DEC numbers halved

The government is saying that only public buildings that have large numbers of the public pass through their doors will need a certificate. Energy assessors are saying that this contradicts information on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government which states all public authority buildings will need a DEC.

A flow chart on the CLG website shows that irrespective of visits by the public an authority would need a DEC.

The government is denying that there has been a rule change. A CLG spokesperson told BSj that information on the website was always meant to be a guide only.

“There is no shift or change,” he told BSj. “We have planned that we would give more information and guidance closer to the launch date. It was always planned that only buildings frequented by the public would need a DEC. There is no point in have a DEC if the public don’t see it.”

But energy assessors attending a stakeholder meeting with the CLG on Monday said the government had unexpectedly moved the goal posts. The original documentation simply referred to public buildings. In a document handed out at the meeting a flow chart noted the conditions for needing a DEC: if the building’s floor area was greater than 1000m2 and it was “frequently visited by large numbers of members of the public”.

One assessor who was at the meeting said he and other assessors were surprised when he read the document. He said the rules have changed “in a not too subtle way” and that the 100,000 DECs previously needed could be cut by half.