90: The Fuel Poverty Research Network: Understanding Fuel Poverty

What can we do to tackle fuel poverty more effectively?

A busy episode of Local Zero as Matt, Becky and Fraser are joined by Dr Nicola Willand from RMIT University in Melbourne, Professor Lucie Middlemiss from the University of Leeds, and Dr Neil Simcock from Liverpool John Moores University.

Nicki, Lucie and Neil are part of the Fuel Poverty Research Network. The Fuel Poverty Research Network (FPRN) is an international network that brings together students, researchers, policymakers and other professionals to foster constructive dialogue and collaboration in relation to all aspects of fuel poverty.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

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Matt: Hello and welcome to Local Zero with Fraser, Becky and Matt.

Matt: So today we're going to talk a lot about the term fuel poverty. So it's worth just pausing to reflect on what we mean by that term. One of the best definitions I can provide, and it's worth just caveating that there are different definitions available. One of the best definitions is from the National Energy Action, which defines a fuel poor household as "one that needs to spend 10 percent or more of its income on energy in order to maintain a satisfactory heating regime."

Matt: Another acronym that we're going to hear a lot of is that of DESNZ not only in this episode, but the episodes that preceded and also those that are going to come after it. In the UK, that refers to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Becky: Today on the pod, we're joined by Dr. Nicola Willan from RMIT University in Melbourne, Professor Lucy Middlemiss from the University of Leeds, and Dr. Neil Simcock from Liverpool John Moores University. And those of you with a sharp memory will remember Lucy from episode 69 last May on whole person, whole place, talking about the social relations and energy retrofit.

Fraser: Nikki, Lucy and Neil are part of the fuel poverty research network and for the uninitiated The Fuel Poverty Research Network is an international network that brings together students, researchers, policy makers, and other professionals to foster constructive dialogue and collaboration in relation to all aspects of fuel poverty.

Matt: But before we get into the network and what it does, an important update from us. As I mentioned in the Christmas episode, a few weeks ago, I feared the end was nigh for X or formerly known as Twitter. And so it is proven we are moving to the sunlit uplands of LinkedIn. We'll still monitor the account for anyone getting in touch there, but from now on, join us on LinkedIn.

Matt: For your local zero fix.

Becky: Yes. We've had great engagement on LinkedIn so far, and now we have created an entire page dedicated to the podcast where you can get in touch with us without that pesky character limit, well known from Twitter, just search for local zero podcasts and follow us in LinkedIn now to get involved.

Fraser: The website is also still going strong though, and you can find out more about the pod at localzeropod. com for transcripts, episodes, and other news.

Matt: And as you'll have heard at the top of the episode, Local Zero is looking for new funding to keep it going. If the pod has helped you with your work or studies, Please email us at localzeropod@gmail.Com or get in touch on the shiny new LinkedIn page. So all I'm pretty relieved. We found a new camp set up our tent and pitched ourselves nicely. Uh, LinkedIn, it felt like we weren't really able to communicate with our listeners in the way that we were before. I mean, In the good old days of Twitter, we could have good old hearty debate, but the good news is that seems to be happening on LinkedIn, but also even YouTube, a bit more active on LinkedIn too.

Matt: It's good to get that debate again with our listeners and to get these views that we were, we were so lacking before. Um, so please, yeah, do follow us because it feels. You know, we're wanting to listen more from our, from our listeners, from you about what you'd like us to cover off in future episodes, what you thought about recent episodes, um, but just more broadly having that online debate, which is why I think Fraser, particularly your big user of Twitter X, maybe you still are, that's where I got my fixed daily was to get those little kind of chats and discussions in the cracks between things.

Matt: Um, so hopefully. This is the way forward.

Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. Once upon a time. I don't think I've been on much in the last, probably the last year or so compared to as much as before. Uh, yeah, you might've known me from being perhaps overactive in the past on Twitter, I think is a polite way to describe it. Um, but it is, it's, it's a shame because it once upon a time, it's, it's never been beautiful and sunny on Twitter.

Fraser: Um, but you used to get conversation. It just doesn't feel like it happens. Anymore, really. And I think LinkedIn, certainly for the people who listen to this podcast who, who span a number of sectors and, um, come from a number of backgrounds. I think LinkedIn is just a slightly nicer platform for debate.

Fraser: And having a bit of room to have that debate is a nice thing as well. So yeah, looking forward to seeing, to, to seeing all your thoughts a a little better behaved .

Matt: Yeah. Mm-Hmm. . So. Onto today's topic, which is a topic I do actually see quite a lot coming through LinkedIn about we've had fuel poverty on before we've often dug into very specific topics around this.

Matt: I think one of the ones you mentioned before Becky was around the social relations of retrofit project close to my heart, but today I think we wanted to get a bit of a bird's eye view. of fuel poverty. So, I mean, you two, something you've been very involved with, Fraser in particular, you're in PhD, uh, and the rest, but any particular areas that are of most interest to you that you'll be able to cover off today?

Fraser: Fuel poverty has become much more salient against the backdrop of the energy crisis, cost of living crisis. We talk about it more now in the UK and around the world in general, I would say. But we talk about it a lot more, yet we still talk about it, I think, in a way that's relatively narrowly defined. We still think about, oh, fuel poverty, can't afford your bills, end of conversation.

