Warm toolkits

These are the principal government programmes targeting fuel poverty

Warm Front, until now the main government initiative, delivers a package of measures, typically including central heating and insulation, to households on benefit. It’s focused on the owner-occupied and privately rented sectors.

Warm Front covers England: each of the devolved administrations has a similar programme – Warm Deal in Scotland; Home Energy Efficiency Scheme in Wales. The main drawback of Warm Front is that it is limited to households on ‘passport’ benefits.

In Scotland, though, a series of new initiatives has drawn praise from Friends of the Earth and other NGOs. In addition to Warm Deal, there is a new Housing Act setting tighter energy efficiency standards for new dwellings, and a new non-means-tested central heating grant. The Scottish Executive has just announced a series of targets, including the provision of central heating by 2004 to all council houses outside Glasgow and all housing association tenants; extending to all elderly households (in public or private housing) by 2006. The aim is to cut by 30% the numbers living in fuel poverty within four years.

Each of the Warm Front programmes is managed by a private company that delivers the work through a network of local contractors. In England, the country is divided between two managing agents: the EAGA Partnership and TXU Europe.
(With thanks to Norrie Kerr of Energy Action Scotland, www.eas.org.uk )

The Energy Efficiency Commitment, launched in April 2002, compels energy suppliers to invest in efficiency measures in the home, in order to achieve a certain target for carbon savings. Of this, 50% of the savings must be achieved in vulnerable households. Overseen by the regulator, Ofgem (p. xiv), this tripled the amount companies were required to invest in similar measures under an earlier programme. Suppliers are encouraged to achieve these savings as part of an overall ‘energy services’ package, including efficiency advice, insulation provision and other initiatives, as opposed to one-off measures.

On the social housing front, the Decent Homes Standard aims to eradicate fuel poverty in local authority or housing associations by 2010. However, fuel poverty campaigners are concerned that the energy efficiency targets are lower than for the government’s own Warm Front-type programmes.

Many fuel poverty initiatives have been criticised as being too focused on the benefits model (p. vi). Warm Zones is an effort to move beyond that by targeting fuel poor households on a street-by-street basis, working with local authorities, primary health care trusts and others.

So far, Warm Zones have been established in Newham (East London), Sandwell (West Midlands), Hull, Stockton and Northumberland, with new schemes starting in October 2002 in Redcar and Cleveland. Tony Blair has given very public, enthusiastic backing to the scheme, visiting the Stockton Warm Zone where 6,000 homes have been fitted with insulation and draughtproofing, and a further 1,500 with new central heating systems.

Each zone is sponsored by one of the following energy companies: London Electricity, npower, Powergen and TXU.
www.warmzones.co.uk

22 September 2002