Energy bills scheme pays out to one-sixth of eligible households

Only around one-sixth of eligible households obtained energy bills support through the scheme set up to help customers lacking a direct contract with a supplier, new figures show.

The figures, obtained by Age UK through a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), shows 147,760 households received £400 payments through the Energy Bills Support Scheme- Alternative Fund (EBSS-AF) by the end of June, costing the Exchequer a total of £59.1 million.

The EBSS-AF was a dedicated fund for customers who received energy supply indirectly via a landlord, site owner or other intermediary.

Including many living in care homes and houses in multiple occupation, these households would have otherwise missed out on mainstream EBSS payments, which suppliers paid directly to customers.

However the 147,760 of EBSS-AF recipients account for only 17% of the 883,000 households eligible for support through the scheme due to their atypical supply arrangements, Age UK has estimated.

Care home residents eligible for the payments because they are self-funding were the least likely to successfully access the EBSS alternative fund, with only around 7% receiving the £400 energy help, the charity said.

This compares to 35% of park home and houseboat residents and 58% of eligible heat network users.

Take-up of EBSS-AF payments was lowest in the northeast of England (12.9%), where 13.1% are in fuel poverty. Take-up was highest in the south east (21.9%)

Age UK has used the publication of the figures to call on the government to improve and re-run the scheme rather than for the Treasury to pocket the unspent funding.

Caroline Abrahams CBE, charity director of Age UK, said: “More than half a million households have missed out on this financial support as a result of the fund’s failure, many of them older and living in park homes and care homes. We know the fees have gone up substantially in care homes because of rising costs for everything from energy to food, so the extra £400 could have really helped some residents to continue to make ends meet.

“The need for this extra funding certainly hasn’t gone away and that’s why we think the government should try again to get the money out to everyone in line for it, rather than giving it up as a bad job, to the benefit of Treasury coffers but at the expense of older people in need. It’s not too late for ministers to act and we very much hope they will.

“The responsibility on ministers to resurrect and improve this funding scheme is surely all the greater when you consider that some of the areas with the biggest concentrations of older people who have missed out on the funding also have above average levels of fuel poverty.”

Responding to the figures, a government spokesperson said: “We spent billions to protect families when prices rose over winter, covering nearly half a typical household’s energy bill – this includes more than £60 million supporting over 140,000 households without a domestic electricity supplier.

“We used a range of methods to communicate the scheme with as many eligible households as possible, so they could apply to access this vital energy bills support – including a contact centre and requesting councils to write to eligible care homes and park home sites.”