1  Household energy consumption has started to fall, which is encouraging, but the United Kingdom still lags behind some other European Union countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden. We welcome the Department's recognition that much more needs to be done to achieve substantial reductions in future, particularly to encourage people to change their behaviour.

2  The creation of the new Department of Energy and Climate Change provides an opportunity to improve the coordination and effectiveness of programmes to reduce household energy consumption. The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are nevertheless still responsible for some aspects of programme delivery. The Department of Energy and Climate Change should:

• set out, in its response to the forthcoming carbon budget, the risks to programme delivery across all programmes, as well as the associated risk to achievement of overall targets to reduce household energy consumption, and
• monitor, as part of its annual monitoring of performance against objectives, the risks to achieving target reductions in household energy consumption across all Departments' programmes, identifying any additional actions necessary.

3  Departments are not gathering enough data from real homes to evaluate the impact of programmes on consumer behaviour and household energy efficiency. The Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government should set out and implement strategies for evaluating and learning from the environmental and financial impact of their programmes, distinguishing the programme impacts from those of other factors, such as energy prices and household growth. The strategies should address how energy-use data will be obtained to:

• understand, monitor and respond to changing patterns of energy use in households, including appliance use and wastage;
• understand the impact in real homes of installing energy efficiency measures, and
• understand and improve the actual energy performance of new homes built to standards set out in the current and future Building Regulations.

4  Householders are confronted with a confusingly wide range of advice on energy efficiency from the Government, energy suppliers and others. The Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government should routinely evaluate their programmes to identify the extent to which the information provided is trusted, understood and appropriately tailored, and results in changes in householder behaviour. In particular, the Department of Energy and Climate Change should evaluate the effectiveness of specific measures considered at the Committee such as:

• home energy audits and action plans;
• simpler ways to communicate the energy performance of appliances, such as a traffic light system of product labelling, similar to that used to provide nutritional advice, or a website to compare the performance of specific products, and
• a quality standard for installers of energy efficiency measures such as loft insulation, equivalent to the Corgi standard for gas repairs, to improve consumer confidence in the advice they receive.

5  The Department of Energy and Climate Change wants 'smart' meters to be installed in all households by the end of 2020, and so needs to oversee the effective roll-out by suppliers of a major infrastructure programme with significant cost to consumers. The Department should not underestimate the challenges of a large scale project whose value depends on behaviour change. The Department should quantify and set out clearly the expected benefits of smart meters. It should also put in place a comprehensive project management programme for delivering these benefits, identifying and managing the likely risks to their delivery. The Department should consider how the costs of smart meters can be made more transparent, for example, through better billing.

6  People renting from private landlords have limited opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, and current incentives for landlords to act have been ineffective. The Department for Communities and Local Government is considering an independent review's recommendations that there should be a 'light touch' licensing regime for landlords. The Department should examine how energy efficiency requirements could be included as part of such a licensing regime, or should consider alternative measures to require private landlords to invest in energy efficiency.

7  The Building Control profession has not prioritised the enforcement of the energy efficiency parts of the Building Regulations. The Department for Communities and Local Government has provided training for Building Control Officers and introduced new enforcement powers, and is considering new proposals for the inspection process. The Department should check that all Building Control Officers are fully trained and are using their powers effectively to enforce the energy savings requirements in the Building Regulations.

8  Little is known about the extent of compliance with the energy saving parts of current Building Regulations, so the adequacy and effectiveness of the Regulations on energy performance in practice is uncertain. The Department for Communities and Local Government should set out a clear plan for testing energy performance routinely on a sample basis to check on compliance, the effectiveness of the Buildings Control regime and, ultimately, the effectiveness of Building Regulations in delivering reduced energy consumption. The Department should demonstrate that the scale and timing of these tests is sufficient to inform each subsequent revision of the Building Regulations.

9  Over 80% of the expected energy savings by 2020 come from Building Regulations and obligations on suppliers, whose achievement is outside the Departments' direct control. To identify and manage the risks in achieving their overall goals, both Departments should liaise closely with industry to identify the likelihood and impact of specific supply chain risks to programme delivery, regularly review progress against those risks and identify how they can influence the supply chain where necessary.