Findings from the British Gas Energy Trust seventh roundtable event

THE BRITISH GAS ENERGY TRUST 20^TH ANNIVERSARY ROUNDTABLE PROGRAMME

Date: 24 October 2024

Location: Belmont Hotel, Leicester

Objective: To ensure British Gas Energy Trust (the Trust) is supporting its local partner organisations as effectively as possible, with a particular focus on women and families across the UK.

Introducing the event, Jessica Taplin, Chief Executive of the Trust, said: “For our 20^th anniversary, we have spent the year convening representatives of the groups that we know are most affected by the detrimental impact of fuel poverty. While we are not a campaigning organisation, we believe in advocacy and helping to amplify the voices of those who sometimes don’t have a voice.”

Key themes: Speakers from a diverse range of community groups and support organisations gathered to discuss their front-line work to address fuel poverty, with a particular focus on women and families. They highlighted a range of issues that are experienced by women in the Midlands and across the UK, including financial abuse and the challenges of being a single parent.

Observations included:

Women are more likely to be victims of economic emotional abuse, often by a partner who asserts excessive control over their finances and can even steal their identity to build up debt in their name without their knowledge. This can cause or contribute to financial hardship including fuel poverty.

• Financial abuse can have long-term implications for women and their families, leaving them with trauma as well a damaging their credit rating, which can make it hard to access things like housing. Sometimes, the behaviour becomes so normalised, women do not realise they are victims of abuse.
• According to the charity Surviving Economic Abuse, one in five women in the UK has experienced economic abuse by a current or former partner.
• Adrian Iyayi, Outreach and Engagement Worker at gambling addiction charity GamCare, said: “We take a lot of calls from women whose partner has a gambling problem. They may have taken out credit in their name without their knowledge or stopped paying the mortgage and other bills. It’s causing families to break down and left them having to use food banks.”
• “A lot of the victims we work with experience financial abuse in addition to physical and emotional violence. Some remain very financially dependent on their abusers, which makes them even more vulnerable,” noted Suki Kaur, Chief Executive of Freeva, the domestic and sexual violence charity based in Leicester.
• And Victoria Benson, Chief Executive of Gingerbread, the charity that works to support single parents, warned: “Creditors, including energy companies, need to be aware that asking women to relive their experiences to different customer service advisers can be retraumatising.”

Too often, funding for organisations providing frontline support comes with conditions including specific reach or engagement targets. Issues are also caused with funding that is time-bound or specifies a cost per interaction, hampering their ability to provide a consistent and effective service.

•  There is a prevailing view that funding settlements are too short – one year is typical – which makes it hard for organisations to work strategically, and too targeted.
• Panellists stressed that a more holistic approach is required, as fuel poverty is rarely an issue that exists in isolation.
• Claire Meek, Deputy Director of Services at national charity Family Action, said her organisation receives a range of funding streams, from both the public and corporate sectors.
• She said: “The short-termism of contracts is more worrying than ever before. We can’t underestimate the massive value that the third sector brings, but we see things getting a lot worse. Demand for our services outstrips our capacity to deliver support.”
• Panellists also highlighted how funders want to quantify the impact of their support, but this can rely on overly simplistic impact statistics that don’t tell the whole story.
• Miranda Corti, Trustee at British Gas Energy Trust noted that suppling statistics demonstrating the impact of their interventions can be difficult because of the complex nature of people’s problems. She added: “The short termism of funding leads to inefficiency and means you can’t plan ahead. Sometimes you have to let staff go, only to reappoint them when the funding comes back.”
• Sarah Hayle, Chief Executive of social welfare advice provider Community Law Service in Northampton, said: “When projects have targets, it can sometimes mean you are reluctant to try something new in case you don’t meet those targets.”
• Vivien Waterfield, Deputy Chief Executive of Home-Start, the charity that works to support families with young children, said: “We need grants that cover our full costs for a minimum of three years.”
• Victoria Benson added: “We know where to direct the money where it is most needed, and funders need to trust us to do that.”

The vast majority of single parent families are headed by women, who face a greater risk of financial insecurity and fuel poverty. Because they are more likely to be in receipt of benefits, they have been particularly impacted by the rising cost of living.

• According to data from Gingerbread, of the two million single parent families in the UK, nine in 10 are single mother families.
• Government statistics show single parent families are three times more likely to be reliant on benefits that couples with children and twice as likely to live in relative poverty.
• Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan is Chief Executive and Founder of The Zithiya Trust, the charity that works to alleviate poverty and abuse in Leicester and Leicestershire. She said: “In the last few months we have provided money and energy advice to 1,800 people, of which around 70% were women. That raises the question, ‘Why are women in more poverty than men?’ We know that many are single parent households and we know that these households are continuously facing more dire poverty.”
• Victoria Benson said: “Single parents consistently rank as the highest proportion of households in fuel poverty in England. In 2023, 29% of single parent households were in fuel poverty, compared to 14% of couple parent households. One single parent told our helpline: “If energy prices rise again, it will be disastrous for us. We can’t cut down anymore and I can’t afford to spend more.”
• She added: “Most single parents are in rented accommodation, so they don’t have the choice to make substantial changes to their homes to make them more energy efficient, so it’s critical to work with landlords on that.”

