Warm Home Discount Annual Report - SY12
Reports, plans and updates
- Publication date
- Scheme name
- WHD
The Warm Home Discount (WHD) scheme was first introduced by government in 2011 to help persons on low-income and who are vulnerable to cold-related illness or living wholly or mainly in fuel poverty in Great Britain.
This annual report covers activity during Scheme Year 12 (SY12: 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023). It details the achievements of participating suppliers against their obligations as well as providing information on incidents of scheme non-compliance.
Highlights
- SY12 saw substantial change to the WHD as it split into separate schemes for England & Wales and for Scotland, underwritten by separate pieces of legislation.
- During SY12 obligated suppliers spent over £443.8 million supporting eligible low-income households by providing £150 rebates and through Industry Initiatives (£395.2 million was spent in England & Wales and £48.5 million in Scotland). This is an increase of 23% on the £359.4 million spent during SY11.
- Energy bill rebates of £150 were provided to over 2.66 million customers in or at risk of fuel poverty (2.41 million in England & Wales and 256,409 in Scotland). This is up from a total of 2.32 million in SY11.
- Suppliers delivered a combined £44.3 million through other forms of support via ‘Industry Initiatives’ in SY12, up from £34.8 million in SY11 (£34.3 million in England & Wales and £10.0 million in Scotland).
- Since the start of the scheme in 2011, a total of £3.95 billion has been spent supporting vulnerable consumers through energy bill rebates and ‘Industry Initiatives’.
- Four suppliers failed to meet their individual non-core spending obligations (So Energy and Utilita in England & Wales and Ecotricity and Good Energy in Scotland). This resulted in a spending shortfall of £13,431. This shortfall has been added to their spending obligations for SY13, and each paid the same again to provide additional support to vulnerable consumers.
- Other administrative issues resulted in a further five scheme non-compliances. Foxglove and Utility Warehouse were found to be non-compliant with their reporting obligations for both the England & Wales and Scotland schemes. Furthermore, Foxglove were found to be non-compliant due to a failure to identify customers eligible for Broader Group rebates in Scotland.
- In SY12 there was a spending shortfall across the England & Wales and Scotland schemes of around £74 million. This is due to several factors and is discussed further in the report, but it should be noted that the vast majority of this shortfall was not the result of an administrative failure or non-compliance by obligated suppliers.
Please note: For those who wish to look at the data used in the report in more detail, a spreadsheet with this information is published alongside the report below.