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Publication - Research and analysis

Social Security experience panels: cold spell and winter fuel payment – report

Published
12 October 2020
From
Director-General Education and Justice
Topic
Communities and third sector, Equality and rights, Money and tax
ISBN
9781800041646

Findings from research with Social Security experience panels members on the new cold spell heating assistance and winter heating assistance.

View supporting documents Supporting documents

Experience and understanding of existing Cold Weather Payments and Winter Fuel Payment

Experience of Winter Fuel Payments

The first part of the survey looked at respondents' experiences of accessing support to heat their home. Almost all respondents (96 per cent) said that they had heard of Winter Fuel Payments. Almost nine in ten (89 per cent) said that they were "confident" or "very confident" that they know what Winter Fuel Payment is.

Table 1: Have you heard of Winter Fuel Payment? (n=124)
Response options (select one) %
Yes 96
No 2
I can't remember 2
Table 2: How confident are you that you know what Winter Fuel Payment is? (n=122)
Response options (select one) %
Very confident 54
Confident 33
Not confident 15
Not confident at all 8

Experience of Cold Weather Payments

Almost nine in ten (89 per cent) of respondents said that they had heard of Cold Weather Payment. More than three quarters (77 per cent) of respondents said that they were "confident" or "very confident" that they know what Cold Weather Payment is.

Table 3: Have you heard of Cold Weather Payment? (n=125)
Response options (select one) %
Yes 89
No 7
I can't remember 4
Table 4: How confident are you that you know what Cold Weather Payment is? (n=124)
Response options (select one) %
Very confident 44
Confident 34
Not confident 8
Not confident at all 3

Warm Home Discount scheme

Warm home discount is a scheme which provides eligible people with a one off discount of £140 from their electricity or gas bill. [4] It does not affect the Cold Weather Payment or Winter Fuel Payment, and it is not moving to Scotland.

More than three in five (62 per cent) respondents said that they know what the Warm Home Discount scheme is. More than half (57 per cent) said that they were "confident" or "very confident" that they know the difference between Winter Fuel Payment and Warm Home Discount.

Table 5: Do you know what the Warm Home Discount scheme is? (n=124)
Response options (select one) %
Yes 62
No 30
I can't remember 8
Table 6: How confident are you that you know the difference between Winter Fuel Payment and Warm Home Discount? (n=125)
Response options (select one) %
Very confident 33
Confident 24
Not confident 26
Not confident at all 17

Contact

Email: Socialsecurityexperience@gov.scot

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