Fraser: And I think the wider social impact of that, in terms of mental health, in terms of wider poverty, but also physical health, is really important to capture. Not just from understanding the problem, which is critical, but also in understanding the opportunity of the value you could unlock by tackling that problem, not just for quality of life for people, but also for, you know, for the NHS, for, for the wider social value there, I think is something we could do a lot better to communicate.

Fraser: So interested to get into that side of the discussion.

Becky: Yeah, and I'm, I always like to think as well, not just about some of the challenges, which I agree are very important to acknowledge, especially the interlinked nature of them, but then taking that and thinking through, okay, well, how do we now do something about this?

Becky: Right? So feel poverty and particularly thinking about, you know, folks that might be living in very poor quality buildings is not a new topic. We have been talking about this in very different, you know, it's many guises for decades now. So I think for me, it's really sort of thinking about, all right, so how is this coming to a head and what can we really do now and quickly to, to create some real change and real traction?

Matt: I think with my researcher hat on, I'm really interested to understand how evidence can start to shift. People's perspective on this, particularly politicians and other parliamentarians to really put this in the crosshairs, particularly for the next government, whoever that may be. Oftentimes I think evidence only gets you so far, but sometimes if you can bring a particularly compelling piece of evidence, which as you say, Fraser, overlaps across multiple public policy issues and that is articulated in the right way, then you can get traction.

Matt: So we'll hear a little bit more from them about how they're doing that. I also, I'm like, I'm going to shamelessly plug another piece of fuel poverty research that I'm involved with. Um, really happy to say that we've received funding from the university of Strathclyde, uh, Strathclyde business school, and also through the national energy action and the affordable warmth solutions team.

Matt: For a PhD on smart and fair, question mark, the injustices of smart low carbon energy solutions for UK homes. The injustices, by the way, has a bracket around the in, so it can also be just also injust. But this is something, Fraser, Becker, you and I have actually written about before, about whether smart energy and smart solutions can be a force for good or evil in the fight against fuel poverty.

Matt: So I thought you two might be interested about that. But if anybody's interested to, uh, apply for this or know somebody does, please, please send it on. But initial thoughts, this is something you guys have engaged with. I think both of your academic hats on and your, your, your more recent roles too.

Becky: Yeah.

Becky: And great to see working alongside those two fantastic organizations in this. Cause I think all too often research can really sit in its silos, especially PhD research, where you get an opportunity to go very deep. Produces massive thesis that very few people will actually ever read. So the fact that you've got that engagement throughout, I just think is, is amazing.

Matt: I'm afraid to, can I attempt you to do another PhD?

Becky: You don't want him.

Fraser: Hard work, unmanageable. That's, that's one of the words that's been used. That's the nicest one. Um, but no, it's, it's, I'm, I'm glad to see this out there because I think it's such a, such an important topic very, very often. Um, we, we make the assumption, I think that as we do the low carbon transition, the air quotes net zero transition and things getting greener necessarily means everything getting better for everyone, but actually greener doesn't.

Fraser: by sort of virtue or definition mean fairer? And if we're not cognizant of that as we make that transition, these questions of fairness, these questions of distribution of costs and benefits, but also understanding the opportunity as people see and experience them, then there's, there's a risk of not being able to achieve this at all and leaving masses of value on the table.

Fraser: So I think this, this topic, if I was to do it all again, it's not miles away from what I did but I think for anyone who, who sees the, And not just the challenge of doing this fairly, but the opportunity of, of doing this in a just way. I think absolutely get involved. This would be an amazing project with a good bunch.

Matt: I'm not hearing a no. So, um, I'll twist your arm further. Okay. Listen, without further ado, let's bring in the guests and hear a bit more about the challenges, research challenges they foresee and how we tackle.

Neil: Hi everyone, I'm Neil Simcock. I'm a lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and I research on energy poverty and particularly thinking about how can we make policy design a bit more effective to try and mitigate energy poverty.

Lucy: Hi, I'm Lucy Middlemiss. I'm from the University of Leeds and I'm a professor in Environment and Society.

Lucy: I also work on energy poverty and I'm particularly interested in how everyday life can be shaped by policy in a very similar way to Neil actually.

Nicola: And I am Nicola Willand and I'm a senior lecturer at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

Matt: Well, welcome Neil, Lucy, Nicola. It's fantastic to have you along and to have the Fuel Poverty Research Network in the house.

Matt: So thank you for coming. First things first is What is the fuel poverty research network? How does it work and why is it so important? Why did you establish it?

Nicola: The fuel poverty research network is a network of academics who are interested in fuel poverty practitioners, students, but also policymakers.

Nicola: All around the world, interested in addressing fuel poverty as a societal challenge. And when I'm saying fuel poverty, internationally, it may just be energy poverty in the sense of access to cooling energy, for example, not only heating energy. And we have to have a very good evidence of what is happening, how this, you know, social injustice is shaped to then address it.

Nicola: And we can learn from other countries about, uh, what works and what may not work.

Matt: Excellent. Lucy, I see you wanting to come in. Maybe if I can just, just add another question for you to tackle it. This is an international research network. Is that correct? Because this idea of bringing synthesizing ideas from across the planet really speaks.

