Cap For Green Loans Home Sustainability Assessor Training
Cooperative To Save Tassie Food Processing Jobs?
December 1, 2009Water-Energy-Climate Nexus = Radical Rethink
December 1, 2009Become A Green Loans Home Sustainability Assessor has been a very popular PWF article for many months now. However an assessor cap has been applied and on 24 December the Government will cease certifying assessors.
In a recent Green Loans newsletter the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA) said:
‘A letter was sent to all trainers today advising them of a temporary moratorium on HSAS certification. ABSA needs to represent the interests of its current members and this extends to monitoring the numbers of assessors and addressing un-serviced areas. In determining a course of action ABSA considered advice from the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) and decided to apply a temporary moratorium on the certification of new assessors. Noting there are geographic areas not yet being serviced by assessors there will be an exception to the moratorium – being for assessors intending to work in geographic areas that are not currently serviced to be determined and communicated by DEWHA’.
‘ABSA has advised all HSA trainers that as of 24 December 2009, it will cease processing applications for certification for Home Sustainability Assessors for the Green Loan Program until further notice – with the exception of assessors intending to work in currently un-serviced areas’.
How The System Works And The Costs
You select an institution at which to do your training. This will cost anywhere from $1200 – $2000. The ABSA Home Sustainability Assessment Scheme provides a list of trainers.
Once trained you must apply for government certification to ABSA, who manage this process. This will cost you $660 plus a police check, about $40, and insurance $800 – $900. You also need your own tools – several hundred dollars.
Once certified you select ten postcodes – probably around the area you live in – and the government will pass on people wanting assessments. You can change your selection of postcodes if you wish, and quite regularly.
Any Feedback From ‘Assessed Homeowners’?
We’d love to hear from the other side of the equation.
18 Comments
The process of providing the householder with an energy audit is not viable commercially without some form of subsidy. The Green Loans provided ( in theory) the facilitation. in practise in WA at least it is slow and after waiting since last September, its is clear that no one will ever respond to my request for an assessment. No point in phoning, doesn’t help, no one responds.
The fact that government is ceasing to take on more assesors is somewhat typical of the government’s hot cold approach to a very serious issue. Either we take on the full responsibility for reducing energy demand and supplementing energy needs (not demands) with renewable technologies or we carry on a usual. The answer lies with central government and adequate legislation.
Hmm… this sounds like ‘start Monday and bring your own wages’.
Surely if Rudd was serious he would have provided a ‘job’ for people, trained them, and controlled the whole process.
I’ve had my house assessed by one of these people.
I could have done the same job with no training… she came to the exact same conclusions I had.
It might be ‘well intentioned’ but it is not well organised.
Dear Fellow Assessor community,
I am a WA based assessor. I believe the program in theory was fantastic but that the government is solely responsible for its mismanagement.
While there might be a future for some assessors that future is a long way off and may never eventuate. I am hopeful Mr Garrett pulls his head out of the sand and announces an increase in the program BUT on the basis of preparing for the worst:
If you would like to join a CLASS ACTION against the minister and the government along with dozens of other assessors whom I have already contacted please e-mail me at alex@galiclaw.com.au.
Sincere regards,
Alex
Also, please if you do decide to request information on the Class Action being prepared provide your:
Assessor Number
Address
Phone number
and e-mail
in response to me.
It will save my personal costs in phoning all of the assessor names I took from the list at ABSA. I have phoned over 60 people now and am still going…. at least 2000 plus to go to make such action not only viable but one which the Government will sit up and take notice of…..
PWF has received the following summary/assessment of the program which clarifies what’s going on…just what do you DO with such a mess?
Our PWF reader says:
-The govt put up the $$ for Green Loan assessments
-ABSA is the certifying body
-DEWHA (Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts) registers assessors and processes the assessments
-Training institutes kept pushing for more students to do their HSA courses. Content of courses varies greatly between training institutions.
-No-one (I refer to govt – ABSA) seemed to realise that a glut of HSAs were being created (I suspect the training institutes must have had a good idea, they would have kept tabs on each other, but I am sure they did not care.)
-According to ABSA on 12 Feb 2010, a total of 6979 HSAs have been certified
I waited for close to 2 months and have finally – only just a day ago, become certified after waiting for more than a month for my certification and registration to be processed, but there was a requirement that I be insured to be able to apply for certification. Thus, all the time spent waiting to be processed the money I paid for my insurance to cover that period is wasted.
In total I will have spent $4000+ on the course, annual certification fee, registration, insurance, police check, travel,tools, sundries etc etc.
Given the amount of people allowed to become HSAs,in the best case-scenario ie, if assessments had been evenly spread, every HSA would only ever have got 51 assessments to process (at $200 each payment).
