The Assessor Specifications were developed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in conjunction with relevant expert bodies and interested parties. The first live versions of the standards to be used in the Green Deal were released on 15th June 2012. The Assessor Specifications are made available free of charge and the current versions (2014 update) can be downloaded from the right-hand side of this page.
There are two Assessor Specifications in place:
Specification for Assessor Organisations providing the Green Deal Advice Service
The organisations and sole traders who wish to become authorised Green Deal Assessors must be certified against this specification. The requirements are focused around the eligibility criteria, management and quality systems and operational procedures.
Specification for Certification Bodies certifying the Green Deal Advice Service
This specification outline in detail, how the initial assessment will be carried out and ongoing compliance will be monitored by the Green Deal Certification Body. This is part of the quality assurance process for consumers using Green Deal Approved organisations.
Updates to the Specifications
The specifications are periodically updated to reflect the feedback from market participants and the changes to the policy and operational frameworks. The Green Deal Code of Practice references specific versions of the assessor specifications, therefore timelines for releases of the revised specifications are aligned to the releases of the Code. Compliance is always required to the current version of the specification and is summarised in the table below:
| From date | Until date | Specification for Organisations |
Specification for Certification Bodies |
| 15th Jun 2012 | 24th Dec 2012 | 002/2012 | 202/2012 |
| 24th Dec 2012 | 31st Jul 2013 | 003/2012 | 203/2012 |
| 31st Jul 2013 | 22nd June 2014 | 004/2013 | 204/2013 |
| 23rd June 2014 | Date CoP v5 comes into force |
005/2014 | 205/2014 |
005/2014 Specification for Organisations