Well, in a ringing endorsement of what the industry and the public thinks of the Green Deal, the Telegraph revealed the other day that absolutely no one has signed up for the Government’s flagship scheme!

It was revealed in Parliament that since the ‘soft launch’ of the scheme on October 1st, not a single Green Deal assessment has been logged on the Government special Green Deal register! We can quite easily put this down to the scheme not having anywhere near enough advantages for companies to become approved Green Deal installers and an absolute non-existent marketing campaign by the Government to alert the UK public about it in the first place! The whole mechanism is just far too complicated for people and companies to be bothered with!

Here’s another scarily low number. The Federation of Master Builders has 10,000 members. Only ONE has signed up to become a Green Deal Installer. One. You have read this correctly. Just one! And this is just from the FMB side. I’m not sure what the figures are specifically from the double glazing side but I can guess that the numbers aren’t much better! Maybe one of you guys can tell us by leaving a comment?

Here’s another terrible stat. The Government predicted that for this scheme to work and pull enough work in to make it all happen, they reckoned that they needed about 10,000 companies to be registered as either Green Deal Installers, providers and assessors. So far, the tally stands at just a measly 300. Well, just under to be a bit more precise. 300! Terrible!

Here’s what a DECC spokesman had to say: “The Green Deal is coming alive and we are very pleased with the progress being made in advance of January 28 2013, when the first Green Deal plans can be agreed.”

Are they having a laugh? How can they be happy with this progress? No one is registering jobs, no one is registering to become installers, providers and assessors and the public have no idea what the whole thing is or what it is about? How can they think that this is good progress?

Here’s the other problem the scheme is going to face. A lot of the work in the Green Deal is going to be done by the big energy companies. Not exactly popular right now are they? Putting up energy prices by so very much when the rest of the UK is struggling to keep it’s head above water. Are the public really going to fall in love with the idea of giving the energy companies yet more work and yet more of their money? I think not.

The Government has really made a hash of what was in principle a good idea. But through poor planning, no public awareness campaign, over-complication and lack of forward thinking, they have ruined it themselves. What would have been far more effective is a reduction in the VAT rate. It is the opinion of this blogger that the Government should can the scheme now, as I think almost everyone is convinced it is utterly broken and beyond repair. Instead, it should re-examine the idea of lowering the VAT rate across the board on all energy efficient home improvement products for a period of 3 years. No schemes, no cash-backs, no mechanisms. Just straight forward low VAT and leave our industries to get on with the job at hand. That will prove far more popular with us and the UK public.

You can find the full Telegraph report here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9684257/Green-Deal-in-tatters-as-no-one-registers.html