Improving home energy efficiency - retrofit assessment review: policy report

Objective 3: Skills and Qualifications

What skills, roles, qualifications, and quality assurance standards will be necessary to meet HEETSA’s Objectives?

Qualifications and Training

Meeting HEETSA’s objectives will require utilising and expanding the full range of current qualifications and training opportunities. Some specific needs, such as training assessors, come with specific training requirements, and so supply and demand should be relatively easy to map (including geographical mapping of expertise), whilst others are fuzzier (see The Roles and Requirements of a Retrofit Coordinator).

Similarly, some routes to accessing qualifications and training are more formal and clearly signposted than others. For example, higher education institutions offering degrees accredited by the professional institutions offer clear and structured routes to achieving chartered status, and so will be invaluable for meeting demand providing young people can be encouraged to take them. However, relying on traditional routes to meet the skills gap means accepting a time lag, poses barriers to many learners, and means the benefits of non-traditional and informal learning opportunities will not be fully captured.

Barriers to accessing training and traditional learning methods that are based on pedagogic learning (as opposed to andragogic learning) and which require regular attendance (often in-person, on campuses, and during the working day) pose barriers to adult learners. These barriers are particularly pronounced for groups such as women, neurodivergent people, people with caring responsibilities, and those living in rural and remote areas.

However, we are seeing a growth in formal and informal opportunities provided by newer entrants to the training market, which are more suitable for adults and those already employed in HEETSA-adjacent professions. This landscape is currently patchy, evolving, not well captured by policy, and the quality and relevance of offerings is variable. This suggests a need for some further regulation in the future, but this needs to be balanced against the needs of meeting the skills shortage.

The value of professionals engaging in formal and informal communities of practice (CoPs) should not be under-estimated, and should be recognised by employers. As participation in CoPs is usually a transactional relationship, the benefits accrue more as individuals develop their careers and gain more knowledge and experience.

Finally, we note that many of our more qualified and experienced participants expressed the view that their expertise is not sufficiently understood and valued by both government and the public. For example, even if people do understand the difference between a basic home energy check or an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and a full, detailed survey, they do not understand the significant added value of paying for a professional with chartered or equivalent expertise.

If householders make decisions and invest their money based on insufficient and/or sub-standard advice this leads to retrofit projects with poor, sometimes negative, outcomes, and serves to undermine public trust in the retrofit and net zero agendas. The proposed changing of wording for the recommendations section of an EPC is a step in the right direction. However, the Scottish Government needs to do more to ensure that delivery bodies, particularly those carrying Scottish Government branding, better communicate the limits of their expertise, and that those undertaking more basic learning understand the limits of their knowledge and the need to consult experts when recommending measures to householders.

Independence and Impartiality of Advice

The complex nature of the retrofit market means the risks of biased advice need to be addressed by policymakers. This may be conscious bias, for example where and advisor or installer has a financial relationship with one or more manufacturers or suppliers, or where recommendations made by advisors are limited to measures subsidised by government funding. Or it may be unconscious bias, for example where an advisor has particular expertise with certain building types or retrofit measures.

The former is probably better addressed through regulation. The latter may, at least partially, be addressed as a result of more skilled professionals entering the retrofit market and developing competitive advantages based on their expertise – if this is clearly communicated to householders and others involved in the retrofit journey.

Quality Assurance and Codes of Conduct

Poor quality installations currently blight some parts of the retrofit market. These can result from rogue businesses, problems with the design and incentives included as part of some retrofit schemes focusing on isolated measures, lacking holistic assessment of building condition and needs of the occupants. For example, the UK Government has recently identified problems with the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and Great British Insulation Schemes (GBIS). This review has highlighted persistent problems, such as very poor-quality work and materials in order to reduce costs or meet rushed deadlines. Current UK consumer protections on their own do not provide enough pre and post-installation checks and inspections to protect homeowners. Independent advice and versification are essential for successful delivery where current approaches to verification of quality have fallen short of consumer protection, compromising customer trust.

