As energy bills rise again this winter and with more people than ever in fuel poverty, Changeworks CEO Josiah Lockhart makes the case that innovation and partnership working are key to making Scotland’s homes warmer and more affordable.
AT the start of this month, the average energy bill for a home across the UK rose by 4%, to around £1,723 per year – right at the time of year when nights get darker and the heating gets switched on for the season. That figure looks set to rise further in the new year and beyond.
It’s the latest in a series of developments making it harder to heat homes, putting even more households at risk of a cold and unaffordable winter.
Unacceptably, almost one in three Scots (29%) already live in fuel poverty – rising to 49% among social housing tenants. As energy gets increasingly expensive, this figure risks growing without new approaches and joined-up plans to improve homes and make energy more affordable.
The high energy costs faced by households are a result of multiple systemic and geopolitical issues, which cannot be addressed by any one organisation or sector acting alone.
The same is true of the challenge of retrofitting Scotland’s housing stock across tenures. Making our homes more affordably warm requires national and local governments, housing providers, funders, energy networks and delivery organisations to align policies, investment and practical support around householders’ needs. Clear policy and sustained investment that incentivise retrofit will also give contractors and installers greater confidence to invest in the skills and capacity Scotland needs.
Putting innovation into practice
At Changeworks, we use joined-up approaches to make homes across Scotland warmer, healthier and more comfortable for the people who live in them. Through our Tenant Energy Support service, our ongoing partnership with SGN enables us to support tenants and housing association staff with practical energy advice, advocacy and training.
After the first phase of the service, the number of supported tenants who felt warm at home rose from 29% to 75%, while the proportion who said they felt confident dealing with energy issues increased from 30% to 77%. Our work also helped reduce the negative health impact of living in a cold home – the figure halved from 75% to 37%.
To truly address the challenge of making homes more energy efficient across Scotland, there is a need for collaboration to stretch across governments, housing associations, service providers and the energy sector.
We worked with Midlothian Council to produce a first-of-its-kind retrofit delivery plan, mapping out a route to fully decarbonising its social housing while preparing for future regulatory requirements. Our work included a full analysis of the council’s housing stock, identifying appropriate retrofit measures for different property types, and sequencing projects into a long-term roadmap aligned with funding opportunities and wider council initiatives.
This puts the council in a stronger position to turn the ambitions of its Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) into action, helping it match projects with funding and deliver warmer, cheaper-to-heat homes for tenants. The approach also provides a model that other local authorities can learn from as they move from retrofit strategy to delivery.
Strong partnerships unlock delivery
Collaborations like those with Midlothian Council build on years of data-driven expertise, practical delivery experience and partnership working across sectors. Governments, housing associations and homeowners can only embrace new approaches if they have confidence that their priorities and needs are understood, decisions are evidence-based and the impacts of retrofit are properly assessed.
Across the retrofit supply chain and wider energy efficiency sector, we all have a role to play in building these trusted relationships with those we support, while adapting our approach to meet their needs.
We’ve been working to lower energy bills and sustainably retrofit homes for almost 40 years, partnering with organisations large and small to deliver quality support to those who need it.
In the face of soaring energy bills, Scotland’s inefficient homes require a range of support that can only be achieved through urgent collaboration that delivers across tenures. This can range from direct support for tenants, to a masterplan for local authorities, but partnership working is essential if we are to reduce the impact of what will be a challenging winter.