Next steps: The panellists were asked to share strategies and solutions which they believe would prove effective in tackling fuel poverty among women and families in particular.

It takes time to build trust, so support services must be delivered patiently, with empathy and in accessible locations. This should include empowering trusted partners to liaise with energy companies on their clients’ behalf.

• Fuel poverty can be stigmatising and often exists in tandem with mental health issues, so service providers must be respectful of the challenges clients face in order to engage with people to build trust. This relies on a more detailed understanding of all the contributing factors and potential solutions.
• Vivien Waterfield said: “How do you build trust with families? You have to go to them and take the time to get to know them. Over time, you can start to unpick what is really going on and get them the support they need. Very often, you only get to the real underlying issues over a period of weeks and even months. We run play groups in local communities to help build trusted relationships, for example.”
• Sam Hassan, Team Manager at Auriga Services, said: “It’s so important to give people time and not judge them. We can spend hours on the phone with clients, but not every service provider can do that. It means people can fall through the net and, when that happens, their needs only get greater.”
• Tracy Gormely, Advisor at the Zinthiya Trust, said that often energy companies refuse to engage with an advisor because they don’t have authorisation to talk on their client’s behalf. But even with authorisation in place, she said: “It’s so difficult to make an appointment for an energy company to call back when an adviser is there to support their client.”
• Catherine O’Kelly, Managing Director of British Gas Energy, said: “We do have some dedicated referral lines, but we recognise that there are limitations that we need to unblock.”

Making homes more energy efficient and encouraging energy efficient behaviours are part of the long-term solution to energy poverty.

• Too many homes have inefficient heating systems and lack adequate insulation, which means they cost more to heat and causes households to fall into fuel poverty.
• There is the additional challenge of tackling energy efficiency when the property is rented – this applies whether through a social or private landlord. The householder has limited, if any, autonomy to make changes to their home, though there are behavioural changes that could prove effective by sharing best practice and advice with fuel poor households.
• Sarah Parry, Managing Director of energy efficient home improvements organisation Residential Energy Services said: “Providing retrofitting at scale across the nation can be a long-term solution to help people get out of fuel poverty. We’ve tailored our messaging away from decarbonisation towards healthy homes and wellbeing, which especially resonates with women and families.”
• Suki Kaur said: “More could be done to educate young people about how they can be more energy efficient. It is a subject that is barely touched on in schools but if they were better informed, they could manage better in the future.”

Better outcomes can be achieved when all stakeholders collaborate to deliver joined up services. There is an opportunity for more strategic alliances between energy companies, local authorities and the third sector, to help form closer working partnerships.

•  Catherine O’Kelly said that during 2023, for the first time more than a quarter of the calls received from British Gas customers were about the ability to pay, this indicates a challenge with affordability, but it is also positive that consumers are engaging on financial challenges.
• There was consensus that the ability to share data between services would make things simpler and help both identify need and take a lot of pressure off the people delivering services.
• Benaifer Bhandari is Chief Executive of Hopscotch Women’s Centre in Camden, which provides support services for Asian and other minority women and their families. She said: “Last year we ran a successful ‘one stop shop’ pilot where we created a space where women could meet with our domestic violence advocates, a solicitor, the police, housing and a welfare adviser. The location where that is delivered is very important. After lots of trial and error we learned that women didn’t want to come to a library or any kind of public space. When we brought it in-house, they started coming.”
• Sarah Hayle said: “Something that has worked really well for us is delivering advice at community larders. About 70% of the people we see there had not accessed any kind of advice before. But not all outreach venues work.”
• Miranda Corti said: “We are not in competition. When agencies work together to solve a problem in the best possible way, they can have huge success.”
• Victoria Benson said: “One thing that would be really useful is a specific referral process between charities and energy providers so clients can get support more quickly.”

Common themes

This was the final roundtable in a series of seven roundtables discussions held around the country, which have so far focused on physical and mental health, young people, rural communities, vulnerable and older people and carers, and several common themes are now emerging:

• Households which do not have pre-payment meters (PPMs) are excluded from some sources of support. For example, households with PPMs can access the British Gas Energy Support Fund with a minimum debt of £50, but credit account customers must have built up a debt of £250. However, it was noted that a PPMs can suit some customers, enabling them to pay for their energy in small amounts.
• Fuel poverty is rarely an issue that exists in isolation and an holistic approach can better understand and address all the factors that contribute to fuel debt.
• Front-line organisations from different sectors (funders, charities, housing associations and local authorities) can work together more effectively to deliver support in this way.
• Having a central source of information on all available support services could help drive awareness, trust and accessibility for frontline advisors and customers.
• Longer-term funding provision can help frontline service organisations plan more strategically and build trusted relationships with the communities they serve, including through face-to-face engagement.
• Those in debt, including energy debt, can experience feelings of shame and despair, making them reluctant to seek help. There is a need to create an environment where they feel comfortable asking for help, recognising self-serve and digital is not suitable for the highest deciles of need.
• While providing ‘sticking plaster’ support such as fuel vouchers does not provide a long-term solution, it can be an opportunity to build trust and establish longer-term relationships that can enable more permanent resolutions.

Read more about the Trusts roundtables here.