Supporting tenants affected by fuel poverty

That is just as well, because the bad news is that the scale of need is rapidly increasing. Some 51% of respondents said the number of tenants living in fuel poverty has grown in the past 12 months, with 65% expecting the figure to grow further in the next 12 months. Half said the number of tenants seeking help has increased in the past 12 months and three-quarters expect that to increase further in the next 12 months.

That alone would be enough to dent any initial optimism that fuel poverty is being consistently and successfully addressed. But dig further into the figures and there is further cause for concern. The specific issue: in many instances, social landlords are unclear on the precise scale or nature of the need.

Identifying residents

It is notable that a majority of respondents (72%) asserted that their organisation sought to proactively identify tenants living in fuel poverty (which, in this instance, we simply defined as a household that has to spend a significant proportion of its income to keep a comfortable temperature in the home). Yet 43% of our 102 respondents said they did not know what percentage of their tenants are in fuel poverty.

This perhaps becomes less surprising when taken alongside the results on whether social landlords are proactively tracking the overall number of tenants living in fuel poverty. Only a third said their organisation did this. Another third said their organisation did not, and the final third did not know.

“The gap between identifying and tracking fuel poverty is concerning,” says Sam Collier, head of market intelligence at technology solutions provider Aico HomeLINK, which has supported the Give Fuel Poverty a Voice campaign since its inception. “While many organisations aim to identify residents in fuel poverty, it’s still notable that nearly three in 10 do not. Even fewer actively track this population, which points to a potential shortfall in long-term, sustainable interventions.”

Data-driven approaches

Survey respondents are clear-eyed about these limitations. When we asked how respondents would rate their organisation’s work to identify and track those living in fuel poverty, 42% characterised it as not very good (“we sometimes managed to identify and track those experiencing fuel poverty, but we do not have a cohesive and productive approach”). And almost one in 10 respondents reported that their organisation’s approach was poor, saying it could not reliably identify or track those affected by the issue.

Give Fuel Poverty a Voice also seeks to support the sector in addressing fuel poverty. So how might those struggling to heat their homes be more easily identified?

The survey suggests that social landlords are already employing a number of methods in the hope of doing so. These include technological, data-driven approaches, such as using information from smart meters (named by 9% of respondents) and from in-home temperature and humidity smart monitors (being employed by 19% of those surveyed).

“By consolidating data from various sources – such as energy consumption from smart meters, internal conditions from environmental sensors, rent arrears or home visits – landlords could not only identify vulnerable tenants, but also track their ongoing needs, ensuring more responsive and directed support,” Mr Collier says.

But he notes that half of respondents said their organisation does not use a dashboard to bring together indicators of fuel poverty.

“This highlights a need for better data co-ordination, using integration options to pull together information from various platforms,” he suggests. “Improving how data is gathered, shared and analysed across different teams could unlock more efficient ways to support tenants, significantly improving fuel poverty outcomes across the sector.”

Advocates argue that better use of data can support a more proactive approach to identifying those at risk of, or living in, fuel poverty. The sense that this is currently lacking in the sector was reinforced by an online workshop held as part of this year’s Give Fuel Poverty a Voice campaign. The event, run last month, brought together around 35 people to consider how best to identify and support those in fuel poverty. They also discussed the barriers that will need to be overcome to do so.

 

Stigma and shame

Many attendees said they feel that social landlords are generally good at reactive assistance, meaning if a tenant seeks help with fuel poverty, most landlords are able to provide support. More challenging, the group said, is identifying those who need help but do not ask for it.

For Helen Rowe, author of the 2003 book Eliminating Poverty in Britain, it is not surprising that this emerged as a theme during the online workshop. “You shouldn’t underestimate the shame associated with poverty,” she says. “Lots of people don’t want others to know that they are having problems.”

She points out that those problems are also likely to be multifaceted. After all, someone finding it difficult to afford to heat their home is by definition unlikely to be living in financial comfort in the rest of their life.

