NRG Experts - Nationwide Providers of EPCs

How do they manage it? Like the voyage of the Titanic, which was ultimately doomed to fail, the Institute of Domestic Energy Assessors have managed to ruffle yet more feathers in the HIP/EPC community. In its 15 month existance has any other company managed to cause such a stir? Yes its boring, and yes its like a car crash- you know you should not rubber-neck at it as you go past, but sometimes you just cannot help yourself!

Like the Delboy and Rodney of the DEA world, the IDEA 'management team' flounder helplessly round this industry in their batman and robin outfits trying to find more ways to make money.

IDEA have only recently recovered from the calamitous slip-up when the CEO/Chairman/Lobbyist (he cannot make his mind up which self-appointed title he wakes up with some days!) was published in the national press as stating that EPCs could be sourced for 30 pounds, or even less for high volume.

IDEA to become a circus Act?

Albeit I don't think Barnum and Bailey give circus lessons anymore, this Telegraph article let down all those IDEA members that have had such a tough financial time since entering this industry and regard such low fee levels as disgusting. Read the full article in the Telegraph Property Club.

I have covered many of the problems in previous postings so do not propose to rake over old ground, you can see my views here:

April 23rd 2008 Steering Group in mass exodus from IDEA, is IDEA in trouble?
May 11th 2008 17 more ways IDEA earn money- what about 17 positive things for members?
July 23rd 2008 EPC fees are at 30 pounds and we have 12,000 DEAs apparently!
August 3rd 2008 IDEA issues gagging orders to Committee candidates

It was not that long ago when IDEA announced a tie up with ECMK for accreditation. IDEA are supposed to be an Institute, they certainly do not behave like one. By agreeing deals that provide income into the IDEA coffers in the way of referral fees every time an EPC is lodged through ECMK all that has been achieved is to put the nose out of joint of other accreditation schemes. The deal with ECMK was not assessed in terms of what was good for members, there is no paper trail of the process by which each accreditation scheme was assessed and certainly no vote was taken by those delegated with responsibility for such matters!

IDEA split from the Pack Provider partner Hip2Go

Yes, last week IDEA announced they would now set-up a panel of pack providers which put their 'exclusive' relationship with Hip2Go into jeopardy. Hip2Go did indeed walk away at the start of this week, but in scenes reminiscent of when ECMK emailed all the HES candidates trying to poach them as they got moved to complete their training with Quidos, Hip2Go have only gone and done the same thing! Their Operations Manager emailed those DEA/HIs who have been using the Hip2Go solution telling them that they can indeed keep working together- even keeping the same login details- and with the extra carrot of further fee reductions. It was claimed to be an amicable split! Given I know the strong characters involved, I would wager that behind closed doors, amicable would not be the description being used!

Its become a volume game and a war of attrition- no-one likes to lose a relationship or volume of work. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when IDEA told Hip2Go they were unhappy with the speed of the searches being carried out earlier this year? Certainly doesn't help the Hip2Go ambition for continual expansion with products like the recently launched Landlords pack. Still, given the chaotic behaviour of Batman and Robin, I think its obvious who has come out second best, after all, look who is using the IDEA HIP web address at HipIDEA.net (which currently shows the Hip4DEA branding, username and password), yep, its only Hip2Go! Now if only IDEA had tried to retain and attract the right sort of people to guide it past these fundamental errors it might not be sending traffic to the 'opposition' eh? Maybe Batman and Robin should head back to the Batcave and get their heads round IDEA 2.0? Hip2Go aren't silly though, in fact they acted as the legal sounding board when Batman and Robin were busy kicking people off the Steering Group and suspending members willy-nilly leaving themselves wide open morally and legally.

So what next for IDEA?

(Other than global domination of course, that's a shoe-in!) OK, well they now wish to set-up a panel of pack providers, no doubt all competing for the work of the DEAs- so what we have is no more than a reverse-auction. Will IDEA publish figures about turnaround times on searches, how quick the DEA/HIs get paid when monies are owed? Does not seem very likely when IDEA continue to mislead people about how many members it has- the website is claiming 1961 members when nothing could be further from the truth. Membership fees were due many months ago now, and the take up is a small fraction of the 1961 number.

IDEA actually dislike me.

Yes, sadly its true. They spent a great deal of time last week clowning around trying to get me banned from speaking at the NHER/SAVA National Conference next week. Petty stuff really but with serious overtones of course. IDEA has always had this arrogant habit of trying to stop anyone saying anything that might not be on IDEA message including the suspension of people from IDEA without reason, secretive non-disclosure agreements completely inappropriate in what should be a democratic member-led Institute, the failure to provide basic documents such as a Constitution to folk who are considering joining IDEA and so on. Even steering group members got kicked out for being unhappy at the opaque or non-existant explanations/answers given. The word clown got mentioned many many times!

They really do need focus on what they need to be doing, which is learning how to operate as an Institute. I cannot see that day coming with the current Batman and Robin team in place, but miracles do happen apparently!

I'd like to discuss these problems with IDEA but sadly all the Batmen and all the Robins have been forced to sign a gagging order which means that none are legally allowed to comment for the next 3 years. Nice touch, there are dictators who would admire that masterstroke of control.