[holding answer 23 March 2009]: The following table details the number of households assisted by the Warm Front scheme in each year since its inception:
Number 2000-01 97,616 2001-02 307,678 2002-03 219,328 2003-04 188,974 2004-05 208,084 2005-06 173,184 2006-07 253,079 2007-08 268,900 2008-09 233,594
To determine their eligibility for Warm Front, the scheme manager collects the following information from all applicants to the scheme: name, date of birth, ethnicity, address and telephone number; evidence of tenure (and landlord information if a rented property); and evidence of receipt of benefit. When benefits are related to other members of the household these details are also required.
For successful applicants, additional information is also collected on the property, including the name of the energy supplier, number of residents and property data required to complete the Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure which enables the scheme manager to determine the increase in the energy efficiency of a household as an outcome of the measures installed.
All data are handled fully in accordance with the Data Protection Act.
The Department has only recently begun to record the number of complaints received in respect of Warm Front heating installations. As such, we cannot provide consolidated data for this period.
All registered installers are required to provide a performance bond of £25,000 to cover remedial work and other potential liabilities for up to two years after they cease to be on the scheme.
A copy of this information has been placed in the Library of the House.
The following table shows the payments made by DECC and its predecessor Department to Eaga since the beginning of this phase of the Warm Front scheme in 2005, alongside the total grant spend for this year. All payments to installers and suppliers working on Warm Front are made through Eaga.
The final column shows the total value of these payments that are retained by Eaga in scheme management fees and their subsidiary organisations that work on Warm Front. The amount paid to the subsidiary organisations does not exceed 30 per cent. of the work available in any period.
Scheme year Warm Front budget-allocated spend Sum of payments1 Payments retained by Eaga or subsidiaries 2005-06 187,286 171,928 45,070 2006-07 315,000 317,111 101,654 2007-08 350,000 377,509 127,020 2008-092 377,562 385,125 135,052 1 Warm Front has generated income through trading energy savings to energy suppliers to help them meet their Energy Efficiency Commitment/Carbon Emissions Reduction Target obligations. This income is then used to provide more measures through Warm Front. Therefore the sum of monies paid by the Department to Eaga exceeds the budget allocation in some years. 2 The data for the 2008-09 financial year run to 28 February 2009.
Two former officials of predecessor Departments are currently employed by the Eaga group of companies.
DECC has appointed an independent quality assessor, White Young Green, to carry out such inspections on its behalf. These inspections, carried out on a random sample of jobs, assess the quality of the installation in terms of workmanship, health and safety, and adherence to scheme specifications. White Young Green reports back to the Department on its findings through bi-yearly audit reports and other ad hoc audits requested by the Department.
Three such visits have taken place in the last 12 months.
No assumptions are made in this respect. Under the terms of the Warm Front contract, Eaga is required to calculate the standard assessment procedure (SAP) ratings using SAP2001 (the industry standard software).
This software does not recognise any contribution by compact fluorescent light bulbs to carbon savings. We are unable to comment on the assumptions on which this software makes calculations as the Department is not the writer of the software.
The latest period for which figures are available is 1 September 2007 to 25 March 2009. The following data show system repairs (including although not exclusively pertaining to boiler repairs) in Sutton and Cheam and England respectively.
Sutton and Cheam England 1 visit 93 66,436 2 visits 40 20,384 3 visits 7 6,227 4 visits 2 2,967 Total properties covered 519 372,775 Total properties visited 142 96,014
[holding answer 27 April 2009]: During the contracted period, June 2005 to end of scheme year 2008-09 (31 March), the Warm Front scheme has installed insulation in 337,084 households across England.
Eaga has managed Warm Front in the East Midlands since 2005, and cannot provide information on installers prior to that date. Since 2005, no installer in the East Midlands or nationally has been removed from the scheme by Eaga.
Since the start of the current phase of the Warm Front scheme in 2005, no installer in (a) North West Cambridgeshire constituency, (b) Cambridgeshire, (c) the East of England or (d) nationally has been removed from the scheme by Eaga, but eight have left the scheme.
The following tables show the number of (a) lofts and (b) cavities insulated through the Warm Front programme in each of the last three years, and in the current year to date.
2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 Current year to date1 (a) Lofts 61,368 60,652 57,104 13,360 (b) Cavities 36,237 31,227 27,100 6,871 1 29 March 2009 to 30 May 2009.