Notice

G'day,

I have taken it upon myself to post the folllowing from an email I received (it may be a good idea for a topic for the forum?):

The following ideas were gleaned from assessor emails and ABSA forum posts. They are listed here without judgement. Some suggestions relate to activity within ABSA’s control and some would be the responsibility of DEWHA. ABSA intends to share this information with DEWHA and make recommendations for change.

If you have any further ideas or think that yours has not yet been captured please direct them to ideas@absa.net.au by Friday 19 February 2010.

Quality assurance process for HSAS and subsequent programs

ABSA and DEWHA to build and implement auditing/quality assurance program

DEWHA provide ways to be able to continue home assessments

• Make a home assessment a tax deductible expense
• Fund more home assessments (target ½ to 1 million homes)
• Instigate a householder co-payment to extend program

ABSA develop new categories of assessors

Through additional training and/or recognition ABSA could recognise other categories of assessor such as:

Retrofit  for those who conduct assessment and carry out retrofit activities

Quality control assessor who will audit other assessors

Mandatory disclosure and GreenStart for emerging programs

Commercial

Standards

• Develop Australian Standards for sustainability assessment

Assessor training

• All HSAS assessors be trained to be recognised against Certificate IV in Home Sustainability Assessment by 30 June 2011
• Nationally accredited training developed to support NatHERS and Mandatory Disclosure assessment activities
• Have all assessors sit an exam
• Investigate quality of training and revoke certification where it is proved inadequate training was provided
• Those who provided inadequate training to refund participants
• Speed up endorsement of Certificate IV in HSA so training can be delivered under the Australian Quality Training Framework
• Reconfirm DEWHA’s promise of free training to migrate assessors to new qualification
• Note: ABSA is planning to introduce a CPD framework that will encompass much of the above

Green Loans booking arrangements

• Turn off direct uplink to booking system or allow all assessors to access the uplink.
• Limit bookings per person
• Release postcode information
• Longer hours for call centre
• Fix portal
• Better direction of call centre options ie householder, assessors, financial institutions, changes/cancellations/payments
• Implement a ‘no door knocking’ and ‘no cold calling’ rule. 

Product information

• Identify “approved” sustainability products
• Conduct product information sessions Australia wide

Project management

• DEWHA embrace principles of good project management in planning and implementing programs with clearly stated aims and objectives, key tasks, triggers for action, particularly endpoints.
• Rename Green Loans program – take emphasis off loans and place on energy saving outcomes.

To begin with, the forums will be accessible to anyone. However this will change early in 2010 when access will be restricted to members of the Green Professionals™ network.