“I struggle with this idea of breaking things down into fuel poverty, furniture poverty, food poverty,” says Ms Rowe, “because if you can’t pay your fuel bills then clearly you’re not going to be buying fresh fruit and veg.”

What that means, she says, is that proactively identifying those in fuel poverty involves considering a broad range of indicators. “I think there is a need to collate information and cross-check it, so [identifying as being at risk of fuel poverty] those such as food bank users, refugees, children on free school meals, people who are only on the state pension, people who are in furniture poverty, so that you have a much more holistic way of looking at it.”

“If somebody comes to you and they are eligible to use a food bank, they should be first in line [for support on fuel poverty],” said online workshop participant Joseph Jones, a social housing resident himself, as well as a tenant support worker at London Tenants Federation.

He stressed that blunt indicators like this cannot be the sole means of social landlords determining who needs support, however. “It may be that there is a community organisation that have people coming in who they know have issues around fuel poverty. It may be that you go to somewhere like Citizens Advice and tap into the information they have [about those needing support].

“There needs to be an outreach process of identifying people who don’t hit the broad criteria of going to a food bank or being on Universal Credit. I think more work could be done through an agency like Age Concern, for example, to help identify people who are struggling but haven’t yet sunk below the poverty line, but are so close that the next tranche of bill increases will put them into fuel poverty.

“It’s using the community networks that are out there – it might be that you’ve got an active tenants’ and residents’ association that knows who within their locality needs help.”

There is evidence that some social landlords are taking this partnership-style approach. During the workshop, there was talk of collaboration with Citizens Advice. Indeed, 36% of survey respondents said that information from partner organisations, such as Citizens Advice but also the NHS and social care, is a key way of identifying those in fuel poverty. And just over half (53%) spoke of cross-referencing other data that might suggest someone is struggling financially – such as rent arrears, or a request to issue a food bank voucher.

 

Barriers to contact

However, one tenant representative at the online workshop argued that the value of this sort of data is limited, unless some much more basic information is on hand: namely tenant contact details.

She explained that, for tenancies at her housing association, it is entirely optional for residents to provide an email address or a mobile number. Some will not supply these details because they literally do not have them – a lack of mobile or email address is an immediate indication, she suggested, that they are digitally excluded and require support. Others hold back because they are concerned about the landlord having that information. Either way, it means that contact to offer proactive support becomes much more difficult.

There may be other concerns in social landlords being more active in identifying people: a limit to the amount of support that can be provided. With stretched and finite resources, some landlords might be reluctant to advertise support for those struggling with fuel bills – for fear that any financial assistance they can offer will quickly be exhausted.

Mr Jones suggested that this caution is leading to an insufficient understanding of how many are struggling to heat their homes. “If those that have funding did advertise it, and the funding was used in however short a time, it would demonstrate to government and others that the funding isn’t sufficient.

“There’s been a guesstimate by government about how much money is required,” he said. “They’ve licked their finger, put it in the air and said, ‘We will provide this amount and we will expect this amount to last for this period of time.’ What we’ve got to show is that things are far worse than they think, and that people need a lot more support than they are providing.”

There may also need to be conversations about the type of support being offered. Survey respondents spoke of energy vouchers, advice on tariffs, benefits and debt advice, referrals, and access to hardship funds. While all are important, none help with another issue that is often a contributor to fuel poverty: a lack of carpeting and curtains.

During her time working in the social housing sector, Ms Rowe remembers houses being handed over to tenants “with nothing in – no carpet, no curtains, no furniture. It was literally boards on the floor. So you might get homed, and you might be able to pay the rent, but if you can’t afford to carpet the place, then it is going to get cold [leading to higher energy bills]”.

It is further evidence of the need to look at fuel poverty in the round – as an issue that is unlikely to exist in isolation, and one that has multiple contributing factors. Doing that will involve partnership, and sharing of knowledge and data.