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Friday, 19 February 2010
On 19 February 2010, the
Minister for the
Environment, Heritage and
the Arts
announced changes to the
popular Green Loans Program.
These changes ensure the
program can meet the strong
demand for free home
sustainability assessments
and aim to help improve the
quality of assessments being
delivered under the program.
NOTICE TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUBMITTED CONTRACTS
TO BECOME ASSESSORS AND HAVE NOT BEEN CONTRACTED TO THE
DEPARTMENT
Around 4,400 assessors are currently contracted to work under
the Green Loans Program.
There are a number of reviews currently underway regarding
the Program, including reviews of accreditation processes and
the contractual arrangements and procurement under the Program.
The Government will consider the findings of these reviews
before proceeding to finalise additional assessor contracts.
New applications to become contracted assessors are no longer
being received by the department. Please do not send any
applications to the department.
If you have already submitted a contract, unless you have
received a starter pack from the department, or other written
confirmation, you should consider that any contract you sent to
the department has not yet been signed. You are not able to
carry out work under the program unless your contract has been
signed.
NOTICE TO ASSESSORS
The
Program changes announced on 19 February 2010 will assist in
improving the quality of assessments being conducted and in
ensuring a more even spread of assessments between assessors.
More detail about the program changes can be found in the
Assessor section of this website.
Changes announced on 19 February 2010:
- An additional 600,000 free assessments, on top of the
360,000 free home sustainability assessments already
committed under the Program.
- A limit has been placed on the number of assessments
that can be completed by each assessor in any one day. Each
assessor can carry out no more than three assessments per
day. The purpose of this change is to improve the quality of
home sustainability assessments.
- A limit has been placed on the number of assessments
that can be completed by each assessor each week. Each
assessor can carry out no more than five assessments per
week. Across all assessors, no more than 15,000 assessments
in total can be carried out each week. This change aims to
more evenly distribute work between assessors and provide
longer term certainty about the duration of the Program.
- No more than 5,000 assessors will be contracted to work
under the Program.
- Each call to the booking centre can only be made by or
on behalf of an individual assessor.
- Bookings cannot be transferred or on-sold between
assessors. When an assessor or their representative rings
the Booking Centre to make a booking they have to state
their HO number and this number will be checked against
their invoice. Invoices will not be paid if the HO number on
the invoice does not match the HO number booked for the
assessment.
These changes apply to all contracted assessors, including
all assessor companies.
- New ‘Program Guidelines’ and ‘Assessor Contract Terms
and Conditions’ will be introduced soon to reflect the
Program changes and ensure the quality of assessments being
delivered under the Program. Assessors will be given
notification of these changes and may be asked to agree to
the changes before continuing in the Program. In the
interim, the current Program Guidelines and Assessor
Contract Terms and Conditions apply subject to the changes
announced on 19 February 2010 and any changes to Terms and
Conditions notified directly to assessors.
Booking centre
- To make an assessment booking, please phone the Green
Loans Booking Centre on
phone number 1800 895 076 from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm Monday to
Friday AEST. Bookings can be made directly by a householder
or by an assessor on behalf of a householder who has sought
to have a home sustainability assessment completed for their
property.
- Where the booking is made by an assessor, each call to
the booking centre can only be made by or on behalf of an
individual assessor. The 15,000 bookings per week available
under the Program will be spread over Monday to Friday, with
3,000 each day. Assessments can be undertaken on any day of
the week.
- When an assessor or their representative phones to make
a booking, they will need to supply the assessor's HO
number. They will be allowed to make up to 10 bookings in
one phone call, up to two weeks in advance (ie the 10
bookings can be spread over the next two weeks, but no more
than five bookings can be made for each week). This means
assessors will only need to make one phone call per
fortnight to make their bookings.
Booking Centre – call wait times
- Average wait time on the assessor line for the Green
Loans Booking Centre for April 2010 was around 30 seconds.
Invoicing for work completed under the Program -
Assessors
- When a correctly completed invoice is received, the
Department will acknowledge receipt of the invoice and
process it.
- If an incorrect invoice is received the assessor will be
contacted by the Department and advised about how to amend
it. The invoice will then need to be resubmitted. Please
note that the 30 day payment period does not begin until a
correctly completed invoice is received.
- In order to help the Department pay you promptly please
double check the information you are providing, in
particular your ABN, company details, AN numbers and
ensuring you are only claiming GST if you are registered to
collect GST.
- The Department endeavours to pay correctly rendered
invoices within 30 days of receipt. Unfortunately delays
have been experienced recently with regard to payments for
assessor services under the Green Loans Program.
- The Department’s payment processing times for Green
Loans Program invoices are shown on the top right hand side
of this page.
General Enquiries - Green Loans Program
- The Department has established a new telephone line to
handle general enquiries about the Program. The phone
number for the enquiries line is 1300 778 451. If one of
the households you’re working with or members of the
community wish to find out more about the Program, please
phone this number. Operating hours for this enquiry line
are 8.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday to Friday AEST.
- If you wish to submit an invoice or follow up on the
status of a payment please email
glinvoicing@environment.gov.au. Please note that
non-invoicing enquiries sent to this email box will not be
responded to. Alternatively, for all enquiries about the
Program, please use our
online enquiries form.
source http://www.environment.gov.au/greenloans/
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