DESNZ's diagnosis of what went wrong with home upgrade schemes is right: fragmented oversight, weak data, unclear accountability and poor enforcement. Its reforms address all four. None of them gives the householder anyone on their side.
The Retrofit Policy Lab, which Lighthouse runs with the University of Leeds and the University of York, has published its response to the consultation. Lighthouse drafted it. The proposals it welcomes are real ones: a single accountable service, a national installation record, stronger enforcement and centralised redress.
The evidence the Lab holds points to a gap those proposals do not close. People cannot judge the quality of work in their own home and do not use standards to try. They trust a local name over a national register. In most grant-funded schemes they are not even the client, so they see no specification, sign no contract and have nobody whose job is to be on their side.
Our response asks for four things:
an independent advocate for the household at specification and sign-off,
proactive contact after installation,
success measured on warmth and trust rather than measures installed,
protection that extends to private tenants.
Every point traces to the Lab's evidence base, which brings together peer-reviewed research, national evaluations and the Lab's own fieldwork with households across Yorkshire.
That is the work Lighthouse does in the Lab: turning what people tell researchers into a case policymakers can act on.
The full response is on the Retrofit Policy Lab site.