Improving the quality of fuel poverty measures, 6 December 2011
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Summary of Fuel Poverty open meeting, 6 December 2011 [Word, 15 KB]
Energy supplier issues measuring fuel poverty [PDF, 1539 KB]
Fuel Poverty - what is it and where are we? [PDF, 572 KB]
Measuring Fuel Poverty [PDF, 5007 KB]
Who are the Fuel Poor? [PDF, 8292 KB]
Speakers from the Government Statistical Service, academia, the not-for-profit sector and the private sector addressed the issue of ‘Improving the Quality of Fuel Poverty Measures’ from their different perspectives. They provided challenging critiques of the current approach to the definition and measurement of fuel poverty, in relation to a wide range of uses of these topical, high profile official statistics.
Damon Wingfield, from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), outlined the definition and measurement of fuel poverty, the interaction between the main drivers – fuel prices, energy use, and household income, and the trends in the numbers of households in fuel poverty. Damon talked about the developments made in recent years – such as a result of the National Statistics assessment process, and the introduction of estimates of local area modelled fuel poverty (supported by DECC’s new interactive mapping tool which allows users to map various energy and climate change statistics at local and small area geographies). He also outlined the main findings in the interim report of the ‘Hills Review’, including a potential new indicator.
David Gordon, Professor of Social Justice at the University of Bristol, noted that the UK's fuel poverty statistics are the most sophisticated in the world, but considered them to produce some unrealistic results, from a social perspective, as fuel poverty trends are mainly driven by the number of low income households: he supported the emphasis in the Hills Review on looking at income after taking account of housing costs, and also equivalised household income – that is, taking account of household size and composition. The failure to do so previously had resulted in the misallocation of resources to tackle fuel poverty.
Ian Preston, of the Centre for Sustainable Energy, maintained this focus on the reality of fuel poverty, summarising work on the actual use of energy by households, and describing the profile of ‘under-consumers’. He pointed out some of the problems that might arise from the use of an indicator of fuel poverty couched in terms of median levels of income and fuel costs, as suggested in the Hills Review interim report, and suggested an alternative approach that standardised fuel costs according to property size.
Mark Hornby, of E.On, talked about the problems that arose from inadequate data about the fuel poor to meet a very specific user need – that of targeting communications effectively and efficiently with the fuel poor in order to meet the ‘social spend’ element of E.On’s supply licence – and E.ON’s use of statistical modelling techniques to meet an administrative need.
Discussion was wide-ranging, and expert. Issues raised included: differences in the definition and measurement of fuel poverty in the different administrations of the UK; whether the measurement instruments (household surveys) were sufficient; and the need for access to low level data, such as that likely to be produced from smart meters. A unifying theme was the use of fuel poverty statistics and underlying data. Over and above the statutory requirement on government (DECC) to publish statistical estimates, a number of examples of types of use were identified, each with their own implications for ‘quality’:
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The formulation and monitoring of policy to reduce fuel poverty - Central Government
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The efficient targeting of resources to improve domestic energy efficiency – energy suppliers, and local authorities
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Informing householders’ decisions about the merits of investing in energy efficiency
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Understanding better the relationship between fuel and other forms of poverty, to improve policy advice – academia.
In this context it was noted that it is difficult to identify a single definition and indicator of fuel poverty that meets a variety of needs: indeed, the suggestion was made that the emphasis might more positively be on ‘fuel affordability’. But whatever the focus, any new indicator of fuel poverty would ideally have the following characteristics – it would support user needs; be understandable and accessible; offer consistency across different geographies and over time; avoid perverse incentives; and garner international support.
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