This needs to be addressed through a range of measures, including measures such as requiring all those involved in delivering retrofits to have appropriate and sufficient public indemnity insurance; regulating to improve customer complaints handling and redress processes. We note that business and product regulation is a reserved matter, but that consumer regulation is baked into related legislation (e.g., the Heat Networks (Scotland) Act 2021) and so, where possible, HEETSA’s aims would be better served through devolved regulations.

We also found substantial support for a Code of Conduct, which could be introduced to be specific to HEETSA. We have suggested that NHS England’s ‘six principles’ of person-centred care^[7] could be easily adapted as an umbrella code for those involved in delivering on HEETSA’s objectives. We note that existing codes, such as TrustMark’s Consumer Charter, treat people as able and informed decision-makers (i.e., ‘customers’) whereas codes employed in the care and legal professions treat people as individuals (‘clients’) with potentially complex needs, and without making assumptions about how able or informed they are. This difference in framing is critical, and should be extended to how we frame properties as well as people.

Finally, we also strongly urge the Scottish Government to conduct its own independent investigation of examples of poor-quality retrofit work undertaken in Scotland. This level of regulatory oversight would be further improved by some expansion of the criteria for measures requiring a Building Warrant, based on those measures and property types where there are higher degrees of technical risks.

The Roles and Requirements of a Retrofit Coordinator

This question goes to the heart of what HEETSA is intended to be, how it should be delivered, and what are the skills and qualifications necessary to deliver retrofits. When considering this question, we have had to be cognisant of what HEETSA needs to achieve, and what outcomes it needs to avoid.

What HEETSA needs to achieve is the delivery of effective retrofit projects that improve the performance of properties (beyond simply energy efficiency), save householders money on their energy bills, improve their comfort levels, and leave them with a high level of customer satisfaction. At the end of a HEETSA retrofit journey a householder must be sufficiently happy to recommend the whole process to others.

What HEETSA needs to avoid is the delivery of poor-quality retrofit projects, the installation of measures that will later need to be removed to install measures necessary to meet higher standards. Recommending measures without adequate consideration for and engagement with building users and any other outcomes which would be detrimental to public trust in a government-backed process.

As such, defining what is meant by a ‘retrofit coordinator’ (if, indeed, this term is to be used) will be critical to the success or failure of HEETSA.

Based on the whole body of evidence collated, we have reached the conclusion that although the term ‘retrofit coordinator’ is becoming increasingly common, there is no standard definition of what it means, and we are of the view that it actually covers three roles, as follows.

Note that we are not beholden to these three terms. This is because we are aware of the potential for terminology to become a barrier. For example, an architect or even a householder might not see themselves as a project manager but, in this context, might have all the necessary experience needed to project manage a retrofit project. We recommend that the Scottish Government includes this in the proposed HEETSA consultation.

Finally, we are not concluding that a single individual could not fulfil all three roles, but we are recognising that requiring an individual to be able to do so further limits the potential pool of individuals who could usefully apply their knowledge and skills to one or more aspects of a ‘coordinator’ role.

A Retrofit Project Manager

A project manager is someone who can take a set of information – in this context, a list of measures to be installed (in whatever order), the times needed to install each measure, the costs of installing each measure, a list of suppliers and installers, etc – and produce and manage a project plan. Whilst specific qualifications exist for project managers, many projects across all professional fields are managed by staff without such qualifications, and many householders will have the capability of managing their own retrofit projects. For these householders, the real benefit of employing a project manager is simply to save a considerable amount of time and stress. For less able householders, the benefits are more holistic – coordinating a package of measures, helping them understand what is to be done, the implications of doing so (saving energy, needing to be decanted, etc).

However, none of these aspects necessarily require a project manager to have detailed technical expertise and, importantly, this creates an opportunity to reduce the skills gap and increase provision by attracting people with transferrable skills. For this reason, we would not wish to see specified qualifications as barriers to entry, although some (e.g., the retrofit assessor or coordinator qualification under PAS 2035) may enhance the service that project managers can offer.

The project manager would not be undertaking technical suitability assessments, surveys, making decisions on measures nor give any technical advice. In this context, a project manager might come from a specific business, a local retrofit hub, a Registered Social Landlord (RSL), or they might be the householder themselves (supported as necessary).

