How can social landlords use data to tackle fuel poverty?

Our roundtable is taking place a stone’s throw from parliament where, just the day before, MPs debated renewable energy and the provisions of the bill designed to create Great British Energy. Meanwhile, fuel poverty grows, but we still know too little about who is affected. 

Liz Bisset is a member of the Committee on Fuel Poverty, an advisory group to the government. She says “there are global figures on who is fuel poor”, but “knowledge about which households are affected is much less good… If you are going to have support programmes and want to target fuel-poor households, [there is a question of] how do you know who they are?”

Better quality data could help solve the problem, but where could it come from? Energy companies are cited as an important possible source of information – with many being actively pursued by housing leaders. 

Andrew Cooper, head of partnerships at Sovereign Network Group, says his housing association has joined a collaboration network that includes several utility providers. “It’s really been helpful for us to have been able to have those discussions and work with the energy companies.” He believes the companies “are really trying to understand customer vulnerability”. 

“But I think one of the challenges is how they share that data, and how they can identify who’s a social housing tenant and who is their landlord and then share data with the landlord.”

The sensitivity of the data gathered about private households is one of the stumbling blocks – as is the lack of agreement on when is the right time to offer help, according to Ms Bisset. “But there are some [issues] that need to be overcome. One is the definition of ‘vulnerability’, because there’s no universal definition. The other is that research has highlighted concern among customers about what will happen to their data and [whether] it will be sufficiently confidential.”

Colette Flattery began her role as Home Group’s director of customer experience six months ago, returning to the social housing sector after a spell working for one of the country’s largest energy companies. She agrees data sharing can be difficult, but says there may be ways to make it easier. “I’m wondering if there could be an opt-in of: would you be willing for us to talk to organisations that might help you [with fuel poverty]? And would there also be an opening to add an additional question: what kind of property you’re in – is it private rented, is it social housing, are you a homeowner? – and then doing some signposting if the customers consent?”

As chief executive of Groundwork UK, a charitable organisation that seeks to support communities to become greener and healthier, Graham Duxbury says he and colleagues encounter the practical implications of varying definitions of vulnerability. “One of the things that always strikes me, as a third-sector provider of services in this space, is that there are a wide range of programmes and money that can come down from energy companies to support engagement [with residents] – whether it’s ECO [the Energy Company Obligation, insulation work funded by energy companies], Warm Home Discount [a one-off £150 reduction on electricity bills], or redress payments. But it’s all really piecemeal and all of the eligibility criteria are different. So, effectively, you’re being paid as a charity to go and knock on doors and find people that fit this eligibility in order to do a [specific] piece of work.”

His appeal for a more joined-up approach is one that resonates with all those at the table. As Sovereign’s Mr Cooper puts it: “If someone’s struggling to pay their rent, then it’s likely that they’re not paying their electrical bills, their gas bills… I think there’s something about how we use our own data about our customers and their vulnerabilities, and then tying that together with the asset types we’ve got: the properties.”

Poorly rated

In England, households are considered fuel poor if the property has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating below Band C, alongside an income that is below the poverty line. But there are concerns about this metric.

“The inconvenient truth is that there is no correlation between an EPC score and the lived experience of a tenant,” argues Tom Robins, chief executive of Switchee. “And that’s pretty painful, because the EPC unlocks so much access to funding and other support.”

Mr Duxbury says there cannot helpfully be one proxy measure for fuel poverty. “People live complicated lives, and everybody’s got different circumstances.”

But the EPC – while imperfect – remains one of the few useful pieces of data the sector has. Stephanie Noyce, head of money and digital at Clarion Futures, says that so many people are worried about fuel bills that “if we pick up the phone and go through residents alphabetically, we’re going to get a one in two hit rate of somebody who’s in fuel poverty”.

“But combining that with EPC, for all its inaccuracies, helps us hone that to a slightly smaller group. Then we can put vulnerability data over the top and it refines it even more. It’s not perfect, but it’s more accurate than just going alphabetically down the list of every tenant.”

She hopes that, in the longer term, smart devices and the Internet of Things will enable landlords to refine such approaches further still. But the challenge is that action is needed in the short term. “We need to keep [the need for immediate support] at the forefront, while doing those [longer-term] things as well,” she says.

A further complication is that some of those longer-term solutions are likely to be disruptive. The likes of replacing outdated boiler systems, adding insulation to a home and changing the windows can improve energy efficiency – and reduce carbon emissions – but aren’t necessarily attractive to residents.

Jahedur Rahman, operational director for housing service and building safety at the London Borough of Haringey, speaks of “significant pushback” from residents on such work. “We were of the view that most tenants would welcome this work, but we’re finding tenants are pushing back purely based on the disruption. We were surprised that we initially had about 50 households saying no to decarbonisation work.”

It might be because the link between decarbonisation and lower fuel bills is not straightforward. Reliable data on achievable savings is tricky to come by. “We’ve struggled to quantify what that monetary saving will look like. So while we’ve said you’ll move from an EPC D building to an EPC B or an A, we’ve not been able to articulate what that saving will look like for that tenant.”