Eligibility. Figure 10 details the reasons given to HES advisers and also the frequency with which these reasons were reported out of 52 responses to this question. This review examined the two main aspects of the eligibility criteria in order to: a. ensure that the criteria correctly identify fuel poor households; and. Awareness of Warmer Homes Scotland is important as a way to ensure that the scheme reaches fuel poor households, and to ensure that fuel poor households are aware of the benefits of having measures installed under the scheme. Your feedback will help us improve this site, Home Energy Efficiency Programmes Scotland: annual review 2016-2017, Part 7: Recommendations from 2015/16 Annual Review, Part 8: Conclusions and Recommendations Summary, Appendix 1: Warmer Homes Scotland Annual Review 2016/17 Terms of Reference, Appendix 2: Surveyors Workshop Summary Report, Find As shown by Table 4, the most common reason for cancelled applications is that they were out-with the timescales of the process. This may reflect the help given to social housing tenants through other fuel poverty schemes and the landlord’s obligations under the Repairing Standard that places a duty on to landlords in the Private Rental sector to ensure that heating in their properties is in good working order and a reasonable state of repair. ... You can check if your local council is participating in the Warmer Homes programme and read our eligibility criteria before applying. iii. This resulted in changes being made to the contract to include additional pause periods that allow more time for customers to have the necessary finance, support and documentation from landlords in place and any new or replacement fuel tanks installed. At first glance, it appears that WHS take up is greater in on gas areas. Any data collected is anonymised.

Figure 8: Graph showing the average number of weekly referrals and the trend for referrals to Warmer Homes Scotland in 2016/17. Figure 4 shows the same group of customers broken down by age. These are the highest and lowest income bands used in the survey. This additional support is discussed in full in Part 5 of this report that looks at how the scheme delivers value for money. Traditionally, in Scotland we have defined a household as fuel poor if, in order to maintain a satisfactory heating regime, it would be required to spend more than 10% of its income on all household fuel use. This is also true for those under the age of 30 (see Figure 4). It is worth at least £16 million per year for up to seven years. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. On receiving a referral to the scheme, Warmworks takes over the management of the end-to-end customer journey that is shown at Figure 9.

The HES advisers were also asked if they thought Warmer Homes Scotland was a positive intervention and if it had achieved its aim of being customer focussed. This supports the use of proxies in identifying those households who are at most risk of living in fuel poverty. The third element of accessibility of WHS is attractiveness and this can be further broken down into two strands: a. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. The households with the largest uptake of the scheme are those that have a member who has a disability, which is used as a proxy for a low-income household, and the households who are supporting young children or an elderly person aged 75 or over. Table 1: Warmer Home Scotland completed installations by tenure type. In Scotland, the Warmer Homes Scheme offers financial help towards installing measures such as wall and loft insulation and draught-proofing if you're a homeowner or private tenant who's lived in your home for more than 12 months. This high customer satisfaction rating indicates that customers are generally happy with the levels of service they receive from Warmworks throughout their customer journey. The suitability of available measures is examined in more detail in Part 4 of this review. In relation to housing tenure 58% of fuel poor households are owner-occupiers, 31% are social housing residents and 11% private sector tenants. The Scottish Government’s Warmer Homes Scotland scheme and local authorities’ Area Based Schemes offer energy efficiency measures to eligible households. One of the key issues that might prevent WHS from meeting its objectives is that fuel poor households may simply be unaware that it exists. This small increase has occurred despite the additional leveraging of financial support into the scheme to support customers with enabling measures that Warmworks have achieved in 2016/17.
ii. Remove the requirement for those aged 60 to 64 to have broken or no heating; Include Attendance Allowance as a qualifying benefit; Consider including those under 60 with broken or no heating; Change the 6 month rule - which requires for customers to have lived in the property for at least 6 months prior to referral, Include any kind of pension credit, not just the guarantee element; and. We are a network of local advice centres covering all of Scotland.

Assistance is being offered to homeowners and private sector tenants, who have lived in their property for at least twelve months, and who meet the qualifying criteria below. However, Table 3 suggests that when the current eligible group is considered as a proportion of the total population, take up in off gas areas has been significantly higher [3] . The charts below show the customers who were referred to Warmer Homes Scotland, broken down by the primary benefit they were in receipt of at the time of qualifying for the scheme, and by age. Awareness. Figure 10: Reasons people choose not to be referred, There should therefore be a further investigation to determine whether or not the grant levels and loan support that are offered are adequate for the scheme. Annual review of our Warmer Homes Scotland scheme, looking at delivery from September 2015 to March 2016. Recommendation 6 - The review recommends that a further investigation is undertaken into why customers do not respond to Warmworks repeated contact attempts. out more about cookies, Coronavirus (COVID-19): what you need to know. In terms of the contact attempts, Warmworks is required to attempt customer contact three times at different times of the day and using different contact methods before an application can be cancelled. For a home to be considered, it must have an energy rating of 64 or lower and have a floor area of less than 230m 2. Those households are identified via proxies including a threshold on the energy rating of the property ( SAP 55 during the period of the review) and receipt of certain qualifying benefits. During 2016 some elements of the customer journey were reviewed. This is based on a 76.4% return rate for completed customer satisfaction surveys.

The third most common reason for cancellations is the perceived upheaval and/or the need for preparation works. 87% of households with an income of less than £200 per week were fuel poor compared to only 3% of those households with an income of over £700 per week.
This is audited on a monthly basis by Pennington Choices who have confirmed that this process is being followed. This concludes that around one third of the reduction in households living in fuel poverty in Scotland can be attributed to improvements in the energy efficiency performance of the housing stock. These responses also mirror comments made by the supply chain.