Finally, there will also be instances (e.g., where single and/or basic measures are to be installed) where a project manager is not needed.

A Retrofit Consultant

In this context, a Retrofit Consultant is someone who has a substantial amount of more general knowledge and experience of buildings (probably one or more specific types of building) and the likely options for retrofitting them. This is someone who can inspect a property, identify potential problems for further investigation and remediation, and narrow down the range of retrofit measures by excluding ones that are clearly inappropriate and flagging up options that merit consideration (subject to further investigation and assessment by one or more specialists and assessors). The consultant will have sufficient knowledge and contacts to recommend which specialist and assessors should be engaged, and be fully familiar with all the relevant regulations and elements of a retrofit journey.

As such, a retrofit consultant would be expected to have a chartered status or equivalent knowledge and experience however, this is where defining this role becomes trickier. It would be easy to simply say that anyone in this role must have a chartered status with one of a number of professional associations (RICS, CIAT, RIAS, etc.) however, doing so immediately restricts the pool of potential candidates and excludes others without chartered status who could fulfil this role, and chartered status is not an absolute guarantee of quality. Conversely, not prescribing some minimal level(s) of qualifications and/or experience opens up this role to anyone, and opens the door for cowboy operators and their impacts on public trust.

In addition, given the need for all such persons to be familiar with the HEETSA ‘version’ of a retrofit journey, this knowledge need highlights the tension between the potential benefits of recommending a HEETSA-specific qualification (either a new qualification or a modification of an existing qualification) versus the likelihood of adding yet another barrier to entry to a market where there is a need to rapidly scale up the supply of staff.

This issue could be remedied by ensuring technical oversight from an accredited professional. Where some levels of accreditation, for example conservation accreditation, would be sufficient to demonstrate expertise, general accreditation may not be sufficient to ensure professional expertise in working with existing buildings. Professional accreditation governed by Accreditation Bodies who keep an independent register of accredited retrofit professionals who are required to provide evidence of their knowledge, skills, and experience. Alternatively, verification of technical expertise could be in the same principle as Approved Certifier of Design, governed by BSD. We would recommend this aspect to be consulted on with the professional associations and the wider industry to ensure suitability of verification of technical expertise.

A Retrofit Advocate

The general term ‘advisor’ is used throughout this report and across the public policy landscape. In common parlance advisors can be anyone from senior professionals through to volunteers with minimal or no formal training, and in the context of retrofit projects could cover technical, financial, welfare, and other forms of advice. As such, in the specific context of developing a HEETSA, it becomes an unhelpful term.

Therefore, within the HEETSA context, it may be more useful to differentiate between advising on technical issues (where specific technical knowledge and experience is required) and advocating for the best possible experiences and outcomes for householders – understanding householder needs, managing their expectations, dealing with suppliers and tradespeople. This role, therefore, becomes a more specific element of a retrofit journey, emphasising that retrofit projects are also social projects, particularly for community retrofit projects and those involving fuel poor and otherwise vulnerable householders. Not all householders will need an advocate, but advocates should be seen as an essential part of ensuring a just transition.

Whilst we are reticent to recommend specific qualifications likely to create additional barriers to entry, the obvious candidates will be individuals from social, care, and welfare backgrounds, as well as from community groups. This role emphasises the need for empathy, communication skills, and local knowledge. This makes the role distinct from a Project Manager or Retrofit Consultant whilst also clearly falling under the umbrella of what a ‘retrofit coordinator’ should have within their skillset.

The Roles and Requirements of an Assessor

Assessors are clearly defined roles, in that specific qualifications and certifications are required to become an assessor for any given standard or regulation. If, as we are recommending, the needs of HEETSA cannot currently be met by a single standard or assessment method then the role and requirements for a HEETSA assessor become self-explanatory. I.e., the person(s) managing a HEETSA-based retrofit identify the most appropriate standards and assessments, which directly dictate the necessary qualifications and requirements to meet those needs. If the assessor does not hold the required qualifications, they should be in a position to make a recommendation for a professional qualification required for the project, or outsource that part of the assessment to ensure adequacy of the assessment and the retrofit proposal.

