If you’re having problems paying to keep warm enough as winter sets in – or you know someone who is – read on. The Scottish Government has extended its £60 million Energy Assistance Package to cover homes energy-rated at Band E in addition to those in Bands F & G.

What this means is that more people are eligible for assistance with reducing the costs of heating – obviously heaviest in the months we’re all facing just now.

The scheme is being managed on behalf of the Scottish Government by the Energy Saving Trust (EST). Until now, and operating only with homes energy-rated in Bands F & G. EST has referred 23,000 for energy assistance.

• What EST doesn‘t do is deal with you personally or make decisions about your eligibility.
• What EST does do is take responsibility for seeing you over the hurdles of a system which involves a lot of different agencies, fuel companies and installers. This means that, as the Liverpool football fans used to sing, ‘You’ll never walk alone’ – an unusual experience in these days of the thorny-hedged maze of bureaucracy.

EST also gets information back for all of those who deliver parts of the package to you – so there will be one agency which will have the full pcture of who the scheme is reaching and how successful it is.

The scheme has two main objectives:

• to help those most need to keep affordably warm in the winter months
• to make Scotland’s housing stock more energy efficient, costing less to run and lowering our national carbon footprint.

You have to be a pensioner and/or on benefits to qualify for the Energy Assistance package. However, there will be people in need of its help who are not on benefits – because they are not aware that there are benefits that they qualify to receive. These are the ‘qualifying’ benefits for the scheme:

• Pension credit
• Child Tax credit or working tax credit (where income is less than £15,592)
• Attendance allowance
• Disability living allowance
• Income support, income based jobseekers allowance
• Housing benefit
• Council tax benefit
• Disablement pension which includes a constant attendance allowance
• War disablement pension which includes a mobility supplement or a constant attendance allowance

People receiving any of these benefits would also be eligible for energy assistance.

So the system that the Energy Savings Trust has established includes the option of help in checking taxes and benefits to see if you qualify for help you’re not actually getting. If you do, you’ll then qualify for the Energy Assistance Package too.

The Energy Assistance Package in a nutshell

• You automatically get free advice on how your home could improve its energy efficiency and cost less to heat.
• If you’re receiving benefits, you’ll get free loft insulation and free cavity wall insulation – if your house needs these.
• If you’re not receiving benefits, you don’t qualify for the Energy Assistance Package.
• BUT – if you’re not receiving benefits, you get the option of a free benefits check to see if you should be receiving help – and if you should, you will then also qualify for the Energy Assistance Package.
• If you are on a low income and are living in what is described as an ‘energy inefficient’ home you may also qualify for an additional range of free resources to keep your house efficiently and affordably warm. These include draftproofing; a new central heating system; a new boiler; room thermostats; heating controls; and a ground source heat pump.

* An ‘energy inefficient’ home is one with no or little wall and loft insulation, no double glazing and no draftproofing.

This is how it all works.

Stage 1

This is handled by the Energy Advice Network, reporting to the Energy Savings Trust (EST).

Everybody interested in finding out if this scheme can help them, starts here. You ring a Free phone number: 0800 512012 and will be put through to an Energy Advice Centre in your area.

You’ll then have a discussion with your local Energy Adviser who will talk to you about the energy systems your home does or doesn’t have and also discover if you are a pensioner and if you you are receiving any benefits.

If you are receiving benefits and if your home needs loft insulation and/or cavity wall insulation, the Adviser will pass you on directly to Stage 3 where these things will be sorted out for you.

Stage 2

If you are not receiving benefits – in which case you will not be eligible for the Energy Assistance Package – you will be offered a free benefits check to see if there are benefits you should be receiving. If there are, then you will also qualify for energy assistance.

If you accept the free benefits check, the Energy Adviser will contact either the Pensions Service (for over 60s) or Citizens Advice Direct (for under 60s) and ask them to contact you direct to do this for you. They will ring you and may visit you at home if this is easier for you. They will be in touch with you within 15 working days.

If the benefits check finds that there are benefits you should be receiving, this will be arranged for you. Then, because benefits qualify you for the Energy Assistance Package, you will be referred to Stage 3 to see whether your home is suitable for free loft insulation and/or free cavity wall insulation.

