)Green Deal Proposed End Date;

(d)Green Deal Actual End Date; and

(e)Country.

3.7. The Green Deal Provider monthly and annual reporting requirements are outlined in the Annex 2 of the Green Deal Framework (Disclosure, Acknowledgment, Redress etc.) Regulations 2012. The first reports are expected in March 2013.

3.8. The Certification Body monthly reporting requirements are outlined in the Regulation 19 of the Green Deal Framework (Disclosure, Acknowledgment, Redress etc) Regulations 2012. The first reports were received in November 2012, but the complete submissions are expected from March 2013.

3.9. Since October 2012, Landmark supply GD ORB with weekly aggregate information on the number of assessments lodged.

3.10. In addition, the GD ORB has set up arrangements with the Energy Saving Trust, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), Ombudsman Services Limited and Capita to provide us with certain data on a monthly (or weekly) basis that would help us to fulfil out monitoring functions. Please note that not all the necessary MoUs have been put in place to enable this data transfer at the time of this report being produced but the intended scope is outlined below:

(a)Energy Saving Trust: a monthly report with the complaints received in relation to the Green Deal advice service (ESAS in England and Wales and ESSac in Scotland);

(b)UKAS: a monthly report with the complaints received in relation to the Green Deal accreditation service and the number of inspection visit carried out;

(c)Ombudsman: a monthly report with the complaints received in relation to the Green Deal, number of calls received and customers referred to other organisations. The GD ORB is managing the Ombudsman contract on behalf of DECC and will be monitoring all KPIs in line with the OIS contract. Since October 2012, the Ombudsman has been notifying GD ORB of which Providers have signed up to the OIS scheme as required by the Green Deal Framework (Disclosure, Acknowledgment, Redress etc.) Regulations 2012;

(d)Capita: Since January 2013, a weekly report with the details of the Providers which have registered with the Cashback scheme.

4. Details of the Raw Data that the GD ORB Provides to DECC

4.1. The GD ORB provides a series of weekly reports to DECC to provide insight and market intelligence into the key activities undertaken by the GD ORB. Tables 1 and 2 in the Annex B provide a detailed breakdown of the reporting parameters. Further details of these reports are provided under section 4.7 of this document. In addition, ad hoc reports are also produced and submitted, as and when requested.

4.2. In addition to the above information, the GD ORB also provides additional information to allow DECC a better understanding of take up and interest in the Green Deal. Such measures include providing the number of visits per day the GD ORB website receives and additional information for the average visits since the website launched in August 2012.

4.3. Within the information sent in weekly reports, some aspects are provided by external organisations (UKAS, Landmark etc) or through market intelligence collecting. Any information within the report that has been gained indirectly is highlighted explicitly to DECC.

4.4. The GD ORB also provides weekly updates on details of the current issues being reported in calls, emails or other correspondence. These include new issues, issues that have been carried over from previous reports and details of any misuse of the Quality Mark.

4.5. The GD ORB also produces two reports for DECC on a monthly basis; a performance report and a monthly statistic report. The monthly performance report provides an overview of the key activities relating to the contract deliverables (Table 1 in Annex C) undertaken by the GD ORB each month.

4.6. The monthly statistics report provides the data for all the Green Deal participants registered on the scheme as well as the comprehensive listings of the participants (Table 2 in Annex C).

4.7. In the monthly statistics report, complaints information is also provided for Green Deal Assessors, Providers and Installers as well as customer complaints from ESAS as detailed in Annex D.

4.8. From June 2013, the GD ORB will be providing DECC the following information every six months:

(a)Green Deal provider;

(b)Number of signed Green Deals to [specify] end of month;

(c)Amount (£) paid on [and specify number of] Green Deals to agreed billing date;

(d)Amount (£) paid on [and specify number of] Green Deals after billing date;

(e)Amount (£) outstanding on [and specify number of] Green Deals; and/or

(f)Amount (£) written off on [and specify number of] Green Deals.

4.9. Since Gemserv was appointed as the GD ORB in June 2012, a number of ad hoc reports have been submitted to DECC as and when requested, relating to Green Deal applications Fitness test status, Green Deal Participants statistics, website analytics and helpdesk calls.

4.10. As an example, the Green Deal went live recently in January 2013. To monitor the growth of the scheme closely, the GD ORB has issued statistics on an ad hoc basis as requested by DECC. This includes providing the number of all the registered Green Deal participants three times per week to DECC, since the Green Deal launch until at least the end of February 2013.

4.11. Additionally, the GD ORB also produced on request detailed daily reports to demonstrate the GD ORB website traffic during the week the scheme went live. The report included visitor and page views numbers, referral websites and geographical location of the visitors’ breakdown by city.

5. Details of any Statistics that GD ORB Expects to Produce for DECC from this Data

5.1. The information discussed in the previous question is produced in statistical form for DECC at various report stages.

6. Details of any Other Statistics that the GD ORB could Produce that might be Useful for Monitoring the Green Deal

6.1. The geographical operational coverage of the Green Deal participants would also provide insight into the regional spacing of organisations and availability to potential improvers. Participants are being encouraged to supply this information voluntarily for publication available online via the Supply Chain Tool but as such the information will not have been independently verified or scrutinised.

6.2. Providing details of the split between domestic and non-domestic supplier applications could provide DECC with some useful insight into the future availability of domestic and non-domestic services.