At a leisurely pace of 3/day, 51 assessments would have meant 17 days work for each assessor.
However, since most assessments have already been done even that number would be ‘greatly’ reduced now.
DEWHA was is in a mess, unable to process all the registrations when they came in.
DEWHA is also the body that processes the assessments, and their website had gone into meltdown thus a while ago, and HSAs were not able to enter the assessments they had already done.
HSAs were unable to get through to DEWHA and were kept waiting for hours on the phone to be assigned a number for their assessments.
People are very angry.
The Govt is duck-shoving. (They should have kept tabs on the amount of people training institutions were processing and stopped them a long time ago.)
See below what I got in one day after my ID number was assigned to me and I was certified.
It is a bloody mess.
________________________________
Dear ******
BOOKING ASSESSMENTS
We know that our members are angry about problems with the system for booking assessments. We Have received many phone calls, and the online forum is running hot with feedback and complaints.
ABSA understands how frustrating this is. Unfortunately, we are not responsible for the booking system and cannot change how it operates.
What we have done a number of times is to inform DEWHA about these problems, most recently this morning, and the serious impact this has on our members.
So far we have not been advised if any action is being taken by DEWHA to improve the situation. However, if there is any feedback from DEWHA we will let members know immediately.
RESPONDING TO EMAILS AND PHONE CALLS
We would love to be able to respond to every email and phone call from members quickly and individually. Lately this has been impossible simply because of the huge number we are receiving.
ABSA has nearly 5000 members and there are another 5000 people who have applied for accreditation.
We are working hard to respond. Some of our staff have worked on weekends to try and keep up to date with emails, and we have employed staff to deal with enquiries from people who have applied for accreditation.
We can assure members that every email is read and that we are in no doubt about your concerns with the Green Loans Program and our role.
I am an HSA assessor, trained properly with backgrounds in construction, environmental management and some chemistry [?]. It became apparent to me very early in the piece that there was a pile of money on the table and they would come out from under the skirting boards, see home insulation. Many companies advertised for trainees offering positions and a reduced payment in return for marketing, job allocation and payment management @ fifty bucks a job in some cases, a good margin indeed for said firms. The smell of rat became stronger. Luckily [if not ethically] I secured a position with a firm that paid marginally better and I worked my bum off to pay for my start up costs, work has since dwindled to poorly paid job status. It could have been good, DEWHA stuffed it up due to, I suspect, a lack of understanding of market drivers versus doing the right thing by the earth. This problem was highlighted by the disgraceful ETS, the coal industry [Lib. donors] and unions [ALP donors] that benefit from it. What about the workers I hear you cry, what is the “take home” for a coal industry employee again? It is certain that unless market forces are constrained somehow the earth suffers, sigh.
what a complete fuck up too many govt bodies with no idea what the they are doing. The idea was great but again the little people have been shafted. Who will be held resposible – stay tuned
Regrettably, the stuff up is so typical of many well-intentioned but poorly organised government programs.
Seems to me that its a consequence of hiring too many highly qualified ‘graduates’ who have too little life experience to apply common sense.
At a time of ‘green consciousness’ and increasing unemployment, anyone with half a brain could have foreseen that there would be many applications for training … and that a scheme such as insuolation installation – requiring only basic / manual skills – would be likely to be rorted.
Same for the Building New Schools Infrastructure stimulus Package … poorly targeted and even more poorply implemented.
I am a university student studying environmental science and thought this would be a good job over the summer break and in between study. I have paid thousands of dollars in fees and sundries not to mention loss of work as I decided to do this as an alternative to working with parks Victoria over the summer break, hours on the phone and childcare costs. I did my course back in November and finally received my accreditation with ABSA on the 20th of Feb, the same day DEWHA decided not to contract any other assessors. I have now been told by numerous DEWHA employees including management lacking any empathy that they never promised me work! The dept. Does not even have the decency to take ownership of their mistake!
I did my course in early Dec and still have not received my contract from the Government and now that it has been capped I might not even receive it at all. I have had no contact from the government as to why it is taking so long and another peson from my course is in the same situation and has not received his either. I am wanting to join a class action and also would like one against the training organsation as they surely knew what it was like trying to book jobs, but made it all sound so rosey at the course. HOw I wish I had never heard about the Grennloans program as iut has been a total disaster. I come from a mining/construction background and thought I could “burn some karma” and help the earth but instead I am now going back to the same industry!!!!
Hi all
I am another shafted assessor they are refusing to pay because I put a job as DEWHA 5 because despite repeated attempts to obtain a booking number through phone then email bookings they will not pay for any of the assessments unless I remove this one item from my invoice, why should I when their at fault?
Does anybody have a copy of an old pre xmas contract and cant find my copy or the one off the website?