Stage 3

This is delivered by Fuel Companies under the UK-wide subsidy for Carbon Emissions Reduction Targets (CERT).

People referred to the Fuel Companies in Stage 3 – by the Energy Adviser at the Energy Advice Centre, by the Pensions Service or by Citizens Advice Direct – will automatically receive free loft insulation and/or free cavity wall insulation, as appropriate to their homes.

Over 75s and over 70s with no central heating automatically receive this assistance.

Stage 4

People who fall within the categories listed below will be referred to this stage (4) by the Energy Advice Centre, the Pensions Service or Citizens Advice Direct.

Delivered by Scottish Gas under direct contract to the Scottish Government, this stage sees eligible people receive – free and in addition to the free loft insulation and free cavity wall insulation available frim the Fuel Companies in Stage 3 – and as appropriate:

• draftproofing;
• insulation for hot and cold water tanks;
• a new central heating system;
• a new boiler;
• room thermostats;
• heating controls;
• an air  source heat pump.

People eligible for this level of assistance will all be living on low incomes and in ‘energy inefficient’ homes. In addition to these two criteria, they will be:

• Pensioners
• Families with a child under 5
• Families with a disabled child under 16
• Pregnant women

Timescales

The Energy Saving Trust says that it is possible for people struggling to pay fuel bills and living in energy inefficient homes to get help in time for the coming winter.

We feel that, while there may be a few cases where this happens, it is over-optimistic to see the majority of those eligible getting this package in time to make a difference in warmth and fuel costs this time around.

Given the time of the year we have already reached, the time in which applicants will realistically be processed at the various stages and the variety of agencies and businesses who deliver elements of the package, it is unlikely that many eligible applicants will see affordable warmth this winter.

These factors, playing through the sequence of people finding out about the scheme and getting around to making that first phone call suggest that the realistic picture is for people to make the first contact as soon as possible – and to work on the assumption that it may be next winter before they feel the benefit of the package.

Many elderly people may need help to deal with the system

Many of those most in need of energy efficient housing and most in need of bringing down their fuel bills are the elderly.

Many elderly people may be confused and intimidated by the complexities of this scheme – yet, if they are eligible, they need to be able to benefit from it.

One problem  – which we have tried to address in the explanatory nature of this article – is that the promotion of the scheme does not make it clear that the the process is not unitary but a series of referrals to a wide range of agencies, more than one funding system and different contractors and subcontractors.

When vulnerable peopple get drawn into such a system, they are likely to be disorientated by it.

We suggest that if you have an elderly relative or friend – or if you are a professional carer for an elderly person who should be eligible – that you consider helping them through the chain of phone calls and act as their helper at interviews etc.

The human cost

This scheme is worthwhile and well meaning but is underinformed in insights and experience of some of those most in need.

The needy elderly are the most vulnerable in the situation this scheme is designed to alleviate. In general, they are the least able to navigate their way through it and the least able – if they make it through and are successful – to cope with the upheaval of the installations to their lives – in what is already the foothills of winter.

What they want – what they need – is simply to be able to pay to be warm and to be free of additional stress.

Can this package realistically deliver that?

The system is set up to put the EST in the position of ‘managing the journey’ of applicants through it. Staff in the partner organisations at each stage will pass people on to the next stage. This means that the system is joined up but the needy person travelling through it has no mentor or guide, no single point of personal reference.

This is why we suggest that relatives, friends and carers might consider acting in that capacity for those they know are in need of this assistance.

It may be that, in cases like these, the two aims of the scheme are incompatible. Homes may be rendered more energy efficient but the neediest and most vulnerable may find that the experience of this system leaves them more sharply aware of their vulnerability.

Website

The Energy Assistamce Package web pages are very helpful and very clear. The ease of access to clear information is well judged and approachable.

It doesn’t say that you will constantly be referred to new agencies and new people as you work your way through the stages so, in practice, this would come as a shock.

Provided you understand that this is the case, that you will not have to make any of these new contacts for yourself, that there are bound to be delays at each point where you are referred to another agency and, in some case, have a friend who will make the journey through this with you, this is assistance that will make your life better and lessen the stress of not being able to afford to keep warm.

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