Annex A

Table 1

DATA ITEMS THAT ARE REQUESTED IN THE APPLICANT’S PRE-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

Pre-Assessment Questionnaire Information Requested
1.	Registered company name (if applicable).
2.	Company registration number (if applicable).
3.	Registered address.
4.	Principal trading address.
5.	Parent company name.
6.	Names of registered company directors.
7.	Operational contact details.
8.	Contact details for customer enquiries.
9.	Contact details for customer complaints.
10.	Category of consumer credit licence.
11.	Agreement with Green Deal Code of Practice and Green Deal Arrangements Agreement.

Table 2

INFORMATION REQUESTED WITHIN THE APPLICANT’S FITNESS TEST.

Fitness Test Information Requested
1.	Details of other accreditations or certifications held.
2.	Professional and trade body membership.
3.	Number of Green Deal plans anticipated during their first year of authorisation.
4.	Details of any criminal convictions or civil court judgements in the past five years (Directors and senior management).
5.	Marketing and sales practices and details of any breaches against codes.
6.	References—two referee names and contact details for Marketing and Sales.
7.	References—two referee names and contact details for supply chain management.
8.	Organisation’s plans to market and sell the Green Deal.
9.	Green Deal Assessments and ensuring impartiality of Assessors.
10.	Quotes and ensuring compliance with the Green Deal Code of Practice.
11.	Understanding of the Golden Rule.
12.	Whether the applicant has a history of Credit Provision.
13.	Details of OFT investigations in relation to credit provision.
14.	Information on breaches of any other codes.
15.	Supply chain management.
16.	Customer services and complaints handling.
17.	Complaints referred to Ombudsman Services.
18.	Facilities in place for handling customer queries and complaints.
19.	Data Protection and Information security.
20.	Health and Safety.

Annex B

Table 1

DECC WEEKLY STATISTICS REPORT

Weekly Statistics Report
1.	The number of Certification Bodies accredited by UKAS to certify Installers and/or Assessor Organisations.
2.	The number of Assessor Organisations and a list of organisation names
3.	The number of individual Advisors in total, and a list of their names.
4.	The number of assessments lodged.
5.	Any market intelligence regarding the number of advisors currently going through training.
6.	The number of new Assessor Organisations and new advisors added in the last week.
7.	Any market intelligence regarding the number of installers currently going through training.
8.	The total number of new installers added in the last week.
9.	GD ORB website analytics—no. of unique visitors, referral websites and page views.
10.	The number of authorised Green Deal Providers and status of their operational readiness.
11.	Issues log for the misuse of the Quality mark and actions taken.

Table 2

DECC WEEKLY GDP MI REPORT

1.	Total no. of Pre-Assessment Questionnaires.
2.	Total no. of Fitness Test received, categorised by live, withdrawn and frozen.
3.	Total no. of authorised Providers and the organisation names.
4.	A breakdown of applications received including the date, total GD ORB processing days, total no. of calendar days and status.
5.	The list of applications pending with DECC, total DECC processing days, total no. of calendar days and status.
6.	The list of applications on hold which are applying for a CCA Licence.

Annex C

Table 1

GD ORB MONTHLY PERFORMANCE REPORT

GD ORB Monthly Performance Report
1.	GD ORB Helpdesk activity overview
2.	GD Provider applications overview
3.	GD ORB Website and Register development overview
4.	Green Deal Standards and Scheme documents update
5.	GDAA update
6.	Monitoring strategy overview
7.	Communications and events
8.	Expenditure

Table 2

DECC MONTHLY STATISTICS REPORT

Monthly Statistics Report
1.	Certification Body	(a) Name of Certification Body (b) Full address of Certification Body (c) Dates of commencement of authorisation and accreditation (d) Date of expiration (where appropriate)Advisor services Certification Body can certify (e) Green Deal measures certification body is accredited to certify persons to install (f) Whether the Certification Body certifies domestic and/or non-domestic advisor services (g) Certification Body listing
2.	Green Deal Assessor	(h) Number of accredited assessors by whether they assess domestic or non-domestic properties by registered postcode
3.	Green Deal Provider listing	(i) Number of accredited Green Deal providers by whether they provide services to domestic or non-domestic properties and registered postcode
4.	Green Deal Advisor listing	(j) Number of certified advisors by whether they assess domestic or non-domestic properties by registered postcode
5.	Green Deal Installer listing	(k) Number of accredited installers by whether they install in domestic or non-domestic properties by registered postcode
6.	All Green Deal Participants	(l) Number of accredited assessors/installers/Green Deal providers removed/no longer accredited/struck off (m) The up to date listings of all the Green Deal participants
7.	Applicant providers—Fitness Test stage

Annex D

Table 1

MONTHLY COMPLAINTS DATA

Green Deal Participant	Complaints data supplied
Assessors	(a) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by measure for each assessor (where there is a complaint) (b) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by reason code for each assessor (where there is a complaint
Installers	(c) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by measure for each installer (where there is a complaint) (d) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by reason code for each installer (where there is a complaint)
Green Deal providers	(e) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by measure for each Green Deal provider (where there is a complaint) (f) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by reason code for each Green Deal provider (where there is a complaint)
Consumer complaints	(g) Number of total/resolved/unresolved complaints by measure received by ESAS

February 2013