RECC's Annual report includes an explanation of the Code’s monitoring strategy and of the 10 Key Compliance Areas under which RECC records the results of:

• a rolling Consumer Feedback Survey (CSS)
• compliance audits of members and
• consumer complaints.

The current analysis presents the monitoring results for each of these elements separately (as set out in RECC’s Annual Report). It then brings these results together, along with some additional data, to show the performance overall against each Compliance Area. The object of this analysis is to assess the extent to which consumer detriment has been prevented across the spectrum of the Code.

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The 10 Key Compliance Areas

CA1: Awareness of consumer protection / RECC (including staff training)
CA2: Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS)
CA3: Marketing and selling
CA4: Estimates/quotes, particularly performance estimates and financial incentive
CA5: Finance agreements
CA6: Contracts and cancellation rights
CA7: Taking and protection of deposits and advanced payments
CA8: Completing the installation
CA9: After –sales (guarantees, workmanship warranties and warranty protection, after sales support: customer service)
CA10: Disputes numbers, handling, procedures

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Monitoring results

Figures 1 to 3 show the results graphically under each of the Compliance Areas areas in:

• RECC’s Consumer Feedback Survey (Figure 1)
• audits of members (Figure 2) and
• complaints about members (Figure 3).

Figure 2: % of audited members compliant on each Compliance Area at audit

Figure 3: % of disputes registered in which Compliance area featured

The Annual Report provides more detailed commentary on each of these planks of the monitoring programme (see pp 26-29, 20-25 and 34-44 respectively). Highlighted points include:
                          

• overall the majority of consumers who provided feedback were positive about their experience with RECC members, with 80% rating their  overall experience as 4/5 or 5/5, indicating they were satisfied or very satisfied. There was slightly less positive feedback in the areas of the consumer being made aware of the existence of a dispute resolution procedure (part of CA10) and of deposit protection (CA 7): of the 75% of respondents who had paid a deposit, 68% confirmed they had received an insurance policy  which protected it;
• the most frequent area of non-compliance found at audits was in pre-contractual information, contracts and cancellation rights and awareness of the Code;
• after-sales (guarantees, workmanship warranties and warranty protection, after-sales support and customer service) was the most frequently-featured Compliance Area in disputes.

As the Annual Report outlines, RECC has used these results to steer its work in producing model documents, running webinars and providing training, as well as in providing the focus of its compliance activities.

The following section brings together all the performance measures from the monitoring programme under each of the 10 Compliance Areas. 

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Performance measures

Table 1 provides the 10 Key Compliance Areas with all associated performance measures against which RECC undertook to report. The areas are shaded to show their relative priority – the darker the shade, the higher the priority.

Table 1: Performance by Compliance Area