Warmer Homes Scotland: annual review 2017 to 2018

Footnotes

1. http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/objectives

2. The Scottish Government consulted on a new fuel poverty strategy, which includes a proposed new definition of fuel poverty. Responses to the consultation were analysed to help inform future policy development, and the associated Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill, introduced to Parliament on 26 June 2018. Among the proposed changes, it introduces a new income threshold as part of the definition, this would remove higher income households from the fuel poverty definition, even if they would need to spend 10% or more of household income (after housing costs) on required fuel costs and means that fuel poverty will be more closely aligned with income poverty. This is also likely to result in changes in the characteristics of households which are fuel poor. Statistics presented in this report are on the basis of the current definition and this will continue until the legislation comes into force and the new definition becomes the official measure. Following the Stage 1 Debate held on 20 February 2019, Parliament agreed that that the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill should proceed to Stage 2.

3. The 2017 SHCS income poverty threshold and rate will not match the official estimates published in Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland: 2014-2017. For more details, please refer to the SHCS 2017 Key Findings Report.