SGN has today published its latest Vulnerability and Carbon Monoxide Allowance (VCMA) annual report, highlighting five years of powerful community action. Through our partnership with 140 organisations, we’ve been able to assist 1,372,894 vulnerable households – almost six times our original target.
In 2021, we set out to help 250,000 households by March 2026, using the VCMA from our regulator Ofgem to help us achieve that ambition. With additional funding in 2023, we revised our strategy and doubled our ambition, determined to help 500,000 households by 2026.
Over the GD2 price control period, in the last five years, we’ve:
- Provided 3.24m unique energy support services, such as connecting households to partner-delivered energy efficiency advice and debt support, and raising awareness of carbon monoxide (CO) safety.
- Added £210.45m in social value.
- Delivered nearly 480,000 debt and benefits advice sessions and over 385,000 one-to-one energy advice sessions.
- Signed up 227,228 households to the Priority Services Register (PSR).
- Been visited by more than 150,000 people at warm spaces in our network.
Now, at the end of our five-year strategy, we’ve achieved more than we thought possible. This year alone, we’ve supported 605,944 vulnerable households to use energy safely, efficiently and affordably.
Maureen McIntosh, Director of Customer Service at SGN, said: “Society has changed dramatically over the past five years, and we’ve evolved as an organisation in response. We’ve come to understand our role as key workers in a new light and that’s changed us for good. More than one million households in our network areas now use energy more safely, more efficiently and more affordably than five years ago. As we transition into our next five-year vulnerability strategy, our purpose remains resolute – we’re here to keep everyone safe and warm, now and into the future.”
Delivering our strategy
To deliver our strategy, we identified four priority areas to focus our support, shaped by expert insight, community-level data and our vulnerability mapping tools. By designing and delivering programmes around our four priorities, we’ve focused our support on the customers who need it most:
- Providing services beyond the meter: Direct ‘beyond the meter’ services for vulnerable households as we go about our day-to-day operational work.
- Supporting priority customer groups: Tailored support for priority customer groups most likely to need trusted help to maintain a safe and warm home.
- Tackling fuel poverty and energy affordability: Targeted support for customers struggling to afford energy in the most vulnerable geographical areas within our networks.
- Reducing carbon monoxide harm: A data-driven approach to increase awareness and reduce carbon monoxide harm among those groups most at risk.
Empowering our frontline engineers
We’re trusted to walk through the doors of around 300,000 homes each year as we respond to gas emergencies and upgrade our network – often meeting some of the nation’s most vulnerable households. Our unique role allows us to not only keep customers safe and warm, but also connect households with wider support to use energy safely, efficiently and affordably.
We’ve developed our direct support services, so our frontline teams can feel confident that they’re leaving vulnerable households better supported than when they arrived.
After our engineer leaves, our customers are in the safe hands of our Careline team. Our expert advisors create a personalised package of support for the household, drawing on our services and those offered by our Safe & Warm community partners. By introducing our Safe & Warm community team in 2023, we’ve expanded our Careline service into the community. The team works alongside our operational colleagues, providing tailored support in customers’ homes.
Our report outlines how engineer Ryan helped 80-year-old William* to receive a new boiler through our Care & Repair scheme, and how Colin* was referred to our Careline team and was signed up to the PSR, received a CO alarm and emergency food voucher, and was referred to Mental Health UK and IncomeMax for additional support. (*names changed for privacy)
Responding to change
In recent years, households have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis and the enduring cost-of-living crisis. By June 2025, Ofgem reported energy debt had risen to £4.43bn – a 143% increase since we began delivering our strategy in 2021.
With millions of households struggling to make ends meet each month, we developed new initiatives targeted at energy affordability. Alongside lifting households out of immediate energy crisis, we expanded our programmes to help households manage debt and maximise their income for the long term.
As we evolved, we very quickly realised the power of collaboration in supporting vulnerable households, and our Safe & Warm partnership network has become the cornerstone of our strategy. We’re proud to invest in organisations that are helping households when, where and how they need it – from national charities to grassroots community groups.
By bringing these expert partners together through our partnership network, we’re enabling them to draw on each other’s strengths, share insight and connect households with a wider range of services, with many of these services becoming business as usual as we move into the new GD3 price control (2026–2031).
Read the full report and about the impact we’re delivering here.
