It seems to me that South Gloucestershire Council doesn’t take much notice of its correspondence. If it did, then they would not have sent a surveyor round to carry out the house condition survey after I explicitly advised them not to as I declined to take part. You would have thought that such correspondence would have been noted and I would be excluded from further attempts to extract information from me. Well, ordinarily, you would.
My general awkwardness in the face of bureaucratic nosiness seems not to have been taken on board, though, for today I received a letter exhorting me to complete a home energy survey.
South Gloucestershire District Council is keen to promote energy efficient housing, both to help the environment and to ensure that residents have adequate heating and insulation.
“I can see where this is going,” I think to myself while reading the letter, “carbon footprints sooner or later…”
I know exactly how energy efficient my home is (fair to middling as it turns out) and I have no plans to do anything until such time as things need replacing because they are worn out – at least, that would be the case if I was not selling and moving elsewhere.
We are obliged under the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 to collect data on energy efficiency measures across the district and this year we are carrying out a random survey of households across all tenures
You may be, but I am not obliged to assist you. I have a firm policy when it comes to surveys; I don’t do them. It’s a policy I decided upon several decades ago and nothing since has happened to cause me to change it. Surveys usually mean poking about in people’s affairs that are no business of the organisation carrying it out. Besides, I take my privacy seriously. The energy efficiency of my home is my affair. I will take any necessary steps to alter it as and when I deem it necessary.
Information collated from this survey will allow the council, and ultimately the Government, to allocate monies for energy-saving measures based upon need. It will also indicate progress on reaching national targets for carbon dioxide savings to combat climate change.
Ah, yes, the good old climate change scam. See? Didn’t I say so? I don’t buy into that one, consequently the government’s CO2 targets are of no concern to me. And, I’ve already had callers exhorting me to take out a grant to put cavity wall insulation into my non-cavity walls.
Please complete the survey included with this letter and return it in the prepaid envelope (no stamp needed). You will be sent a free energy-saving report specific to your home, as well as information on grants and discounts available for loft and cavity wall insulation. If you have any queries regarding the form or would like to speak to an energy efficiency adviser.
See above. Under no circumstances will I be filling this thing in (indeed, it is already in the bin). My loft is already insulated and I don’t have cavity walls – and if I did, I would not dream of putting gunk in them. The cavity is there for a reason.
Finally, may I thank you in anticipation of your valuable assistance in carrying out this important survey. Your help is greatly appreciated and will help the council reach its targets for improving energy efficiency for residents of the district.
Don’t thank me, I haven’t done anything…
I find it more entertaining to fill in the form with wildly inaccurate information, (full on absurdity not just mildly missleading), they seldom bother you after that.
Falcos last blog post..The Mirror, pure comedy
Not an option in this case as it’s all tick boxes.
Is the link causing this to show on my screen? “Dephormation has found a link to a Phorm/Webwise/OIX site.”
fjsrider – sorry, you’ve lost me…
Okay, a Google has found out what you mean. I presume that you are using Firefox. I have linked to Phorm in one of my posts (linking to them as an example of data gathering) – I tend to use source links wherever possible. You got a warning because of this, it seems.
Update – Just downloaded Dephormation and installed it in Firefox and tried revisiting this site. Yup, that’s it. No need to worry, it’s just a plain link to Phorm’s homepage illustrating them as an example of data gathering. This is the post in question.
I alway post the prepaid envelope back to the company with nothing in it so that they have to pay the postage, although with a council it would be our money anyway.
Think yourself lucky you aren’t driving in central London then. They have a more compelling way of ‘requesting’ survey data than just popping a questionnaire through your door!
JuliaMs last blog post.."Don’t Tell ’em Your Name, Pike!"
JuliaM – TfL aren’t the only ones. I got stopped a few years back in one of these in bristol. The where are you going question was rewarded with a sarcastic finger pointing to the driving school roof sign…
Again, I do not answer their questions as the only answer appropriate is “none of your business.”
What Falco and John G say – otherwise it’s the waste of a perfectly good freepost envelope. That said, I did throw an NHS Patient Satisfaction Survey in the bin a couple of days ago.
Mark Wadsworths last blog post..Coalition of the willing
I take pat in surveys that may benefit me – for instance when I spent more time is healthy travelling on BA flights I always participated in their surveys. However, these are very few and far between and I NEVER take part in Govt surveys, although the Great Wiseone does – must talk to her again.
Isn’t this statement typically of how our bureaucracy thinks:
“Please complete the survey included with this letter and return it in the prepaid envelope (no stamp needed). You will be sent a free energy-saving report..”
Can’t hey get their round that it isn’t free, we have paid for it through our ever increasing taxes and whilst pointless surveys like this are carried out they will continue to increase.
The Great Simpletons last blog post..On this day – Falklands
GS, indeed so. People still think the NHS is free…
I think that you will find the bottom of this one is grounded in an EU requirement for all the provinces to undertake a condition survey of all their housing stock (or something similar to that). That would explain the complete lack of mention of the EU in the official blurb. They have had the local councils try it on, the gas and electricity companies try it on, I wonder who is next to “volunteer” to do it? Which CEO needs rescuing by a peerage?
Yokel, I believe that you are right; I’m pretty sure I saw something to this effect. Still, my house is none of their business and the more they want to know about me, my home and my lifestyle, the less I am inclined to reveal. Contrary? Me? You must be thinking of someone else.
Once upon a time, I believed their protestations of helpfulness and lack of ulterior motive. I’ve grown a bit sadder and wiser since then. I too will only volunteer information when I am likely to suffer retribution for failing to “volunteer”. If only there were somewhere other than another EU province to go to.