fuel poverty - making up for missed opportunities
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Fuel poverty - making up for missed opportunities. Jonathan Stearn Director Sustainability and Disadvantage Consumer Focus. Consumer Focus: who we are. Consumer champion - persuade businesses and public services to put consumers at the heart of what they do - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Fuel poverty - making up for missed opportunities
Jonathan StearnDirector
Sustainability and DisadvantageConsumer Focus
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Consumer Focus: who we are
• Consumer champion - persuade businesses and public services to put consumers at the heart of what they do– England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland (post only)
• 2007 Consumers Estate Agents and Redress Act– energywatch, Postwatch and National Consumer
Council– merged in Consumer Focus (CF) in Sept 2008
• 2012: consumer landscape review– 2013: CF Regulated Industries Unit (RIU) Work plan - Consumer vulnerability and fuel poverty– 2014: RIU (working title) transferred to Citizens Advice
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Groups of vulnerable consumers?
Consumer Focus must have regard to theinterests of consumers that are one or more of the following — • (a)disabled or chronically sick
individuals; • (b)individuals of pensionable age; • (c)individuals with low incomes; • (d)individuals residing in rural areas.
Section 6 (4)
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Consumer vulnerability rather than vulnerable consumers
AS• Vulnerability can be long-term in effect or it can be
a dynamic state – like unemployment, or bereavement
IN REALITY• Society is not simply divided into `vulnerable
groups’ and the rest• Vulnerability can be caused by external factors
such as an organisations’ actions or the nature of certain markets
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Consumer vulnerability and the market – what’s the link?
Individual circumstances
The market Consumer vulnerability
Consumer Focus has defined consumers in vulnerable situations as: ‘People who cannot choose or access essential products and
services which are suitable for their needs, or cannot do so without disproportionate effort/cost/time.’ December 2012
Tackling consumer vulnerability – an action plan for empowerment
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Consumer vulnerability and fuel poverty –the market’s the link
Individual’s
circumstance
The Market
High energy prices
Low income
Poor energy efficiency
HomeEnergy
Efficiency
Fuel poverty
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Fuel poverty prices + energy efficiency = energy suppliers + regulator
The marketHigh energy prices
vsEnergy efficiency
programmes+
Social tariffs/Warm Home Discount
=Energy suppliers
Fuel poverty
Solutions = energy suppliers/the market has major influence
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Fuel poverty – is the market alone able to provide the solution in England?
CollectEnergy bills
The Market(Energy suppliers
)
DeliverEnergy
EfficiencyWarm Home
Discount
Fuel poverty
?
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Fuel poverty: who is responsible?
• The UK government bears primary responsibility to end fuel poverty
• And energy suppliers? They have rapidly acquired responsibility to collect the money from consumers and deliver the policies to tackle fuel poverty
• But neither are really doing that well. With 6 million UK households in fuel poverty. The UK government is set to fail to meet the target of ending fuel poverty by 2016
• At last count energy companies had, on average, only delivered 46 per cent of the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) for the super priority group.
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Fuel poverty: local authorities England
• Local authorities can take a key role in all three drivers of fuel poverty – – energy prices - collective switching, oil clubs– Income – living wages and benefit take up – energy efficiency
• Research for Consumer Focus by Joanne Wade found 46 % of responding authorities gave fuel poverty a high priority. But only 20 had targets.
• We found only 24 authorities in England took the lead in energy company programmes (CERT and Community Energy Saving Programme).
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Fuel poverty: public health – driving action?
• Despite what Wikipedia says public health is not just about hand washing, breast feeding and the distribution of condoms. It means recognising the link between cold homes and poor health
• Investing in warm and energy efficient homes could provide cost benefits to the NHS. The Chief Medical Officer estimated that the NHS spends £859m each year treating cold related illnesses due to poorly insulated homes
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Fuel poverty: glass half full
• The government turned to local authorities to help with Warm Front in 2012/13. £50 million had been left in the Treasury coffers in 2012
• Despite the cuts in the energy efficiency programme the Energy Company Obligation in 2013 will have £350m available plus £190m in the Energy Carbon Savings Community Obligation (CSCo) – it needs local authorities to be involved.
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Fuel poverty: civil society
• The voluntary and community sector and the rest of civil society can play a key role.
• Consumer Focus, Age Uk, Citizens Advice and NCB ran two campaigns that doubled Warm Front applications.
• An example:– A grant from Scottish Power Energy People Trust,
allowed Amaze to extend its work to include energy audits. It focused on helping parent/carers of children with special needs to identify how to make their homes more affordable to run and to help pull families out of fuel poverty.
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Fuel poverty: Wales
• There are initiatives [Nest, Arbed etc ] that highlight a Welsh approach that includes the involvement of the Welsh Government, local authorities, civil society with the energy suppliers + a recognition of the health impact of cold /damp homes
• But we still need to get more funding to initiate a step change in the way we tackle fuel poverty.
• Where could extra funds come from?
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Delivering energy efficiency:Public spend
• Scotland: integrate ECO & public funding
• Wales & NI: also committed to public funding
• But sadly still not enough funding in the UK to tackle the scale of fuel poverty
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Where could extra funds come from?- Energy Bill Revolution
Recycle carbon tax:− Over next 15 years UK
government will raise an average of £4 billion every year from Carbon Taxes
− energy efficiency programme focused on fuel poor
− ‘fuel poverty proof’ homes: ‘home built today’ standard
− almost all of fuel poor removed from fuel poverty
www.energybillrevolution.org
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Energy bill revolution supporters