Engaging and Supporting Local Installers

Engaging and supporting local installers, particularly those in rural and remote areas, should be seen as an essential part of the retrofit agenda, and the agendas for empowering rural communities and tackling socio-economic deprivation more widely. However, these individuals are invariably time-poor and working to tight margins. It is important for installers and assessors to be independent and work closely together to offer adequate advice and delivery within a context specific scenario. Incentives and quality assurance schemes must take into consideration challenges of small, local trades people, offering equitable opportunities and endorsing good practice.

As discussed in more detail in our Technical Report, local installers can, and often do, act as advisors, and so can be levers for triggering householders to tackle maintenance issues and begin retrofit projects. Local installers are often seen as being more trustworthy, both than larger firms based further afield and more than those paid to provide advice, and as being able to offer more personalised services. However, their circumstances and previous poor experiences with government schemes (e.g., the Green Deal) pose substantial barriers to engaging with them, upskilling their staff, and convincing them of the benefits of these.

Whilst greater regulation of retrofit service providers is clearly necessary, doing so risks harming the many small businesses who are demonstrating good practice. We recommend that the Scottish Government consults further on this matter in a way that minimises their time costs of responding.

As per the following section, we see significant potential for Climate Action Hubs and similar locally-based trusted intermediaries, working in partnership with local authorities as necessary, to maintain lists of reputable installers and signpost householders to them. In addition, should EPCs become fully ‘live’ digital documents, this would create an opportunity for them to be used to also signpost householders to local installers.

Roles of Community Groups and Hubs

Our evidence base leads us to conclude that engaging community groups and Climate Action Hubs (with a change of terminology) is likely to be fundamental to the HEETSA process. By rethinking the role(s) of ‘retrofit coordinators’ and the nature of the retrofit journey the roles of these organisations become much clearer (see The Roles and Requirements of a Retrofit Coordinator).

Where we see these groups sitting is as facilitators and capacity builders, working in association with local authorities (as per the Climate Action Hub model), and building networks with all those involved in delivering on HEETSA’s objectives. They may well include members who are in those roles – retrofit coordinators, representatives of local installers, etc. Working with local authorities and other support services, such groups could become invaluable in developing and maintaining lists of local contacts for all those involved in HEETSA retrofit journeys, promoting those following good practice, and flagging cowboy operators. All of which would serve to build much-needed trust in the retrofit agenda at local levels and reaching the hard-to-reach.

Where local capacity is limited, or until it can be built, then it is inevitable that local authorities and other locally-based trusted support services (e.g., Citizens Advice Bureaux) will need to be resourced to ensure a just transition however, this would be to minimise any deviation from a core HEETSA delivery model.

The following diagram illustrates how Climate Action Hubs / Local Retrofit Hubs could be integrated into the HEETSA process.

Text for graphic below:

Local Authority

• Landlord Accreditation
• Trading Standards
• Building Standards
• Planning

Local Retrofit Hub

• Independent
• Expertise
• Training
• Awareness raising
• Information
• Signposting to funding
• Q&A

Maintenance contractors

Contractors for measures

Assessors

Designers

Education Institutes

Private owners (homes)

Private owners (commercial)

Social landlords

Private landlords

Tenants

Scottish Government

• Funding, loans, grants       
• Policy framework, regulation
• VAT (UK)
• Skills, training, education
• Create long term assurance
• Incentives

Coordinating HEETSA roles

The following diagram illustrates how these roles may be structured. We are not proposing this as a definitive solution, but as an initial process for further discussion.

