Fuel poverty and disabled people: sustaining a warm home in the context of welfare reform

Aims Funded by Eaga Charitable Trust to investigate: The existing evidence base on the relationship between fuel poverty and disabled people The needs of disabled people living in fuel poor households Policy implications in the context of welfare reform

Methods Literature review; Statistical analysis of the English Housing Survey (EHS), using the 10 per cent and Low Income High Cost (LIHC) measures of fuel poverty; Qualitative interviews with: - Sixteen stakeholders working in agencies that address fuel poverty; - Nineteen interviews with disabled people and the parents of disabled children.

Findings Existing evidence points to: Highly varied and varying needs associated with specific conditions or impairments Need for higher temperatures Need for longer periods of warmth Need for additional energy use

Paying for energy I know that I can’t pay for heating on all the time and it’s just a really difficult thing to explain to friends who work. I say, it’s when you’ve got no choice but to stay in, and if you can’t be physically active, because that’s my problem, there’s a limit to how much I can physically do. So, have to sit and rest, you just get so cold, which is something I never used to notice before I got it, because I was always doing something.

Paying for energy Managing hot weather: ‘My biggest problem to be honest with you, most of the year is hot. One of the symptoms of the cancer I have is a hormone imbalance, which produces hot, sweaty flushes. That’s not helped by the morphine, so the biggest thing I use is the water-cooled air conditioner unit in the bedroom’.

Changes to household budgets Welfare reform and fuel poverty policy: - impact of changes to social security - eligibility for the Warm Home Discount Scheme

Paying the rent ‘ It’s been a struggle to pay it. I think the other thing that’s really concerning me is the fact that local councils now – mine included – are for the first time ever using DLA [Disability Living Allowance] payments as income. It’s no longer protected money so they’re expecting.. the payments for the council tax and the bedroom tax to come out of my DLA, which obviously then means I can’t afford to pay for the essential stuff that I need for my health’

Paying for Council tax ‘It’s not like with the gas or electric - you can sort of, to a small amount, you can try and save it. But with that [council tax], there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s the things that you’re powerless to change, that’s the hardest things to deal with. With things like that, and then with the amounts they go up. Same with the water rates. It just goes up by so much every year’.

Economising ‘I think the energy bills, with ill health, and added debt, and the pressure of that, makes things, you know - the sum is far greater than the part….. You know, a nine per cent increase to me is ten pounds. And that ten pounds a month is not ‘I’ll be buying less wine, or won’t be going out any more’. That’s ten pounds where I have to say ‘Right, when can I get away with putting the heating on’, you know? The thermostat, if [name of child] is not here, my son, the thermostat’s never above fifteen’.

Paying for energy Pre-payment meters: - high relative cost - mixed views on managing budgets - self-disconnection

Fuel poverty and tenure Levels of energy efficiency in the private rented sector

Financial support Tailoring financial support for disabled people - Identifying people who need help at the local level - Access to short term emergency funding - Making the case to commissioners for financial support

Conclusions ‘We’ve even got to a point last winter…I was already getting quite ill by then…friends have bought me coal for my birthday’

Conclusions ‘ It’s far more important for the government to recognise the extra costs of disability, and for all these agencies to stop trying to take their slice of the cake, which just leaves people with no income to look after themselves properly’ (Agency).

Thank you Carolyn Snell, Mark Bevan and Harriet Thomson