Matt: To my heart and trying to understand how other countries are tackling this.

Nicola: Yes, absolutely. So it is based in the UK, this charity, but we have researchers from Australia, from Chile, from Spain, from the Netherlands, uh, from Canada. So really international in its reach.

Matt: Brilliant. And Lucy, sorry, I butted in.

Matt: Go for it.

Lucy: Yeah. I just wanted to say that we we've this year, we've really made a big effort to as academics to engage in the fuel poverty research network. And that's really why we're here today, because we've been working on on various communications about fuel poverty that are a bit more accessible than our usual academic articles.

Lucy: Um, and really kind of making a concerted effort to get involved in the, in the public debate on energy poverty, fuel poverty, particularly around the cost of living crisis. Because a couple of years ago, we kind of looked at what was coming and thought, we have all this really great evidence from the academic sphere, and it's not really being discussed properly in the public debate, you know, people aren't out there talking about their work, Neil, myself, and a few other academics all decided it was time to go get out there and be a bit more public about the evidence that we have.

Matt: Well, I think I first became aware of it when I can't remember whether you, you as a team had taken a trip down to London or you'd ask London to take a trip up to you, but either way, I think you engage with the all party parliamentary group around fuel poverty, I think it was, and ended up engaging with them and again, having that debate, leading that debate.

Matt: Is that correct?

Lucy: Yeah. Neil and I went down for parliamentary evidence week and met a load of MPs that were interested in fuel poverty and tried to sort of start those conversations with people that are evidence users effectively, um, with politicians that are evidence users. And we had a really productive trip actually made some links there that we're still using today.

Lucy: So for instance, we met Lord Best, who is a York based Lord who worked with Joseph Roundtree Foundation in the past and has a really strong history of working on these kinds of issues. And he was, he took part in an event that we ran recently on the private rented sector that Neil also spoke at.

Lucy: So we sort of making these connections and trying to maintain them in order to to ensure that the. The publicly funded evidence effectively that we, that we produce then gets out there.

Matt: Into public policy. Well, some juicy policy questions. I'm going to hand over to Fraser, who's got a couple more up his sleeve.

Fraser: Picking up on your point there, Lucy, and I'll ask this one to Nikki first, but picking up on that point around cost of living, obviously with cost of living and the centrality of energy within that, that crisis we're experiencing just now, fuel poverty is higher up the the policy and also the public agenda than probably ever has been before.

Fraser: But I feel sometimes within that conversation, we can kind of detach fuel poverty as a thing from the wider social implications. We think about the cost of bills, and that's the end of it. Nikki, I was wondering if you could maybe talk more to if you could illustrate for us those those crucial links between fuel poverty, health and wider social impacts.

Nicola: So when we think about health, we think about physiological, psychological, and also social health. And we mostly talk about the physiological impact of fuel poverty. If you're living in the UK and it's a heating dominated climate and heating is very expensive and you're living in an inefficient home, then your home in winter might actually be cold, and that increases the risk of infectious diseases.

Nicola: It increases the risk of mold. You may have respiratory illnesses, and it may lead to avoidable death. But it's also got psychological impact. So if you're anxious about your next, next bills, you may be depressed. Mold is very often connected to cold homes and people who've got mold in their homes also don't feel well.

Nicola: They, they very often feel ashamed or depressed and then they are the social impact. So if you are ashamed because your home is cold, people have to keep their coats on, for example, when, when they come to visit you, you're more, you're less likely to invite your friends over. Children don't invite their friends over.

Nicola: Children and parents and grandparents all assemble in The only room that's heated perhaps. So the children can't study properly. And then that has got effects on productivity. Or if you have to really prioritize your energy bill, then maybe, money missing for medications, for example, so those are social health impact.

Matt: Fraser, we've had this discussion a few times, but I think that's, I mean, I'm lucky enough to say, I don't think I experienced fuel poverty until I was actually doing my PhD. Uh, no connection. This is when Lucy was one of my supervisors, no, no blame her door, but, um, honestly, it really, that, that mental health element, it was all I could think about.

Matt: That next bill coming in, you know, should we, shouldn't we turn it off? If you turn the heating off, then you're, you're just suffering physical impacts. I mean, and Fraser, we've talked about this endlessly on the pod, but that connectivity between physical and mental health, I do not think is, is platformed enough in this discussion?

Matt: And maybe we can come back around to Lucy and Co whether mps get that, whether it's actually understood.

Lucy: Yeah. I would say it, it isn't widely understood. Actually, the, the, the first things that come to mind are physiological effects. And they're important. It's, it's important that we don't underplay those either.

Lucy: But when you think about the way that fuel poverty's defined in England, for instance, the, the vulnerable. populations that are talked about as young children, disabled people and older people. And those three categories of vulnerable people are all affected physically as opposed to mentally, so that the mental health effects do tend to get forgotten and almost sort of put second because they're sort of seen as less priority.

Lucy: But as you say, They can be really overwhelming. I wanted to add one thing as well to Nikki's really great summary of the effect. There's a sort of vicious circle effect almost between health and energy poverty, fuel poverty, in the sense that bad health can cause the problem of fuel poverty, and fuel poverty can also cause bad health.

