Scheme Consultation Outcome

Why is the Scheme changing?

MCS has set out to pursue a mission to “give everyone confidence in low-carbon energy technology by defining, maintaining, and improving quality.” To help meet our mission, we undertook a rigorous review of MCS, the way the Scheme operates, and the delivery of consumer protections through the Scheme.

MCS held a consultation in the summer of 2023 on the redevelopment of the Scheme, which ran for a total of six weeks.

As a result, MCS has proceeded with the aspects of the proposal that received strong industry support, while those that lacked support during the public consultation have not been advanced.

Scheme Redevelopment

Consultation Outcome

This document presents a complete summary of the responses MCS received to the Scheme Redevelopment Consultation. It includes a detailed analysis of each proposal, the corresponding feedback, and our decision on whether we will be proceeding with it.

CONSULTATION OUTCOME

Summary of Outcome

Proposal 1: New Scheme structure – SUPPORTED

We’ll introduce Scheme Rules and Customer Duty, but following feedback, they will likely have different names.
MCS Installation Standards will be stripped back to become ‘technical truths’ and will be supported by Pre-sale Information and System Performance Estimate Standards relevant to each technology.
Consumer Code membership will no longer be mandated as a requirement for MCS certification.

Proposal 2: Certificates for replacement, extended and adopted systems – PARTIALLY SUPPORTED

MCS will allow for the certification of replacement systems. Contractors must indicate which installations are replacements on the MID.
MCS will also allow for the certification of adopted systems where a certified contractor has been unable to deliver a certified system. Another contractor will complete the installation.
Following feedback, we will not allow for the certification of extended systems as part of the scheme changes.

Proposal 3: Risk-based compliance assessments – SUPPORTED

MCS will reset our compliance assessments to focus on the delivered quality of a contractor’s installation rather than the quality of their paperwork or assessing a QMS.
We will introduce a scheme-wide Compliance Risk Model to determine how often each contractor will be assessed.
We will define risk indicators for the Compliance Risk Model, which will include but won’t be limited to, reviewing business practice and history, business size, new business activity (such as relocating or opening another site), history of complaints, history of whistleblowing, and duration of certification.

Proposal 4: Technical responsibility for each installation – SUPPORTED

The current requirement for at least one single Nominated Technical Person (NTP) for each technology installed by a contractor will be replaced with a requirement for a list of Technical Supervisors.
Every contractor must name a specific Technical Supervisor on the MID for each and every installation they complete.
The name of the Technical Supervisor will not appear on the certificate or outside of the MID.

Proposal 5: Pending (conditional) certification – NOT SUPPORTED

Feedback highlighted concerns that only small contractors are affected by the difficulty of finding a first installation, and the requirement for a £5,000 bond means that Pending Certification is not a solution to this problem as it is not affordable.
Concerns were also raised that a contractor is either certified or not certified, and anything in between would only confuse consumers.
Therefore, we will not go ahead with this proposal but will explore other solutions, including some provided in the consultation responses.

Proposal 6: MCS Contractor Agreement – SUPPORTED

MCS will replace the current sub-licensing agreements with the new MCS Contractor Agreement. This means the contractor will sign an agreement directly with MCS rather than with their Certification Body.
This will improve the direct relationship between MCS and contractors, rather than us being removed from our certified contractors, but will also allow us to hold contractors to account more easily should they fall short of our standards.

Proposal 7: Centralised complaint management – SUPPORTED

We will centralise the scheme’s complaints and dispute management. This will allow us to be more directly involved in supporting consumers when something goes wrong, but also in supporting contractors with vexatious complaints.
We will partner with Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) experts to advise us on escalated high-level complaints.
We will extend our implemented outbound contact programme to contact every consumer purchasing a certified system for feedback on their installation and experience of their contractor. This builds on the work the Outbound team have undertaken with Ofgem for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

Proposal 8: Implementation of new financial protections – PARTIALLY SUPPORTED

We will progress plans to develop a design for the MCS Guarantee to act as a fund of last resort to remediate an installation problem when all other protections fail, the contractor has left the scheme or is no longer trading. Full plans will follow in the near future.
We will not mandate the requirement of Insurance-Backed Guarantees (IBGs), but contractors may optionally choose to use them. We will provide guidance to contractors.
Note that the decision to implement the MCS Guarantee will not be made until we have a clear design that we believe can provide for the confidence consumers say they are looking for before investing in low-carbon technology.

Proposal 9: Retirement of existing documents – SUPPORTED

At the point the new scheme launches, we’ll retire these existing documents: MCS 001-1, MCS 001-2, MCS 025, and MGD 001.
They will be replaced by the new documents described in Proposal 1.

Impact assessment

The Impact Assessment sets out how existing MCS documents and standards will change. Included is a detailed breakdown of how and why documents will be replaced, removed, or retained.

You will also find an explanation of the objectives for each of the changes and their intended effects as well as an assessment of how consumers, installers, and Certification Bodies will be affected by the changes.

VIEW THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT