Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Tackling fuel poverty
I issued a press release yesterday pointing out that the French-owned energy giant EDF Energy has raised prices to its UK customers by 22% so far this year, whilst in France the intervention of the French Government has forced them to keep the rise to a mere 5%. This disparity of treatment raises the question as to what exactly the Government is doing to deal with fuel poverty.
As a result of that press release one of my regular contributors reminded me of this blog post from Victoria Winckler of the Bevan Foundation. In it she points out that almost a third of households in Wales need to spend more than 10 per cent of their incomes on keeping their homes warm:
Many of them don't, so live in cold, damp houses while others cut back on other essentials to pay their bills. The problem has got much worse in the last two years because of rocketing fuel prices. Yet, according to the New Policy Institute, government policy, including that of the Assembly Government, is not targetted effectively on those in greatest need. They show that the people at greatest risk of fuel poverty are single adults, precisely those people who are excluded from help available at the moment. They also show that only a small proportion of people who are fuel poor live in deprived areas, while rural areas have much more severe problems, suggesting action should be more effectively targetted. And they also demonstrate that, because of fuel price rises, a third of people who are fuel poor are NOT income poor.
Her argument is well made and is supported by the Welsh Assembly Government's review of its own Home Energy Efficiency Scheme, the main vehicle by which they try to tackle fuel poverty. The increase in the number of people in fuel poverty is a real issue, from 130,000 households in 2004 to 240,000 households in 2007.
The review of HEES concluded that only 29 per cent of those who were helped were actually fuel poor before the intervention of the scheme. Of those, only half of them were removed from fuel poverty after the home energy efficiency scheme intervened. The current criteria adopted for the fuel poor misses those who are not on benefit, and there is a case to look at those criteria in order to encompass more of those who are fuel poor, and extend the help that is available through that scheme.
The other issue of course is the availability of information so as to be able to target resources at the problem. Commendably the Welsh Assembly Government did commission some work to identify fuel poverty at a local government ward level. These statistics had been due to be published in summer 2007 but when I enquired as to their availability I was told that the Government was now aiming for June 2008.
Further enquiries with the Centre for Sustainable Energy, who have been commissioned to conduct the research, then indicated that they were hoping the draft report will be completed by the end of August 2008, more than a year late. It is now September and there is still no sign of this research. The latest anticipated publication date is the end of the month. We will see.
In many ways the achievement of targets to reduce fuel poverty is out of the Welsh Assembly Government's hands. They can do some things with the limited resources they have to reduce the problem but all the tools are in the hands of the Labour Government in Westminster. What the One Wales Government can do is better target resources to maximise their impact. It would also be nice if WAG Ministers raised their voice a little bit more to point out how their UK counterparts can raise their game as well.
As a result of that press release one of my regular contributors reminded me of this blog post from Victoria Winckler of the Bevan Foundation. In it she points out that almost a third of households in Wales need to spend more than 10 per cent of their incomes on keeping their homes warm:
Many of them don't, so live in cold, damp houses while others cut back on other essentials to pay their bills. The problem has got much worse in the last two years because of rocketing fuel prices. Yet, according to the New Policy Institute, government policy, including that of the Assembly Government, is not targetted effectively on those in greatest need. They show that the people at greatest risk of fuel poverty are single adults, precisely those people who are excluded from help available at the moment. They also show that only a small proportion of people who are fuel poor live in deprived areas, while rural areas have much more severe problems, suggesting action should be more effectively targetted. And they also demonstrate that, because of fuel price rises, a third of people who are fuel poor are NOT income poor.
Her argument is well made and is supported by the Welsh Assembly Government's review of its own Home Energy Efficiency Scheme, the main vehicle by which they try to tackle fuel poverty. The increase in the number of people in fuel poverty is a real issue, from 130,000 households in 2004 to 240,000 households in 2007.
The review of HEES concluded that only 29 per cent of those who were helped were actually fuel poor before the intervention of the scheme. Of those, only half of them were removed from fuel poverty after the home energy efficiency scheme intervened. The current criteria adopted for the fuel poor misses those who are not on benefit, and there is a case to look at those criteria in order to encompass more of those who are fuel poor, and extend the help that is available through that scheme.
The other issue of course is the availability of information so as to be able to target resources at the problem. Commendably the Welsh Assembly Government did commission some work to identify fuel poverty at a local government ward level. These statistics had been due to be published in summer 2007 but when I enquired as to their availability I was told that the Government was now aiming for June 2008.
Further enquiries with the Centre for Sustainable Energy, who have been commissioned to conduct the research, then indicated that they were hoping the draft report will be completed by the end of August 2008, more than a year late. It is now September and there is still no sign of this research. The latest anticipated publication date is the end of the month. We will see.
In many ways the achievement of targets to reduce fuel poverty is out of the Welsh Assembly Government's hands. They can do some things with the limited resources they have to reduce the problem but all the tools are in the hands of the Labour Government in Westminster. What the One Wales Government can do is better target resources to maximise their impact. It would also be nice if WAG Ministers raised their voice a little bit more to point out how their UK counterparts can raise their game as well.
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Quite agree with you Cllr Powell; stop showing your fellow Assembly Members up with your joined up thinking, this will not be tolerated, go to the naughty step now!
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