Lucy: And so you can end up being in this sort of cycle of negativity in a way. So imagine that you don't have a job, so you can't afford to heat. So you get, you know, you get effectively have mental health effects from not being able to afford to heat. Then it's very difficult to then go out and get a job and so on.

Lucy: Not that getting a job is the way out of poverty. Yeah, I am. aware of that. But so I think that that sort of vicious vicious cycle is, is, is really important to bear in mind as well as how Nikki presented the sort of very broad vision of, of health that we're dealing with here, that it's not, it's not just about physical health.

Lucy: It's not actually just about mental health. It's also about that, that broader sense of wellbeing, which then includes also people's social lives and which, which are very frequently affected by this problem.

Fraser: And there's maybe another prong to this as well, which I'm going to say is from my perspective, at least less interesting, but no less concerning, which is on the economic side, right?

Fraser: We have, we've seen you, we get the numbers from citizens advice every month about how much energy debt is building up. We understand that with these health and, and social impacts, it sort of exclude begins to exclude people or people begin to withdraw from the you know, from they're not able to spend one, but also they're less, less able to get out of that loop, out of that sort of spiral of poverty or destitution.

Fraser: And anyone who's experienced it understands how, how massive that is a barrier to overcome anyway. So it feels like there's There's a scale, a scale of the problem here, and there's various, maybe a concentric circle to the, to the issues that we experience here that just doesn't seem to cut through in the way that it, that it needs to with policymakers, but yourselves are providing lots and lots and lots of, of evidence.

Fraser: Uh, fill in some of those gaps, right?

Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. And I do, I do think that, that the, it's kind of almost surprising. It doesn't cut through policymakers because it's got such a, I suppose the way we look at it is we, we tend to take this sort of step back, look and see fuel poverty as a broader symptom of poverty in general.

Lucy: which Neil and I have talked about in the past and thought about quite a lot. We also see health as a, as a very big category, you know, including physical health, including mental health, including social wellbeing, these, these broader, broader issues in people's lives. And then when you do that, actually, there are so many opportunities to kill several birds with one stone.

Lucy: It really, and it's so frustrating to watch this not happen in, in, in public policy, you know, to see people not really recognizing that, you know, you solve this problem, you solve loads of things, you know, you could, you could reduce, um, the incidence of, of kind of small, um, illness, which means people have better attendance at work and school.

Lucy: You could, you just make people generally happier so that they're able to be better citizens and have a nicer life. I mean, there's so much in there as well as reducing costs for health service. Thinking about sort of reducing carbon emissions is really important here as well, right? There's so much, there's so many wins in, in trying to sort out this problem.

Lucy: And it, like, as I say, it's, it's incredibly frustrating to watch on as, as people don't really cotton on to that. There's, there's a real opportunity here for massive social good.

Matt: Absolutely. I mean, as part of my teaching, I often dip into kind of the latest data that's been collected often is by ONS, but the citizens advice do some fantastic surveying to around how people have reacted to these energy crises.

Matt: And I always, I'm, I'm kind of shocked, but not surprised by often the responses we eat less or we eat less kind of, you know, Um, ideal food or we travel less. And once you start to see, because I guess you're having to ideally heat your home to a basic temperature. And if you, and if that's the choice, you're having to make a difficult choice elsewhere.

Matt: And so this ripple effect through people's lives is devastating. And I know Lucy, I'm really sorry if I'm going to falsely assert, um, sorry, attribute this statement to you, but I think it may have been you who said it's not, it's not fuel poverty. It's just poverty. Like it's, it's a kind of a bigger, it's, it's, it's around a problem.

Matt: And I do wonder whether that's part of the issue here. Why are we talking about fuel poverty is a separate point to poverty. And is it helpful?

Lucy: Um, broadly, I do agree with that. Yes. But I guess we talk about fuel poverty because it's a useful category to open up that conversation around poverty with different stakeholders, with different kinds of people.

Lucy: So if you just talk about poverty, you're not going to get the energy companies thinking as strongly. You're not going to get even DESNZ is thinking as strongly about what, what the impact of poverty is on, on energy consumption. Um, Nikki may have different ideas.

Nicola: I think it's really dangerous to think of fuel poverty in the same terms as poverty because poverty is very often just thought about resources, income, just a money thing.

Nicola: And then the way you tackle it is just give people more money. If you are in fuel poverty, it's very likely that you're living in an inefficient home, very often not even a decent home. So you may have holes in your windows or leaking roofs. So, you know, whatever you're heating inside just goes out through those leaks anyway, and you may as well not heat.

Nicola: And I think the other thing that is probably the same case in the UK as it is in Australia, it's really difficult to negotiate the energy market. There's so many retailers and they've got like prices per kilowatt and then they've got daily charges and then they've got discount discount. So negotiating that is really, really difficult and it takes time whenever you want to change your contract.

Nicola: You have to call the company, then you sit on your phone for 45 minutes and just in the loop. There are many people who don't have the money to wait, you know, on this phone call because they have a prepaid plan. There are people who lack the auditory acuity, so they can't really hear the other person on the phone, even if they understand how things work, so I think it's far more complicated.

Matt: I really like your point that we should talk about food poverty because it's not just poverty and you can't just fix it with money, yet when we reflect on the energy crisis and the response in the UK, that's kind of what we did. So I'm going to give way to Becky as we talk about other crises.

Becky: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a really, it's been a really interesting, uh, conversation so far. And I think, you know, it was really, we've really started to draw out some of these key dimensions of feel poverty, poverty, but also those. I want to flip the conversation to think about, okay, framing it in the way that I think Lucy and Nikki, you've just picked up on, how do we start to then do things about it?

Becky: And Neil, you've been sat here incredibly patiently listening in. And I think I'm going to bring you into the conversation at this point, because I'd like for us to talk a little bit about things that we can do to create change, particularly thinking about, you know, Energy retrofit and how different sorts of programs could be delivered.

Becky: And of course this is local zero. We do like to focus in on local approaches and local ways to do this. Um, so I'm wondering maybe you could share some, some of your thoughts around delivering energy retrofit locally, um, and, and how we need to do this and what might need to shift in order to enable these models to, to be brought to fruition.

Neil: Yeah, sure. Um, I think one thing to say to start with is that if we are to tackle fuel poverty, it is going to have to be a holistic approach. So it will mean tackling income poverty as well. So issues around insecure, low paid work, the fact that welfare system isn't fit for purpose. And the fact, as Nikki said, we've got this hugely complex, unfair energy market.

Neil: So we're going to have to deal with those aspects as well. But of course, Retrofitting the housing stock. I think pretty much everyone agrees that that's going to be absolutely central. And there's good reasons why we might want to try and do that in a kind of place sensitive way, closely involving various kinds of local organizations.

Neil: Um, local authorities may be taking a lead in sort of delivering that. One of the reasons is that local authorities, why they would, they would kind of be, you know, a kind of an ideal actor to sort of lead on a retrofit program is that they have the local knowledge, right? So they know their housing stock, they know the community profiles, they know where to advertise, they have links with the local supply chain.

Neil: And to some extent, at least they have kind of a trusted reputation with people living in the area. So there's lots of reasons why they might be an effective actor to sort of lead that process. Um, to retrofit and try and tackle fuel poverty, but they need to actually be empowered by national government in order to be able to do it.

Neil: For me, the way we we've designed policy, at least in England, in terms of delivering retrofit, there's a lot of drawbacks there in terms of what it's actually allowing local authorities to do.

Neil: So one of the big things is that there's actually a lack of funding for local authorities to be able to lead and deliver retrofit schemes. So the last. set of local, local funding parts that was available to local authorities. It was called the local authority delivery scheme. That was 500 million pounds over a year.

Neil: The next scheme that's coming up beginning in 2025, that's 500 million pounds again, and that's spread over three years this time, which is, it's nice to have that money, but if you look at kind of the numbers that we're talking about, it's nowhere near matching the scale of the problem, right?

Neil: It probably needs to be at least quadrupled and we're talking over a billion pounds. Secondly, a lot of these schemes, the way they've been designed so far, at least partially the funding systems being competitive. So local authorities, there's this money available to them. Then they actually have to try and put together some kind of grant proposal and bid, uh, to actually get the money.

Neil: So. Rather than spending time designing schemes, actually delivering it, they have to spend a huge amount of office based time putting together funding applications, which then might not be successful. As academics, we can all kind of sympathize with that process, right? Feeling like you're spending all your time writing funding bids rather than actually doing research.

Neil: And then thirdly, lots of the schemes so far have been really short term as well. So often there'll be some funding that's available for maybe a year, A couple of years and then it'll end and then a new kind of scheme will come in. So there's lots of chopping and changing. We each have these different requirements, different eligibility criteria, and local authorities, if they're successful in getting some money, they then, they then have to try and deliver their targets within a very short space of time.

Neil: So I know from interviewing some people that have been involved in sort of delivering these programs at the local authority level, if you've got funding for a year, right. It's then just a case of kind of mobilization. You just have to mobilize very quickly, get it done, tick the boxes that you need to, and you're not kind of able to take a sort of careful approach in terms of finding the right properties to assist.

Neil: You just kind of find the properties that, that tick the box in a way, and it'll allow you to do it very quickly. So for example, that means that. quite often there'll be a reluctance to try and engage with the private rented sector because you've only got a year and the private rented sector is kind of notoriously challenging.

Neil: Landlords in some cases can be a bit resistant to changing their property, so you don't engage with that. And you also kind of end up with these quality control issues as well. So because you have these short term funding programs. All the contractors try and make hay while the sun's shining. Uh, they do as much work as they can within what's possible.

Neil: And they kind of worry a bit less maybe about poor quality, or at least that's the impression that I've got from the people that have interviewed. So I think the funding schemes need to be a lot longer because then you could have, you could have more accurate targeting. targeting. You could build capacity in the sector and you can kind of have this steady stream of work.

Neil: And that's where you start to kind of be able to enforce quality. You can build trust. Lucy would know as well. She does a lot of work around kind of social relations, right? And, and trust is absolutely crucial. If people are going to undertake retrofit in their homes, they need to trust the actor that's delivering it and they need to trust that it's going to work and it's going to be effective for them.

Neil: And it takes time to build that like to try and do that all in one year is really really difficult so you need to have time in order to be able to build trust in the scheme the fact that it's going to be effective people probably need to see examples of oh it's been done elsewhere and it's it's worked so therefore I want to do it um every time you have these short term schemes you basically you're almost starting from scratch again.

Fraser: It's difficult to build that trust either in the organisation or in the supply chain, right?

Fraser: Contractors are going to look at a one year scheme and think, okay, I'll sift elsewhere. What we see, I don't know if it's the same in England, Neil, but what we see in Scotland, in my bit anyway, up in the North East, is every March, just before the financial year ends, you have council reps and contractors going door to door trying to get, you know, this money out because they're so ineffective at spending it and they're not sure how you mobilize year to year, not sure if you know the money's coming again next year, that there's this mad dash right at the end and nothing really gets done.

Fraser: So underspend is huge. Part of the conversation where we say local authorities need more resource, that is objectively true for most things. How those funds come out the door is just as important. One thing I wanted to pick up on, and this speaks to work that Becky and I did last year with Scottish government, was that local and sort of community level approaches to the transition more broadly, but thinking about retrofit and stuff within that.

Fraser: And what we hear all the time on the matter of trust is that actually there are organizations and institutions and people that already exist within lots of communities, not all communities necessarily. And they might be fuel poverty charities. They might be social organizations. And when we've spoken to them, they're often quite keen.

Fraser: You know, if, if retrofit is something that can help the people that they work with, then great, we're all for it. But we're already under resourced. We're already working on a, on a shoestring. We're already filling out applications every month to try and keep us going. So when, when we talk about funding schemes, Neil, do you think about sort of community level organizations as well as local authority based schemes?

Neil: Absolutely. And I, I think, um, the local authorities have probably the one that, that has like the strategic role in terms of managing the funding, but in terms of actual delivery out on the ground and on the front line, for me, that should be done through Local organizations, right? So charities, community based groups that already have a kind of reputation, positive reputation in the community.

Neil: They have those kinds of connections they're able to identify, or they already know the people that are vulnerable and should be targeted. But they, as you say, Fraser, they need to be funded in order to be able to do that. We don't want to have this kind of situation where we're kind of asking them to do more work voluntarily on top of what they already have to do.

Becky: I know that. In the work that you've been doing and with some of your other colleagues in the fuel poverty research network, you've looked at different sorts of programs that could be starting to kind of push these out, you know, around energy advice, social prescribing, warm homes on prescription. I'm just wondering if you could talk maybe a little bit about some of these sort of, to me, feel quite inevitable and new sorts of solutions to really driving that retrofit approach. Maybe, maybe you could share just, um, a little bit about what some of these models are and where you see things working.

Neil: Yeah, sure. Um, I was part of a research project and we were tracking an energy advice. program in greater Manchester area for a couple of years.

Neil: It was delivered by, um, the charity groundwork and it was in collaboration with the combined authority there. Um, and also an organization called agility eco, I think was the one that had the funding to administer it. And basically what this energy advice program involved was people would be referred to the service.

Neil: They could either self refer or more often they were referred by somebody that knew them. So that could be kind of an institution like someone working for a social housing organization, or it could be someone from a charity that they'd spoken to. They would be referred. They would then be contacted by the advice service and a one to one advisor visit would be arranged.

Neil: And then through that, the advisor would kind of go around to their home and basically have an assessment of their circumstances. And that would be holistic. So it would cover income. It would cover energy efficiency in the property. It would cover their engagement with the energy market. Um, and it would cover their kind of everyday behaviors relating to energy as well.

Neil: So they'd understand what the situation was and then they'd try and administer some tailored advice, um, based on, based on that individual's particular circumstances. So there would be things like helping them to engage with the energy market, was a really popular one. So many of the people that were visited by this scheme had never switched tariff or never switched, uh, energy provider before.

Neil: So they would be able to assist them in doing that. They could also install small energy efficiency measures. So things like LED light bulbs, draft proofing, uh, radiator reflector panels. They could install those as well, free of charge. It was included as part of the service. And they could also refer them in some cases on to the sort of larger energy efficiency or income maximization schemes as well.

Neil: So they make sure that they were claiming all the benefits they were entitled to, or they were, if they were able to claim funding for larger energy efficiency measures like wall insulation, they could refer them onto those services. So we found that that, that was relatively successful in terms of partially alleviating people's circumstances, but also it could rarely fully take people out of fuel poverty.

Neil: And one of the reasons was that the advice scheme was, was relatively short term. So it involved only a couple of visits over a six week period. And for people that are very, very challenging needs, for example, sometimes they need to be supported over a longer period of time.

Neil: So maybe a year or a couple of years. Um, and secondly, the advisors themselves are operating within a kind of wider system, right? So if the energy market's hugely unfair or, or there's a lack of funding available for energy efficiency, they can't do much to change that. They can, they can help people make the best.

Neil: Situation that they can within the existing system, but they can't change the system itself. So if the system itself is the problem, they can alleviate circumstances a bit, but they can't wholly change them. Okay,

Matt: I want to pick that point up. I'm going to redirect this, I think, possibly to Lucy and Nicola as well.

Matt: So the system is the problem jumping on that. There's been a question I have fired into the ether for many years now, which is why do successive governments. Not take retrofit seriously as a solution to both fuel poverty and low carbon. I don't know the answer to that. I have my theories, but I don't have the evidence to back these up.

Matt: So I'm not going to spout these out there. I'd like to hear from the professionals here and understand maybe why. Lucy, please. Why, why, why does parliament ignore this as a serious issue that needs resolving?

Lucy: I'm not sure I absolutely have the answer either, but I do think there's something about the invisibility of lives lived in poverty.

Lucy: I think people, poor people don't get listened to, they don't, they don't get a voice. And so, I mean, we talked about at the beginning of this, this talk, conversation about people experiencing mental health problems and kind of shutting down and having to concentrate on only the very basics. People don't necessarily have the energy to get out there and shout about, about what's going on.

Lucy: So there's, there's definitely something around voice and whether people actually get listened to that are experiencing these kinds of problems. You're right though, there are, there's not just fuel poverty and low carbon targets. being addressed here, but also health targets, right? So, which is where we started the conversation.

Lucy: And, and there are so many, there's so many opportunities for all these things. Speaking to the point around whether other countries are taking it seriously or not. So I'm involved in a European project called Well Based, which is about health and energy across six European cities in six different countries.

Lucy: Is it taken more seriously elsewhere? Well, I mean, the history of it is we started it. We started talking about this problem. Brendan Boardman brought it up, um, you know, last century. And we've, we've been talking about fuel property since, uh, well, the early 90s at the very, at the very, very latest, let's say.

Lucy: Um, So we've had a long and ongoing policy agenda around this in in the rest of the EU. It's a much more recent issue. And really what the way it came up was in conversations around transitions to low carbon futures. There was a realization that there's a potential for losers here. There's potential for people that will lose out.

Lucy: And then a sort of growing recognition that actually there's not just the potential, there's already people that are losing out through living in inadequate homes, through, you know, not being able to engage with the market because the market's stacked against them and so on. So I think, do other countries take it any more seriously than ours?

Lucy: Difficult to say, but I mean, you could look at Denmark, for instance, where the energy efficiency of each home is twice as good, on average, as the energy efficiency of each home in the, in the UK, and where there are policies dating back to, you know, the 1970s and 80s, which insisted that landlords invest in the quality of the home, and as a result, that their energy efficiency is twice as good as ours.

Lucy: And so I think, yes, Some countries do take it more seriously. Maybe the, in the, in the UK, there's this, there's also this thing about, uh, investing in infrastructure. I, I personally think we're terrible at investing in infrastructure in the UK. And if we see housing as infrastructure, that's one, one of the things.

Lucy: Why, why are we not doing it? Well, we're also not investing in public, public transport and so on and so on.

Matt: Here, here, you've got, you've got a lot of nodding heads. Nicola, please. Yeah.

Nicola: I think it's a really, really interesting question. And I agree with what Lucy said. When the UK started looking at fuel poverty, it was because so many people were dying in winter.

Nicola: So death rates in winter were just so much higher than in summer. And they looked, I think it was Healy who looked at the excess winter death rate in other European countries. And in Germany, for example, it was much lower in the Scandinavian countries. It was much lower. And they looked at insulation levels.

Nicola: So what happened in Germany was that after the second world war, There was no housing and they had just had to rebuild the homes from the rubble that was on, on the street. And so the quality of homes was really, really bad and they got mold. So the first regulations that introduced energy efficiency and insulation standards came into effect in the 1950s because of mold, because of the health issue.

Nicola: And then double glazing only came in the 70s when it was the energy crisis, you know, when there wasn't enough oil. I don't know. Why the Scandinavian countries had like a hundred percent insulation in the walls and the floor and 1990s already, if that was also, uh, triggered by health concerns. But yeah, I think in Germany it came from health.

Nicola: It was long before anyone was talking about carbon.

Matt: Neil, did you want to come in?

Neil: Yeah. On the question of why isn't it retrofit taken seriously by governments? Again, I don't really know the answer. I also have theories and agree with what Nikki and Lucy, and you said Matt, I think one of them is that it's not really an electoral battleground.

Neil: So at least in my lifetime, elections have never really been fought or won or lost on who's got the best energy efficiency retrofit program. It's always about NHS. Jobs and education, which of course are absolutely important, but it's not really kind of, I don't think politicians see it as something that's a priority because it's maybe not something that wins or loses and vote.

Neil: Secondly, I think there's kind of a bit of an obsession with sort of these big infrastructure, I'll say vanity projects, things like new nuclear power stations, right? It's kind of a really visible, or we have invested this huge amount of money. In a new nuclear power station Hinkley point C and it's something the government can kind of hang the hat on and say that they've done even though in comparison you could just spend that money more effectively retrofitting homes and got probably a bigger carbon reduction so yeah I think that's part of the picture as well is that you know the obsession is with kind of supply because it's sort of this symbolic thing of you know we've invested this in the new power station and it looks good.

Lucy: Lucy. I feel like this is the year we make this an electoral, electoral issue, isn't it? I feel like, you know, we, and, um, the Dutch election last year was, uh, was, there was, there was, energy was talked about a lot in the, in the Dutch, Dutch election. I feel like there's no reason why we shouldn't, it shouldn't be an election issue, given that everybody in the country understands it now.

Lucy: I mean, you know, one of the things I think has happened, over the last two years is, is the, this problem is spread at the income scale. Effectively people on more like medium incomes are now struggling to heat in the UK. And so it feels like a real moment that, that we can start talking about. We'll look at the massive benefits of, of energy retrofit on health, on cost of living, on fuel poverty and on climate change.

Lucy: There's so many things that we can talk about now.

Nicola: The other thing that I think is always in the way as well, it's often seen as an individual problem and it's around this term of poverty. There is stigma involved with the term. So, if, if you, if you call it fuel poverty or energy poverty, there are lots of people who, Wouldn't admit that, that they are struggling.

Nicola: So they're really in hidden energy poverty. They are full of pride or they, um, they have a quite frugal. They don't want anyone to know that they're struggling. So I think maybe it's around how we term it as well, so that other people can, can come together. And I think maybe linking it to the housing crisis, maybe a better way.

Nicola: Because housing is sort of part of infrastructure and then it's not my fault that I'm struggling, you know, it's the system's fault. I think there may be more recognition of housing crisis as a social problem rather than energy poverty as more of an individual household problem

Becky: we always like to end our conversations on a positive note, thinking about what we could do or what could be done to help improve things moving forward.

Becky: And so what I'd love is maybe for each of you just to share very briefly, your kind of thoughts on what you'd really like to see, whether that's, you know, new research that might be needed to fill the gaps or whether it's other, other elements around the kind of deployment process, new models and so on that can really help us tackle fuel poverty and, um, and improve our building stock and the health of our populations.

Becky: So I'm going to come to you in turn. So I might start with Lucy and then Nicola and then finally end with Neil. So Lucy.

Lucy: I think, um, I'm going big and I'm going to say a big investment program in public retrofit that is non competitive in the sense that, you know, Leeds city council doesn't have to compete against Manchester city council and so on.

Lucy: And I also with, with a really strong network between organizations to help people learn from each other, because I think the competitive nature of funding at the moment, it's really problematic when there's brilliant practice going on in some places and there's okay practice going on in others and, and, you know, they, the, the needs to be some, some inter institutional learning from, so that people could take best advantage from a really big pot of money.

Lucy: That's what I would like.

Nicola: I second what Lucy said and I will do the research because that means that there is a lot of retrofit happening and we can really have some excellent data and hopefully longitudinal data and interdisciplinary data that looks at neighborhoods, housing, health, and, uh, the socioeconomic circumstances around it, and also because there'll be a broad population that is going to benefit from the retrofit.

Nicola: The research won't be just on older people or, um, just on people with respiratory diseases, but everyone from all parts of life and ages with different verity and duration of exposure. To cold homes before, and then all benefiting from a comfortable home. And I think that would be a fantastic evidence space to then promote retrofits.

Nicola: Cause I'm just thinking it's going to be all positive if we do the ventilation, right, as well for other countries and then the UK could lead again, you know, that didn't come up with the sense of energy poverty. No, they also have worked out how to solve it.

Neil: Yeah, I agree with what they've said. I'll add something on the private rented sector, cause that's something I've been researching recently.

Neil: Um, and the private rented sector is probably is, well, it's the worst housing stock and it's also probably the most challenging to deal with as well. And my wish would be to have much stronger regulation around the private rented sector. We should rate the minimum energy efficiency standards to at least a C, which was going to happen and was then withdrawn.

Neil: There needs to be more funding available to landlords as well. So we have the carrot as well as the stick. And I think kind of broadly, we need to go back to seeing housing As a basic human rights and not something for people to make money on.

Becky: Thank you so much, Nicky, Lucy and Neil for joining us. We've really, really enjoyed this conversation.

Becky: And I think we've also got a few very important shout outs to the funders that have made all of this work possible.

Neil: Yes, please can we thank the Center for Research into Energy Demand Solutions who provided some of the funding for the research and the program of work that underpinned this podcast and also to the Energy Systems Catapult who were also involved in funding some of the work.

Becky: And Nikki, you've got a special thanks as well.

Nicola: Here's a special thanks to the British Academy that granted me a visiting fellowship, which allowed me to come and stay in the UK for five months to meet Lucy and Neil and to really learn about energy poverty and what is being done in, uh, in the UK, but also through the well based project that Lucy mentioned in five other countries around Europe.

Matt: And thank you to you, Nicola, for dialing in all the way from Australia.

Nicola: Oh, it was a real pleasure.

Matt: Thank you to the internet for making it possible.

Matt: You've been listening to Local Zero. And if you fancy helping the pod out, please leave us a little review on Spotify or Apple to help drive us up the charts.

Fraser: You could also help share your favorite episodes of the pod with your friends and family and get more people on board.

Becky: And do pop over to LinkedIn to continue the discussion over there.

Becky: Shares, comments, and messages are all warmly received.

Matt: And if LinkedIn isn't your thing, you're encouraged to email us at localzeropod at gmail. com if you have any broader questions, queries, or suggestions. But for now,

Fraser: thank you again, and goodbye. Goodbye.

Becky: Bye.

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