3 Energy efficiency and heating – national programmes
Warm Front - England
3.1 Warm Front
has continued to be a key tool tackling fuel poverty in the private
sector in England. From the Scheme’s inception in June 2000 to the end
of April 2008, over 1.7 million households in England had received
assistance with a range of heating, insulation and other energy
efficiency measures. Warm Front funding for the 2008-11 period has been
set at approximately £874 million including an uplift announced recently
as part of the Government’s Home Energy Saving Programme. The average
potential reduction in annual fuel bills as a direct result of those
receiving assistance during 2007-8 is estimated at £186.74.
3.2 In 2007/8,
Warm Front received £350 million funding, allowing the Scheme to assist
almost 270,000 households; an increase of over 15,000 households over
the previous year. Of those receiving assistance during this period:
·
over 100,000
households received a new heating system;
·
cavity wall
insulation was provided to over 30,000 households;
·
loft insulation
was provided to over 58,000 households.
3.3 Despite the
increase in activity, Warm Front has been able to significantly reduce
waiting times for applicants. On average:
·
surveys were
completed 6.7 days after the client’s application (against a target of
21 days);
·
insulation
measures were installed
27.6 days after
a survey (against a
target of 40 days);
·
heating
measures were installed 68.5 days after survey (against a target of 120
days).
3.4 Indicators
show that customer service
provided to Warm
Front clients has also
improved over the last year, with the customer satisfaction score
increasing from 92% in 06/07 to 94% in 07/08 and complaint rates
decreasing from 0.5% to 0.4% over the same period.
3.5 Warm Front
has continued to make a significant positive impact on those
households which
it assists. The average
energy efficiency (SAP) rating improvement for a house receiving Warm
Front assistance in the last year has been 15 points, from 42 to 57.
Although primarily a fuel poverty scheme, on average Warm Front has also
reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated total annual saving of 1.2 tonnes
for those homes improved each and every year for the next 20 years.
3.6 Warm Front
will be continuing to seek
out cost
effective, established alternative
technologies, with a particular emphasis on low carbon alternatives and
measures
suitable for ‘hard to treat’ properties. As part of this work Warm Front
has begun a pilot of solar thermal technology. The project will install
125 units (mostly alongside electric heating systems) in off-gas
properties.
Installation of
the systems is due to be
completed by autumn 2008, with the final report completed in 2009.
Home Energy Efficiency Scheme
– Wales
3.7 The Assembly
Government’s main vehicle for helping improve energy
efficiency for
vulnerable householders in
Wales is the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme. By the end of 2007-08 some
£93 million had been made available to
the Scheme since
the Welsh Assembly
Government became responsible for it in 2000. This will have allowed the
Scheme to assist approximately 93,000 households.
3.8 The Scheme
offers energy efficiency advice and cavity wall insulation, loft
insulation, draught proofing, central heating, energy saving light
bulbs, smoke alarms and security measures. The main groups eligible for
assistance are pensioners, the sick and disabled and low income
families.
3.9 The Home
Energy Efficiency Scheme had a particularly successful year in 2007/8
with over 18,000 households assisted against a target of 10,000.
Warm Deal and Central Heating Programme – Scotland
3.10 Since its
inception in 2001 to the end of March 2008, the Central Heating
Programme has delivered 96,496 systems. Over 2007-08 it delivered 14,377
systems, the highest number delivered in any one year to pensioner
households in the private sector. Between 1999 and 2008 the Warm Deal
Programme has insulated 279,743 homes. The total cost of this investment
is over £378 million.
3.11 However,
the review mentioned above highlighted the need for reform of these
programmes to remain on track to meet the 2016 target. Whilst the
Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum makes its deliberations, applications to the
Central Heating Programme will be prioritised to ensure that those who
are most likely to be fuel poor receive assistance first.
All pensioners
who do not have a central heating system in their homes will continue to
be a priority.
3.12 In addition
households where the heating system has broken down and the householder
or their partner is aged 80 or over or is in receipt of the guarantee
element of pension credit will be prioritised for a replacement central
heating system. Applications from people in other categories will
continue to be considered; but their application will depend this year
on available resources and, in the future, on the recommendations of the
Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum.
Warm Homes and Warm Homes Plus Schemes – Northern Ireland
3.13 The Warm Homes
and the Warm Homes Plus Schemes continue to be the main programme for
tackling fuel poverty in Northern Ireland, through the provision of
energy efficiency measures to owneroccupied and private sector homes.
3.14 Since its
inception in 2001 the Warm
Homes Scheme has
assisted over 60,000 fuel poor households. Resources of £9.2 million over two
years, were made available to the scheme through the Environment and
Renewable Energy Fund, which increased the available budget to over £20
million in the 2006/07 and 2007/08 financial years.
3.15 This enabled
an increase in the number of households benefiting from the provision of
energy efficiency measures; assisted with the introduction of a boiler
aftercare package that will enable service one year after installation;
and extend the warranty to two years; and allowed 11,300 private sector
households to receive improvements to the energy efficiency of their
homes. The Northern
Ireland Housing
Executive improved 5,394
dwellings through its various
programmes. The Housing Executive has
allocated £14 million to its programmes.
