A year ago, I started working in a fraud prevention role for a national charity. My work involves researching a vast range of fraud types, from rogue traders to romance scams, but what always surprises me is the sheer number of reports linked to the ECO4 scheme – the UK Government’s long-running project to decarbonise housing.
ECO4 (Energy Company Obligation 4) is the latest iteration of a scheme that has been running in England, Wales and Scotland since 2013. It works by placing an obligation on energy companies to pay for installers to retrofit low-income homes (private properties whose occupants are receiving benefits) with energy efficiency measures such as insulation, updated boilers and heat pumps.
Like previous ECO iterations, ECO4 is installer-led, with installers being incentivised to approach households directly with the offer of retrofit. The installer can then claim some (or all) of the money back from the energy company, with the occupants making up any difference.
A nice idea. Yet since starting my role I’ve heard innumerable complaints of pushy sales tactics, unnecessary and/or expensive installations, sloppy workmanship resulting in structural damage and bogus charity endorsements. And it seems I’m not the only one experiencing this, as lively discussions in consumer forums attest.
ECO: a scammer’s delight
At an ideological level, ECO is essentially a neoliberal, free-market approach to carbon reduction. It pays lip service to environmentalism, energy security and saving households money, but it’s primarily aimed at boosting the housing retrofit sector in the hope that this will energise business growth while simultaneously shifting responsibility for decarbonisation from the state to the private sector.
Neoliberal logic sees the provider and consumer as equals, engaged in a one-on-one negotiation over price and quality. Yet reality is rarely so neat. In the case of ECO, the provider (the installer) already has the upper hand. After all, most people want to save money on energy bills and maybe help the planet too, but few know how to retrofit a house.
At the same time, ECO is only available to those receiving state benefits, meaning that it’s targeted at financially vulnerable people. Users of the scheme are therefore in the tricky situation of being both ignorant and desperate. Hardly a strong negotiating position.
This is where regulation should step in. But, because ECO is couched in neoliberalism, which rejects regulation in favour of smooth capital flow, the scheme contains very few inbuilt rules. Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, actually states on its website that ‘We have no oversight of the contractual arrangements between the obligated energy suppliers and those that install energy efficiency measures on their behalf. As such, our ability to help you resolve a complaint is limited.’
Passing the buck
With Ofgem rendered toothless, the responsibility is placed on the consumer to vet installers. The state does offer some help via the approved trader database TrustMark, with which all ECO installers should technically be registered.
There are many problems with this kind of approved trader system. First, it’s always possible for a disreputable trader to slip through the net, especially if the verification process is fairly lax and the trader is handy at self-promotion.
With Ofgem rendered toothless, responsibility is placed on consumers to vet installers
Second, approved trader systems only work if consumers know and use them, and TrustMark is not widely advertised. A trader could therefore easily market themselves as an approved ECO installer without holding TrustMark approval, simply because nobody would think to check.
With the promise of virtually unregulated work for guaranteed profit, installers are therefore free to pursue as many sales as possible. This dash for contracts means a rise in unscrupulous installers using pushy sales tactics to pressure vulnerable people into agreeing to expensive and often unnecessary installations.
One common example is installers pressuring vulnerable clients into agreeing to replace their old gas boiler with an electric heat pump, only to find that the heat pump is unsuitable for their type of house and that its running costs exceed those of a gas boiler.
Is it really so unrealistic to imagine a state-led response to decarbonising homes?
And that’s to say nothing of illegal installers. Again, the lack of regulation and public awareness around ECO opens it up to abuse. One widely reported scam involves the installer offering retrofit work at a ‘discounted’ price, claiming that the energy company will cover the rest. The ‘discount’ is false: in reality, the occupant pays an inflated price, believing that they’re getting a good deal.
Another is to sell spray foam loft insulation as a ‘quick fix’ to home energy problems. While spray foam is legal, it’s usually unsuitable for domestic properties, with various potential problems, especially when poorly installed. Yet scammers know they can flog it to people who don’t know better, and then vanish before concerns are raised.
How to stop the scam?
Retrofit is vital to decarbonising the housing sector, which causes over 14% of the UK’s carbon emissions. But the process of decarbonising homes must be distanced from neoliberalism if it is to be carried out in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. There are many ways this could be done. For a start, regulation must be tightened. Neoliberals may despise red tape, but it’s there for a reason. Ensuring the reliability of installers is a necessary first step to protecting vulnerable households.
At the same time, a state alternative could be introduced. In Wales, low-income households can benefit from the Nest scheme, which is managed by the Welsh government, thereby removing the incentive for the relentless pursuit of sales. An effective state retrofit scheme elsewhere may prompt private installers to clean up their act as they lose business to a less predatory state alternative.
The new Labour government has already shown an openness to state-led energy production, as demonstrated by the Great British Energy plan. Is it really so unrealistic to imagine a similarly state-led response to decarbonising homes?
Ultimately, the failure of the ECO scheme is an ideological problem, not a moral one. Rogue traders are products of an economic system that relies on profit-chasing and low regulation to drive it forward. Cut out that ideology, and you cut out the problem.
