Written question asked by Ann McKechin (Labour) on Tuesday, 21 February 2012, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 27 February 2012. It was answered by Lord Stunell (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 28 February 2012 on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Planning Permission

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether he carried out (a) a consultation exercise and (b) an impact assessment prior to the introduction of the Non-domestic Self-funding Software Validation Service.

Answer: [holding answer 27 February 2012]: The Department has held, and continues to hold, discussions with industry partners about how best to deliver, and maintain, the validation service for software developed by, and to understand the impact of any changes on, commercial practices for assessing the energy performance of non-domestic buildings. The changes to the Software Validation Service involved no regulatory changes that would, in the normal course of events, require a formal consultation process or impact assessment to be undertaken.Since the introduction on 25 January, we have said that neither DCLG nor the operator of the Energy Performance Certificate Register will introduce any changes for the purposes of complying with Part L of the Building Regulations or for generating Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates that would trigger the need for software for non-domestic buildings to undergo validation in 2012. The only exception to this is air conditioning software, which will need to undergo validation prior to the statutory requirement to lodge air conditioning reports onto the non-domestic Energy Performance Certificate Register coming into force in April. Air conditioning software providers were advised in October that central funding was no longer available for third party software validation, and that alternative arrangements would be introduced.

Secondary information