Green Loans has turned into an unmitigated disaster and the Government has serious questions to answer about its handling of the scheme.

Questions the Department of Environment officials will have that chance to answer today (Tuesday) when they face Senate Estimates.

As the program’s problems become public the recriminations are also beginning. The Environment Minister Peter Garrett’s office, the Environment Department and the appointed accreditation body Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA) are now blaming one or both of the other parties for stuff ups and misinformation.

To start, most of the scheme’s problems derive from the over accreditation of assessors in the scheme.

When the scheme started the Government publicly appealed for assessors to sign up to carry out the audits — essentially a study of households for measures they can take to reduce energy and water use, such as install solar panels and water tanks. The Environment Department first thought 800 people would sign up. As of December 24 the number of assessor accredited under the scheme was cut off at 10,000 (with a further 1600 still wanting to apply).

The Government subsidised household green audits, all 360,000 of them, were supposed to take four years to complete. But 205,000 have already been booked, and at 22,000 a week it is likely the scheme will be exhausted by April.

After the assessment is carried out, the household then has the opportunity to take up a zero-interest loan, subsidised by the Government. So far just 1,000 of 75,000 loans have been taken up.

Assessors are first trained by a registered training organisation, which can cost around $2000, and then are accredited by ABSA. Assessors wanting accreditation have to become an ABSA member which costs $660 for the first-year, meaning ABSA has made $6.6 million from the scheme.

ABSA have said on the public record that they warned the Environment Department in both August and November about the rising number of accredited assessors, but the department did nothing. They then halted accreditation on a voluntary basis just before Christmas.

Under the scheme an assessor arranges with a household for a green audit, then calls the Department hotline to get a booking number, which is conformation that the Government will pay for it. A website to do a similar thing has been failing since the program started in July 2009.

But the huge surge in assessors has meant the phone system is in meltdown and firms are having trouble getting bookings approved by the Government.

A typical example is this summary from a small business of yesterday’s efforts calling the hotline to make bookings:

* Not one booking from 10am to 11.30am.
* 75 minute wait and the Green Loans Call Centre hangs up on us.
* 75 minute wait and they say we pressed the wrong option number. We have a display on our handset; the correct number was pushed! We ask to speak to a Supervisor and they reluctantly put us through. 45 minutes later, we connect and then get hung up on.
* One of our 21 operators calling today made 180 calls before being put in the queue! She was then promptly cut off!

Things got worse when it was revealed that a company called Field Force, the largest group of assessors, was given a direct ‘‘IT interface’’ — their terms — to the department to make bookings. Even worse, while every other assessor was dealing with a phone system meltdown, Field Force — for a period over a month — were allowed through the IT system to book as many assessments as they wanted. That essentially amounted to writing their own check.

Comparatively, many small firms now have thousands of potential assessments on the books that they can’t get approval for.

The summary for these issues this can be found in these articles from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald here and here.

Another problem for the Government is the consistent reports of mismanagement and rorting by training organisations in the scheme.

Some households have complained about the way assessments have been conducted. Meanwhile, some assessors have claimed to have been ripped off by training organisations packing in 200 people into programs meant for 20 people, which often amount to little more than a DVD.

Greenlines can now reveal that no outside auditors have yet been hired by the Department for the scheme to oversee assessors and training organisations, despite indications it would.

The department has allocated some internal auditors to the issue and it is understood the Government is in current negotiations to hire an external auditing firm some point soon.

Secondly, a training framework the Federal Government is developing for training organisations has not yet been approved by the regulatory body for training programs, Australian Quality Framework.

The Minister's office has now called in outside auditors — PricewaterhouseCoopers — to assess ABSA’s role in the scheme and whether it has adhered to a protocol signed between it and the Government.

The key dispute between the ABSA and Garrett’s office is who was charged with overseeing the training organisations.

The Government believes that ABSA is the responsible body, and that clear provisions in the protocol backs that position up. But ABSA disagrees, and is arguing behind closed doors that it informed the Department that it should not be in charge of the training organisation from an early date.

ABSA also believes that whatever parts of the protocol it has not kept to is because the Department has not fulfilled a commitment, such as hiring auditors and implementing its training course before the program started.

No doubt the blame will be pinned on someone and quick — the fallout from the scheme is getting out of hand for Garrett. And on the back of the bungling of the insultation rebate and the household solar rebate, it is not a good look for the Minister.

Greenlines hasn’t yet touched on the lengthy delays in household getting their assessment reports, the low take up of loans, and the accountability questions about how loan money is spent. No doubt, Senate Estimates will address these issues today.

But maybe a final, small indication, of the problems the department is facing is an email sent to assessors from the ''The Green Loan Team'' on February 2. It explains that the department has run out of promotional material for the scheme that it it was providing to assessors for free.

Of course, it is not such as bad thing. As the email reads:

‘‘These changes will mean a better outcome for the environment, and will also have a positive impact on your local communities. For example, you can support your local printer by asking them to print your promotional materials. For even greater environmental benefit, ask your printer to use recycled paper and environmentally-friendly inks.’’

In every grey, bureaucratically bungled, totally stuffed up scheme, lined cloud, there is obviously a silver lining.

Senate Estimates start at 9am February 9.