Home Energy Efficiency Programmes Scotland: annual review 2016-2017

Part 1: Introduction and Background

Warmer Homes Scotland is the Scottish Government’s flagship national fuel poverty scheme. As a key part of the Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland ( HEEPS) toolkit, it is at the forefront of the Scottish Government’s efforts to tackle fuel poverty by providing home energy efficiency measures to households who are living in, or at risk of living in, fuel poverty. The scheme achieves this by providing measures, including insulation, heating and micro-generation, to those households who are most in need of help to heat their homes.

The First Minister launched Warmer Homes Scotland in September 2015; 2016/17 was its first full year of operation. The Scottish Government appointed Warmworks Scotland LLP to manage the contract on its behalf following an open procurement exercise. Warmworks is a joint venture partnership between the Energy Saving Trust, Changeworks and Everwarm, which was formed in 2015 to deliver the scheme. Warmworks is responsible for all aspects of the customer journey from the initial survey through to the after-care service.

In the financial year from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017, Warmer Homes Scotland helped 5,326 customers, who benefited from the installation of 14,999 separate measures, giving them an average saving of £357 off their annual fuel bills.

Objectives and guiding principles for Warmer Homes Scotland were created as part of the design process for the scheme. These objectives and principles formed the basis of the design and implementation of the scheme and are an important part of how the success of the scheme is evaluated.

The stated objectives of Warmer Homes Scotland are to:

I. reduce fuel poverty by reducing heating costs to vulnerable households;

II. contribute to a reduction in the emissions of carbon dioxide from Scottish homes;

III. improve Scotland’s housing stock;

IV. offer good value for money by leveraging additional funding into the scheme; and

V. provide benefits to the wider community through vocational training and employment opportunities.

The basic guiding principles of the scheme are that:

I. it should be customer focussed and provide a first class service to customers regardless of where they live;

II. it should set high standards in terms of quality and health and safety, even going beyond industry norms;

III. it should encourage the involvement of local SMEs as far as possible; and

IV. its impacts should be long term and sustainable.

Warmer Homes Scotland is also designed to contribute to the Scottish Government’s five National Objectives and the overarching purpose of sustainable economic growth. (See Figure 1)

The Scottish Government has committed to reviewing Warmer Home Scotland throughout its lifetime to ensure it continues to meet its objectives and delivers its service in accordance with the guiding principles while meeting the stated objectives. The reviews will also be used as a tool in the continuous improvement process that plays an important part in the operational delivery of the scheme.

Figure 1: Overarching national objectives ^[1]

Scope

As set out in the Terms of Reference for this review, approved by the Strategic Board on 5 ^th September 2016, the scope of this review is linked to the overarching objectives of Warmer Homes Scotland.

The objectives of this review are twofold; firstly the review should determine if the scheme is on track to meet its stated objectives and, if there are areas where progress is not being made or where the work being carried out is not aligned to the overarching objectives of the scheme, to make recommendations to ensure the stated objectives are on track to be met. Secondly, the review should consider the progress of implementing the recommendations made in the 2015/16 review and, where progress has not been made or is limited, make further recommendations to ensure that the required improvements are made.

A copy of the Terms of Reference can be found at Appendix 1.

Methodology

The review team gathered data and evidence from various sources including Warmworks, Home Energy Scotland, and the results of the audits carried out by Pennington Choices, the Scottish Government’s appointed auditors for Warmer Homes Scotland, and the review teams own investigations. This data was both quantitative and qualitative in nature. To ensure consistency of approach, the data was analysed by the review team following the same methods as used in the 2015/16 Annual Review.

As Warmer Homes Scotland did not operate for the full 2015/16 year, it was decided that conclusions that are more meaningful could be drawn from the data if comparisons were made in percentage terms rather than on a purely numerical basis.

Data Sources

Figure 2: Qualitative data sources