Rudd acknowledged the stuff- ups and demoted Minister Garrett. Now please re-imburse assessors who did not get a contract.
I was hood-winked, and the government is responsible for not ensuring enough checks and balances in the green loans programme. I don’t see why I should have to foot the bill for their mistakes.
Class action contact alex@galiclaw.com.au
4000 people without Government contracts can claim back training, loss of earnings over three months, insurances and company set up fees with some spending upto $28,000.
Just to be shafted by incompetance…The law states the Government and public servants have to be fair in their dealings with the public. What has happen has been anything but!
Received my “plastic card” on friday , complete with letter
stating that work will be ” immediately available” and to download the contract application from govt website , checked out the website and guess what? no contract is available to be downloaded and they are not accepting anymore applications to become contracted assessors!! (as if I didn’t know that was going to happen !!)Why send the letter out if they already had ceased to award contracts to assessors?!!I’d cheerfully send back my card if I could recoup my costs!!! The whole scheme is a dead duck floating beak down in the water !
Hi I finished my training late Dec 2009 and received my HO no. in late January,to be told no more assessors would be needed.I would like to know where the responsibility lies whether actual or implied.In a court of law I can’t see a class action against DEWHA failing.Surely this department must be aware that the cock will come home to roost eventually and therefore try to sort out the compensation for all the ABSA accredited people who will never work in the industry now because of their stuff up.I for one am out of pocket $3500 at least not to mention my efforts in trying to obtain a position and the lost efforts I could have been putting into another direction other than a DEWHA licence.That cost would see my out of court costs upward of $10,000.I hope this goes to a class action because these government departments need to be held accountable for peoples lives.I am nearly 60 years of age and now have to head in a new direction.Thanks for nothing DEWHA.
really sorry everyone is having such problems. knock on wood so far is going really well for me.. i think 5 appts a week is enough.. I used to work in a call center, so I make calls, and am getting more appt’s than i can handle. If anyone needs appt’s i can do more calls and help people out. I guess not everyone has that experience
its summerrlh@hotmail.com
To all those who did there course late, I hate to say it but I told you so. I had tried to warn others of the impending problems on this very website, only to be accused of “wanting to keep it all to myself”. I spoke to seveal wannabes and outlined why I thought it would stop so very soon (remember thoase assessors already in the loop could see the appointment allocation numebers and had already experienced lots of problems and inconsistanceies). I tried to tell you. On any given day, if you logically work out 360000/2000 you get a max of 180 which is a megere income of #36000 less start up costs and other ongoing costs associated with a small buisiness. I was only doing a few as I am semiretired so it didnt really bother me, but to those that viewed it as a buisiness and are now out of pocket, please accept some of the responsibility for yourselves. There was no way ever, that any good buisiness model would have considered this a longlived opportunity. I am sorry to say that you were dupped by greedy training companies who saw the writing on the wall and were out to make as much as they could before you all wised up, but none of you did. There were courses right up to the last day. Some of these guys crammed in 200 people in a weekend, so cash in hand of more than $300K. Nice work for those that saw “an opportunity”.
Face it, those that have missed out are mostly sore because they missed the gravey train, have a whinge by all means but at least be honest about it!!!!!!!!!
As for a class action, it will never fly. No one promised you work, just like no one promises a uni grad work. Where does the liability work? Squarely with the training companies who saw a window of opportunity to make a quick buck before the massive increase in numbers could be processed and the true number known. That is where the fight should be. The exsisting assessors saw it coming, so did ABSA and eventually DEWHA, you have to ask yourself why if the end was neigh, would the training companies book in more trainees in the last 4 weeks than in the previous 6 months??????? Because they saw the window and used human nature :greed gland” and “dont want to miss out” mentality to make an absolute fortune.
Sorry, but man up and accept some responsibility and chase those that truely caused your pain, after all, how many who miss out ACTUALLY confirmed what the rtos said was the truth with DEWHA?
Mad Mick
I slipped through and gained my assessor’s contract in late January, then all the debacle, then only started giving home assessments 3 weeks ago. I am contracted to a one man company that uses phone canvassing. The problem is the phone canvassers are telling numerous lies to get appointments, eg. they are the government calling; you will receive money for your appointment; if you are a renter the assessment is compulsory; your assessor is a trained engineer; the trained engineer will repair small items for you for free etc. etc. I have received a phone call from the office of my Federal MP stating that there have been numerous complaints from householders being cold called and basically misled. These guys are desperate to make money. My reputation is now on the line. I am under contract and it is problematic for me to just stop, may have to re-pay training and insurance fees etc.
The HSAS is suffering further now through lack of auditing, so the future for any properly skilled and qualified assessors is dwindling quick.
Who will listen and who will take action and clean up this fiasco? Will the honorable Ms Penny Wong take a stand please?