Carbon Emissions Reduction
Target – Great Britain
3.16 In April 2008,
Government launched the third phase of the energy supplier energy
efficiency programme, now known as the Carbon Emissions
Reduction Target
(CERT). The Scheme applies across Great Britain.
3.17 CERT’s primary
aim is reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in the domestic sector,
but as it brings about a general improvement of the housing stock, it
can also help to future proof homes against fuel poverty. The target for
CERT for the next three years represents roughly a doubling of CO2
savings under the previous Energy Efficiency Commitment in 2005-8.
Suppliers are required to deliver at least 40% of their carbon savings
from energy efficiency measures in households of low income consumers,
known as the priority group, or those over 70.
3.18 It is expected
that about twice as much resource, equal to about £1.5 billion over
2008/11, is directed at priority group customers compared to earlier
Schemes. The Government estimates that about 1.23 million homes in the
priority group will receive cavity wall insulation during the lifetime
of CERT (out of 2.9 million with unfilled cavities).
3.19 In addition,
the Government is proposing an increase in the existing CERT target by
20 per cent in the present period up to March 2011. This will require
additional expenditure by the energy suppliers of an estimated £560
million of which an estimated £300m will go to the priority group of low
income and elderly customers.
3.20 Defra has
commissioned research to look at the impact of CERT in tackling fuel
poverty and a report is expected later this year.
Decent Homes, Scottish Housing Quality Standard and Welsh Housing
Quality Standard
3.21 Since the last
UK Fuel Poverty Strategy
Annual Report, the UK Government
has continued to make progress towards
ensuring all social sector housing meets
the Decent Homes
standard that applies in England. The Standard has a thermal comfort element
that requires the presence of efficient heating and effective insulation
in homes.
The Department of Communities and Local Government expects
95% of all social housing in England to meet or
exceed this
standard by 2010, and social
landlords must agree specific deadlines for the remaining 5%, or are in
the process of doing so.
3.22 The figures
from the English House Condition Survey for 2006 show that since 1996,
there has been a reduction across all tenures in the proportion of
households living in non-decent homes. The proportion of social sector
tenants living in non-decent homes has fallen by an average of 2.5
percentage points each year, so in 2006, only 28% of were living in
non-decent homes.
3.23 The Government
aims to have 70% of
vulnerable
households in decent homes by 2010. In the private sector, the proportion of vulnerable households
(those in receipt of means- tested or disability- related benefits)
living in decent homes has increased to 68% in 2006, a considerable
improvement compared with the 43% in 1996.
3.24 In England the
Decent Homes Standard
is a minimum standard below which homes should not fall. It is a trigger
for action and not a level that remedial work should be completed to.
Indeed the majority of local authorities and registered social landlords
are carrying out work well in excess of the thermal comfort standard,
with 90% planning to install both cavity wall insulation and loft
insulation even where the standard only requires one. Between 2001 and
2007, over 910,000 local authority dwellings have received work to
improve their central heating, and over 750,000 local authority
dwellings have received work to improve their insulation under the
Decent Homes programme or as part of wider local authority work to
update the stock. In fact, progress is being made on
thermal comfort at a faster rate than the other components
of the Decent Homes Standard, and the number of social sector homes in
England failing on that criterion has more than halved since 1996 – from
nearly 2 million down to 700,000 in 2006.
3.25 The energy
efficiency of homes has been steadily improving over the last
decade – the average energy efficiency
(SAP) rating has improved by 7 points from 42 in 1996 to 49 in 2006.
We have improved the energy efficiency
(SAP) rating of social homes from 47 in 1996 to 57 in 2006. Therefore
social sector homes are substantially more energy efficient than private
homes. In addition the social sector has improved at a faster rate since
1996 than the private sector. The work that
social landlords in
particular have carried
out has contributed to reductions in fuel poverty.
3.26 In Scotland,
Scottish Ministers
established the
Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) in February 2004. It is
the principal yardstick for measuring housing quality in
Scotland. The SHQS
includes five
criteria which a house must fulfil before it passes SHQS. Among these criteria is
that the property must be energy efficient i.e. have effective
insulation (cavity wall, tank, pipe and loft) and a full, efficient
central heating system. The objective that all social housing in
Scotland should meet the SHQS by 2015 was also set in 2004. Progress on
SHQS has so far been steady with overall failure rates in the social
rented stock falling from 77% in 2002 to 60% in 2005-6. On the energy
efficiency criteria in particular, the failure rate for social rented
stock fell from 69% to 47% over the same period. Further investment in
local authority and housing association stock should bring with it
further progress in terms of meeting the SHQS.
3.27 In Wales the
Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) introduced in May 2002, provides a
common target standard for the physical condition of all existing social
housing within Wales to be achieved by 2012.
3.28 The Standard
requires the annual energy
consumption for space and water heating to be estimated using SAP2005
and specifies the minimum ratings to be achieved. SAP2005 means that
WHQS will now contain a single target
standard of 65 out of a possible 100 for a perfectly
energy efficient dwelling.
3.29 In 2004 the
Living in Wales Survey
assessed 15% local
authority stock and 57% of housing association stock complied with the energy efficiency
standards of WHQS. An update of the Living in Wales Survey is due to be
published in 2009.
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