Challenge 100
In November 2009, we began a project called Challenge 100 to find out what the most effective way was to deliver support to families in fuel poverty.We have been helping our vulnerable customers for many years now and committed to spend £59m on tariffs and services between 2008 and 2011 to help them affordably heat their homes. But with energy bills on the rise, and the Government looking at new schemes for helping families in fuel poverty, we wanted to make sure that the support we provided was making the biggest difference possible.
Through our Challenge 100 project, we worked with 100 families, in 100 homes across the country with the aim to see a positive change in fuel poverty levels within 100 days.
One Stop Shop
In order to provide all the support required in a coordinated and tailored way, we set up a ‘One Stop Shop’ which provided:
- free energy efficiency measures such as wall and loft insulation
- high efficiency central heating or draught proofing
- simple energy efficiency advice
- information on tariffs and payment methods
- benefit entitlement checks
We worked with a coalition of 12 expert partners to make sure that this package of support met the needs of the families that we worked with and we published the full results of our Challenge 100 project in October 2010. You can access the report below.
Challenge 100 facts
| 1. | We eradicated fuel poverty for 42 families* |
| 2. | We help families in Birmingham, Luton, Manchester, County Durham and South Staffordshire |
| 3. |
We struggled to help those families who needed more than energy efficiency measures and advice to take them out of fuel poverty |
| 4. |
Some people didn’t want to talk to us about their finances, or were happy with their current energy tariff/payment method |
| 5. | Sometimes the right energy efficiency measures weren’t available under the Government’s frameworks |
Challenge 100 Full Report, October 2010 (PDF, 2.04MB)
Challenge 100 Executive summary (PDF, 287 KB)
* Fuel poor households were targeted using the Government’s definition of fuel poverty: a household that needs to spend more than 10% of its full income on fuel to maintain an adequate level of warmth (usually defined as 21°C for the main living area, and 18°C for other occupied areas).
Information provided by project participants about their property (including property’s age, type of glazing, insulation and heating systems) was used to generate a Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating, which we used to estimate the amount each household would need to spend on fuel to maintain an adequate level of warmth. This approach was originally designed by Warm Zones and has been adopted as good practice in other schemes. SAP is the Government’s standard methodology for home energy rating. Knowing that households might not want to disclose their exact income and benefit entitlement, they were asked to choose from a list of 25 income levels the one which most closely matched their circumstances.
The Fuel Poverty Index (FPI) was calculated by comparing ratio of estimated fuel spend to household income level. All households assessed as having an FPI of 9.5% and above were included in Challenge 100, and 42 of these were found to have an FPI of below 9.5% at the project’s end.
