We’re currently running a series of fuel poverty training sessions for staff at Clarion Housing Group, which recently formed from the merger of Circle Housing and Affinity Sutton to create one of Europe’s largest housing providers, with over 125,000 homes.

These sessions provide staff an understanding of how we use energy in the home plus overview of the causes and consequences of fuel poverty and what can be done to reduce this – both through fabric and heating improvements (which are the landlord’s responsibility) and through simple changes that tenants can make such as changing to LED lightbulbs, avoiding standby and learning how to programme their heating system efficiently.  Clarion has a network of trained energy advisors who can offer one-to-one advice and support, so all the frontline staff have to do is refer tenants on to these advisors.  As well as offering tips and advice about saving energy, advisors can also help tenants to change energy supplier and can help them apply for the Warm Homes Discount or an energy trust grant.

At the sessions, staff have the option to find out whether they themselves could save money through switching supplier; one of our participants found she could save over £650 a year by changing away from her ‘big six’ supplier to a smaller company.

If you’d like to talk to us about running fuel poverty training sessions for your staff or residents, just drop us a line – ej@cagconsult.co.uk