PRESS RELEASE

5 January 2009

PR/05/08/09

Warm Home Scheme Leaves Families in the Cold

At least thirty five percent of all homes in Northern Ireland are in fuel poverty. That is one of the shock findings in the Public Accounts Committee’s report on the Warm Homes Scheme.

The Report, which investigated the Department for Social Development’s management of the scheme during 2006, found that although the scheme, has made a positive contribution to some 60,000 vulnerable families, it also had significant failings.

Chairperson of the Committee, Paul Maskey MLA said, “One of the issues that we are particularly concerned with is that the Department has no means of identifying individual households in fuel poverty. That being said, the Warm Homes is a popular scheme and is valued greatly by those it helps.

“One of the findings from the Report is that the Scheme does not always help those most in need. Currently, the eligibility criteria exclude those in work but receiving low pay, who are likely to be fuel poor. We are pleased, therefore, that the Department has proposed changes to the eligibility criteria to ensure that grants are better targeted.”

The Committee also found that while the Scheme had enabled more than 60,000 families to improve home energy efficiency, the target of eliminating fuel poverty by 2010 now appears impossible to achieve.

Commenting on this, Paul Maskey said, “The recent credit crunch and the huge hikes in utility costs undoubtedly have increased the number of households who now find themselves in fuel poverty. As a result, many, including some of the most vulnerable in our society, will continue to experience fuel poverty.

“Without tackling household incomes or fuel prices, the Warm Homes Scheme cannot really be effective.

“In addition, the Committee noted that almost half of rural families are in fuel poverty and we are keen to ensure that they are not neglected.

“There is clearly scope to more closely match expenditure to need. The Committee welcomes the Department’s proposal to introduce a target within Warm Homes for grants provided to rural areas.

“No one should have to decide between eating and heating this winter.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• Fuel poverty is the inability to heat a home to an acceptable level for reasons of cost. A household is in fuel poverty if, in order to maintain an acceptable level of temperature throughout the home, the occupants would have to spend more than 10 per cent of their income on all household fuel use.

• The Warm Homes Scheme (the Scheme), established by the Department in July 2001, provides a range of home insulation measures to vulnerable households in the owner occupied and private rented sectors. Warm Homes Plus, an extension of Warm Homes, provides for new heating systems as well as insulation measures to qualifying householders aged over 60 years old.

• The Committee concluded that the Department failed in its responsibility to manage the Warm Homes Scheme effectively. It is not convinced by the use of ‘harmonised prices ’ which is the practice of setting contract prices at the average tender price, and is alarmed at the escalating costs of heating systems which had increased by some 60 to 80 per cent over the period of the Scheme. It was disappointed with the Department’s view that long running failings to deliver installations to the required specification and within target times were not regarded as significant failures in performance.

• The Committee, in their Report, has called on the Department to give serious consideration to the regulation of the oil industry, given that an estimated 70 per cent of homes in Northern use oil as their primary source of heating.

• Standing Orders under Section 60(3) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 have provided for the establishment of the Public Accounts Committee (the Committee). The main statutory function of the Committee is to consider accounts and the reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland (C&AG) laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly.

• The C&AG is head of the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) and is empowered to investigate any area of expenditure and has a statutory right of access to all files and papers in Departments and public bodies.

The PAC Committee members are:-

Alliance	Mr Trevor Lunn
Democratic Unionist Party	Mr Jim Shannon 6
	Mr Jonathan Craig
	Mr George Robinson 7
	Mr Jim Wells 3,4,5
Sinn Fein	Mr Paul Maskey (Chairperson) 2
	Mr Mitchel McLaughlin
Social Democratic and Labour Party	Mr John Dallat
	Mr Thomas Burns 1
Ulster Unionist Party	Mr Roy Beggs (Deputy Chairperson)
Progressive Unionist Party	Ms Dawn Purvis

1 With effect from 04 March 2008 Mr Thomas Burns replaced Mr Patsy McGlone.
2 With effect from 20 May 2008 Mr Paul Maskey replaced Mr John O'Dowd.
3 With effect from 1 October 2007 Mr Mickey Brady replaced Mr Willie Clarke.
4 With effect from 21 January 2008 Mr Ian McCrea replaced Mr Mickey Brady.
5 With effect from Tuesday 27 May 08 Mr Jim Wells replaced Mr Ian McCrea.
6 With effect from Monday, 15 September 08 Mr Shannon replaced Mr David Hilditch.
7 With effect from Monday, 15 September 08 Mr Robinson replaced Mr Simon Hamilton

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