Citizens Advice: Fuel poverty action programme

Teresa Perchard, Director of Public Policy at Citizens Advice said: "The fuel poverty action programme published today by Ofgem represents a serious commitment from the fuel industry, government and regulators to do more to tackle the growing and pernicious problem of fuel poverty. With an estimated 4.5 million people now in fuel poverty and rising numbers struggling to pay their bills all agencies need to play a part to resolve this. We are pleased to be rolling out the Energy Best Deal campaign, providing local financial education and information sessions to low income households, on a national scale.

"In the first two months of this year bureaux saw an 11% increase in the number of fuel debt cases they were seeing compared to the same period last year. Yet the recent Energy Best Deal pilot we ran with Ofgem in Devon and Cornwall, Yorkshire and Wales revealed how much people could save simply by switching providers, tariffs or moving off a pre-payment meter, once they had access to clear information from a trusted source and we are looking forward to taking this project forward.

"However there is still much more that needs to be done to help hard to reach parts of the community. In addition to raising awareness about social tariffs and disseminating information about all the help that is available, intermediary help needs to be made available to the most vulnerable customers who may not have internet access, need help using a telephone or simply find the process of switching or applying for help daunting."