Text for graphic below:

HEETSA delivery model

Independent retrofit assessor. Can be the same person for stage 1 and 2. Skills will vary, and stage 1 assessor must be skilled in undertaking suitable surveys (borescope, moisture, thermal imaging, airtightness), where stage 2 assessor should be suitably skilled to follow identified methodology (variety of current methodologies, for example PAS2035, supported by adequate tools such as WUFI calculation and HEM assessment)

Retrofit advocate – first contact with customer, initial information gathering, identifying customer needs

Retrofit coordinator appointed

Stage 1 Retrofit assessment: on site – methodology options proposed based on detailed building survey, location and context

Stage 2 Retrofit assessment: confirmed methodology and undertake desk-based simulations and evaluation enabling design

Retrofit assessment concluded – pass on to retrofit designer

Similar to PAS2035 requirement, oversight of the process and key person understanding HEETSA process, supported by technical oversight from independent assessor

Retrofit as an enabler for community resilience

Finally, it is important to recognise the value of community-led maintenance, retrofit, and communal / district heating projects as an enabler for community resilience. Figure 5 illustrates how these projects can contribute to building stronger, more resilient communities.

Credit: EALA Impacts. Reproduced with permission.

Source: EdinBRIC. Credit: EALA Impacts. Reproduced with permission.^[8]

Text for graphic below:

Shared community assets

Resilient communities

• shared ebikes/ecars,
• shared allotments,
• shared facilities,
• shared interest

Shared energy

District heating

• shared streets,
• shared gardens

Shared works

Retrofit

• shared walls,
• shared roofs,
• shared floors,
• shared access

Shared Repairs

Repair and maintenance

• shared ownership,
• shared access

Individual works

Individual homes

• low hanging fruit

Summary

The impacts of the skills shortage and the measures need to address it cut across many of the themes of this project, and across Scottish policy more widely. However, they are particularly acute for retrofit given the greater attraction of professionals and tradespeople to the new build market. They are also directly impacting on capacity to deliver sufficiently technical standards of independent and impartial advice, leading to projects with sub-standard and negative outcomes, which then impact on public trust in the retrofit and net zero agendas.

Whilst there is no silver bullet solution, there are number of levers that can be employed to start to close this gap:

• Supporting the provision of degrees accredited by the professional associations, and doing more to encourage young people to take them (accepting that the benefits of this will take several years to accrue).
• Enabling adults and professional learners to engage with the growing market for non-traditional learning providers, with their greater focus on andragogy-based learning. Andragogy-based learning methods are designed for adults and emphasise self-directed and autonomous learning, where the teacher acts as a facilitator. Whereas pedagogy-based learning methods are designed for children and younger people, where the teacher communicates knowledge in a more unidirectional and structured way. Pedagogy-based approaches, amongst other differences, are more content-focused, as opposed to problem-centred, and assume that learners do not know why they need to know something, or have the same self conceptualisation and awareness of their learning needs and how they themselves learn.
• It follows that problem-centred learning, with an emphasis on applying knowledge and experience, benefits from learning being provided in multiple ways, not just in the classroom. This means that, just as gaining practical laboratory experience is essential for teaching the sciences, teaching people about buildings and assessing buildings should include practical (on-site) experience as part of a critical pathway to achieving a qualification. However, given the geographical availability of practical training, it is worth remembering that leaners live in their own ‘sites’.
• Understanding the value of enabling professionals to engage with communities of practice, and instilling this in employers.
• Breaking down the emerging role of ‘retrofit coordinators’ into more discrete roles to enable more people from built environment-adjacent fields to transfer into them, to use their expertise to enable more successful retrofit projects, and in turn to empower householders and help rebuild consumer trust and confidence.

Independent retrofit coordinator’s training and qualifications should thus be regulated. This could include APEL^[9] route for professionals into HEETSA, valuing existing skills and expertise within a recognition framework to Scottish Government set standards for formal qualifications to become a HEETSA assessor. This would allow more professionals to demonstrate competency and could include HEETSA assessors who are competent to assess and make recommendations on all energy efficiency measures and clean heat assessments as well as HEETSA assessors who have an APEL route, but only for fabric measures or heating system specialist for the clean heat assessment. These two professionals would work collaboratively to propose most adequate solutions for each retrofit project under HEETSA delivery model. Doing so will require greater engagement with fields such as social care and learning specialists, particularly adult learning specialists, and so we have deliberately attempted to embed these messages throughout both these reports.