Rob Garner from Warma UK explains why the defining measure of success in the UK’s retrofit journey is not funding or volume, but the quality and integrity of delivery.
The UK housing sector is entering one of the most important phases in its modern history. The transition to low carbon, energy-efficient housing is now a central pillar of national policy, with billions of pounds now being committed to retrofit schemes. Yet for housing associations, local authorities and private landlords, the challenge is not only to secure funding but to ensure that every project delivers safe, durable, and verifiable improvements for residents.
The Government’s Warm Homes Plan outlines a £15bn investment between 2025 and 2030, supporting the retrofit of around five million homes. This includes a mix of measures such as insulation, low carbon heating, solar technologies and energy storage.
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) were the primary delivery vehicles for this ambition, with the Local Authority Flexible Eligibility route, known as LA Flex, providing councils with the flexibility to target vulnerable households who might otherwise fall outside national criteria.
The direction of travel is encouraging, but the sector’s progress will not be judged by how many properties receive grants, but by how many residents live in warmer, more efficient, and healthier homes because of it.
Cost of poor quality
In recent years, several large-scale retrofit audits have revealed widespread issues in workmanship, specification and post-installation oversight. Common failures, particularly in external wall insulation, have led to damp and condensation problems that undo the very benefits retrofitting is meant to achieve.
For social landlords already managing complex building safety obligations, these findings are a stark reminder that quality assurance must be the foundation of every scheme.
Retrofit delivered without rigour can quickly become a liability. Poor quality installations create financial burdens for landlords, disrupt residents’ lives, and undermine public trust in the very idea of energy efficiency and the grant schemes that deliver it.
By contrast, high performing retrofit projects share consistent traits: they are designed with care, properly ventilated, and verified to perform as intended. The results go beyond better energy ratings; they deliver lasting warmth, improved air quality and healthier, more resilient homes.
Quality, in this sense, is about more than compliance. It means selecting the right measure for each property, considering how residents live in their homes, and ensuring work is carried out by professionals who understand how every element of the building interacts.
Policy momentum towards consistency
Government policy is beginning to reflect this emphasis on quality. The Response to the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee’s Retrofitting Homes for Net Zero report sets out a stronger framework for delivery.
Among its priorities are simplifying eligibility rules to make schemes more accessible, establishing a national advice service, reforming Energy Performance Certificates by 2026 to better reflect carbon and cost outcomes, and overhauling the retrofit accreditation process to ensure consistent competence across the supply chain.
The report also highlights the importance of workforce expansion, with the Warm Homes Skills Programme and Heat Training Grant expected to support the training of around 18,000 new retrofit professionals.
Combined with improved consumer advice and oversight systems, these initiatives signal a maturing policy landscape that recognises the need for competence and accountability at every stage.
However, policy frameworks alone cannot guarantee delivery standards. The real test lies in how they are interpreted on the ground, by installers, managing agents and landlords working together under shared expectations of quality and verification.
The discipline of delivery
For social landlords and local authorities, delivering retrofit well requires more than simply appointing accredited contractors. It demands a structured process that integrates assessment, design, installation, and verification under a consistent methodology. Standards such as PAS 2035 and PAS 2030 provide the technical backbone, but it is the discipline of implementation that determines success.
Under ECO4 and GBIS, this process began with proper scoping, understanding each property’s condition, ventilation pathways, and resident needs. Coordination between managing agents, landlords and local authorities is essential to avoid duplication, gaps or unintended outcomes. The LA Flex route, in particular, has shown how data-led targeting can align retrofit with public health objectives, identifying households with respiratory or cardiovascular vulnerabilities where warmth and air quality improvements deliver measurable wellbeing gains.
Our experience across multiple local authority partnerships has demonstrated that early engagement and shared oversight make all the difference. Programmes that embed technical monitoring from the outset, use resident communication plans, and maintain transparent performance reporting tend to achieve higher completion rates and lower remedial costs. Quality is as much about governance as it is about engineering.
Quality at scale
In Wales, the Optimised Retrofit Programme (ORP) offers a strong example of how a quality driven model can be scaled effectively. Since 2020, ORP has funded more than £260m in social housing upgrades, combining fabric improvements with digital monitoring and skills development.
The Welsh approach is notable for its emphasis on ‘whole house’ design and data-led evaluation. Each participating landlord develops an evidence based retrofit pathway, measuring building performance over time rather than treating projects as one-off interventions. The programme also invests in workforce development and innovation funding, creating a cycle of learning that continually raises standards.
For landlords in England and Scotland, ORP illustrates that quality control and scale are not opposites; they are mutually reinforcing. By treating retrofit as an ongoing asset management process rather than a single funding round, the programme ensures that lessons learned are applied to future workstreams, improving outcomes year after year.
Skills, oversight & accountability
As retrofit accelerates, capacity becomes as critical as capital. A well trained workforce is the foundation of quality. Government investment through the Warm Homes Skills Programme is a vital start, but the sector itself must go further. Housing providers can embed accredited competencies into their procurement frameworks, sponsor apprenticeships tied to live projects, and capture lessons learned through performance monitoring.
Oversight, too, must be embedded rather than reactive. Independent audits, robust data capture, and resident feedback loops should be normal features of programme governance. When residents understand the process and see tangible improvements, confidence grows and that confidence reinforces the credibility of every partner involved, from the landlord to the local authority to the delivery agent.
Converting funding into outcomes
The expansion of retrofit finance through the forthcoming Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund represents a major opportunity for the housing sector. Further allocations under the Warm Homes Local Grant underline the government’s intent to scale up area based delivery and strengthen local partnerships. Together, these initiatives represent the next phase of retrofit funding, one focused on collaboration, consistency and measurable outcomes.
Yet the ultimate test of these schemes lies in the quality of what they deliver. Funding allocation should not be mistaken for delivery success.
Quality driven projects deliver multiple dividends: they reduce bills and carbon, extend the life of housing assets, and improve occupant wellbeing. They also reduce the likelihood of remedial costs, reputational risk, and resident complaints. Every pound spent on careful design and verification saves several pounds in rework and rectification later.
Landlords who view quality assurance as an investment rather than an overhead are already setting the benchmark for the sector. Their projects demonstrate that rigorous oversight can coexist with efficiency, and that
resident centred delivery is the surest path to achieving both environmental
and social goals.
Quality as the common currency
The retrofit transition will define the next decade of housing management. But it will only succeed if delivery is grounded in quality from the first assessment to the final verification.
For social landlords, local authorities and delivery partners alike, the task is not merely to retrofit homes, but to build trust in the systems that make those homes warm, safe and efficient.
Quality of delivery is what ultimately determines whether the UK’s retrofit ambition succeeds. By holding delivery to the highest standard, technically, socially and operationally, housing providers and their partners can turn today’s funding into long-term progress for residents, communities and the environment.
Rob Garner is operations director at Warma UK