Supporting vulnerable Scottish households to maintain a safe and warm home
Our project at a glance
- Strategic priority area: Targeting geographic communities most at risk of fuel poverty
- Support target: 6,468 households over two years
- Duration: April 2024 to March 2026
- Investment: £1,659.907 over two years
- Forecast SROI: £1.70
[The energy adviser] helped us to apply for things we were entitled to – unbelievable. Getting new boiler and radiators, smoke alarms. Getting benefits we never knew about and debt written off. We can never thank her enough for her assistance.
Citizens Advice bureau client
Why we’re working together
According to Energy Action Scotland, one in three Scottish households is now in fuel poverty. Even before the cost-of-living crisis, many families were finding their energy bills unaffordable.
Citizens Advice Scotland is the largest independent advice service in Scotland and the go-to agency for households in crisis.
We’ve partnered with Citizens Advice Scotland on a number of projects across Scotland, culminating with our expanded Safe and Warm Advice Service that runs until March 2026.
How we’re working together
Safe and Warm Advice Service
Building on the learning of our pilot project with Citizens Advice bureaux in the north of Scotland, we developed a new programme to expand the service into regional communities identified as being in greatest need through our Vulnerability Index and where there is no existing dedicated energy advice service.
This enables us to help people in energy crisis and facing fuel poverty across Scotland to access the support they need to maintain a safe and warm home, particularly those in the most deprived parts of our network.
The specialist energy advisers support households with bespoke energy advice including help with billing and energy debt, backbilling issues, benefit entitlement checks and support to access the PSR. When an adviser encounters a household in crisis, we’re able to provide emergency funds and food vouchers to alleviate their immediate financial pressures.
We’ve engaged our training partner Gas Safe Charity to equip Citizens Advice Bureau advisers with skills and knowledge to educate households and frontline workers on carbon monoxide safety.
In April 2024, we expanded this programme to adopt our successful Home & Well model from our partnership with Citizens Advice in our Southern region. By partnering with regional NHS health boards, we’re extending the reach of Safe and Warm Advice Service to support patients leaving hospital to return to a safe and warm home.
Through this additional advice provision at seven hospitals in Glasgow, Dundee, Lothian and Lanarkshire we aim to prevent patients from entering fuel poverty as a result of extended hospital stays. Our project will also alleviate pressures on NHS primary and hospital services by reducing the length of hospital stays and hospital readmissions.
Our previous programmes
North Scotland Energy Advisory Services pilot
As we emerged from the pandemic, more and more households were approaching Citizens Advice bureaux for help managing their living costs. In the north of Scotland in particular, Citizens Advice bureaux were finding it challenging to meet the increased demand.
In collaboration with Scottish and Southern Energy Networks (SSEN), we partnered with Citizens Advice Scotland on a 12-month trial to embed trained energy advisers in Citizens Advice bureaux in north Scotland.
Specialist energy advisers based in Citizens Advice’s bureaux helped households address energy affordability by providing tailored support around energy usage, fuel debt, benefit checks and income maximisation. Where the household was eligible for the Priority Services Register, advisers encouraged the client to register and helped them to do so if needed.
Citizens Advice’s holistic approach allowed advisers to combine specialist fuel poverty advice with guidance and information on other issues that affect their clients’ health and wellbeing.
Our 12-month programme well exceeded our target of supporting 820 clients by providing much-needed support to 1,137 vulnerable households across north Scotland.
Safe and Warm – additional winter funding
From February 2023, we provided an additional £352,200 in winter funding to train over 300 frontline workers on energy safeguarding and build further capacity for trained Citizens Advice Scotland energy advisers to provide much-needed support. Over the course of the project, advisers assisted 3,750 households in energy crisis through one-to-one support, as well as delivering advice to 529 frontline workers and 1,572 consumers in group sessions.
This funded a gap in the provision of energy services, several of which would finish at the end of March 2023. Through this project, we took Citizens Advice bureaux services directly into communities that needed our help the most by placing advisers in existing community facilities, such as libraries, community hubs and health centres.
SGN is clearly passionate about supporting those in need. Its commitment to supporting vulnerable customers has been invaluable, particularly at a time when we are experiencing a huge increase in the demand for energy advice. Energy advice is now our single biggest area of need and it’s the first time since welfare reform in the 2010s that social security hasn’t been the single biggest issue we are encountering.