Action Hampshire
Empowering voluntary community and social enterprise organisations across Hampshire and Dorset to help vulnerable households stay safe and warm
Our project at a glance
- Strategic priority area: Targeting geographic communities most at risk of fuel poverty
- Support target: 3,500 households over two years
- Duration: April 2024 to March 2026
- Investment: £298,864 over two years
- Forecast SROI: £4.59
Thank you so much for joining us yesterday. The group really enjoyed the energy session and took away some useful tips that they were not aware of.
VCSE Group Leader
Why we’re working together
In October 2023, National Energy Action reported that 6.5 million UK households were in fuel poverty, based on the definition of low-income households spending more than 10% of their income on their energy bills.
Fuel poverty is driven by energy efficiency, energy costs and household income. It is recognised that nearly half of low-income households are still living in hard to heat homes, and the rate of improvements is well below what is needed to lift people out of fuel poverty by a target date of 2030.
The National Energy Action data shows some constituencies within Hampshire and Dorset have a higher-than-average amount of households living in fuel poverty compared to the average for the South East and South West areas respectively. Some areas are also higher than the national average for households living in fuel poverty.
Action Hampshire has been supporting voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to deliver great services to local people and communities for more than 70 years. We’re proudly partnering with the charity to support voluntary community and social enterprise (VCSE) groups within Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Bournemouth East and Southern Dorset to help alleviate fuel poverty and increase energy safety awareness.
Through our partnership, Action Hampshire will provide a range of support and training to VCSE groups to help diverse communities across the region who may be experiencing barriers to accessing energy safeguarding services. By engaging and upskilling VCSE organisations across the region, we’ll help at least 3,500 vulnerable households use energy safely, affordably and efficiently.
Project objectives
- Facilitating access to energy awareness training for three Action Hampshire staff
- Providing 3,500 households with energy efficiency and safeguarding advice
- Supporting regional VCSE organisations to offer energy advice to vulnerable households
- Promoting the Priority Services Register and helping 1,000 households to sign up for the free service
- Educating 1,400 households on carbon monoxide (CO) safety and providing free CO alarms where required
How we’re working together
Upskilling the Action Hampshire team
We’re providing Action Hampshire colleagues with access to National Energy Action (NEA) level 3 energy awareness training, as well as upskilling support team members, so the Action Hampshire team can deliver energy advice directly to vulnerable households as well as support VCSE organisations to provide energy advice to their communities.
Supporting VCSE organisations to provide one-to-one energy advice
We’ll increase the knowledge and confidence of voluntary community and social enterprise organisations to support their communities with energy and fuel poverty advice, energy debt support and carbon monoxide awareness.
Our partnership will offer ongoing support to 70 regional VCSE organisations, with a network of 200 volunteers, enabling the organisations to hold energy conversations with vulnerable households and issue resources including information packs and energy toolkits. We’ll also provide an additional 84 VCSE organisations with resource packs and access to online support.
Through the partnership, we’ll support 3,500 households with energy efficiency and energy safeguarding advice to help vulnerable households maintain a safe and warm home, both in person and over the phone. The teams will also signpost households to expert organisations for specialist support if needed, for example, referring households to our partner National Energy Foundation for energy scheme assessments.
How to get involved
Accessing the Safe and Warm Communities service
As one of our VCMA network partners, you can refer your clients to Action Hampshire by getting in touch with the team by email at info@actionhampshire.org.
If you live in Hampshire or Dorset and need support to stay safe and warm at home, you can find more information about organisations that can help you on the Action Hampshire website.
Becoming a partner
You can find out more about working with Action Hampshire by contacting the charity through the Action Hampshire website.
Action Hampshire supports communities to take action on the issues that matter to them by working with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations from those communities. We're delighted to be partnering with SGN to apply this model to help communities stay safe and warm at home. We'll recruit voluntary organisations, providing training, resources and funding for them on energy awareness to enable them to share this learning in the way they know best with their communities. This will help under-served communities who otherwise wouldn't have access to vital support, to help them stay safe and warm.