The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are councils and housing associations (social landlords) to operate as 'accredited' Green Deal providers starting in 2012.

The new Energy Bill offers housing associations the opportunity to partner with energy companies and financiers to provide tenants and the wider community with retrofit services.

The DECC spokesperson said: "We're hoping to work with social landlords. Basically there are different roles they can take. They could become a Green Deal provider if they wanted - this could be seen as a real business opportunity for them or they might want to partner up with another company offering the Green Deal like an energy company. We're really working with them at the moment to help make their stock more energy efficient which actually is already energy efficient anyway. We're looking at how we can progress that through the Green Deal."

The Green Deal, is the Government’s new and radical way of enabling private companies to make energy efficiency available to all at no upfront cost. The work to upgrade the property will be paid back from the saving on energy bills. The homeowners whether renting or owned will benefit from warmer and more economical homes to run.