The Government's 2019 manifesto committed £3.8bn to a Social
Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) over a 10-year period, which
will provide funding to encourage and enable social housing
providers to accelerate their decarbonisation plans.
The fund aims to upgrade a significant amount of the social
housing stock currently below EPC rating C up to that
standard, delivering warmer and more energy-efficient homes,
reducing carbon emissions and bills, and tackling fuel poverty as
well as supporting green jobs. The Department for Business, Energy
and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will deliver the fund and has also
created a technical assistance facility (TAF) to support social
landlords in accessing funding and developing energy performance
improvement plans.
To date BEIS have launched two bidding rounds for applications
for SHDF funding - the SHDF Demonstrator and SHDF Wave 1 Competition - applications
for the later close on 15 October 2021.
In November 2020, BEIS commissioned research with
social housing providers to develop understanding of social housing
providers' ambition for energy performance retrofit, current plans
for carrying out retrofit on their stock, the current state of
retrofit and key issues associated with working with tenants and
leaseholders in mixed-tenure stock.
The project took place between November 2020 and May 2021.
Primary research data was collected through semi-structured
interviews with 39 providers (Housing associations & local
authorities) and a survey with 449 providers.
Announcing the results of the research BEIS reported that the
research found:
- energy efficiency improvements are not often the primary
motivator for improving stock, but many providers are seeking to
improve energy performance in the future
- social housing tenants do not generally refuse to allow
retrofit work in their homes - 52% of social housing providers
report tenants never refuse work
- greater effort is required by social housing providers to
sufficiently engage with future challenges of retrofitting
mixed-tenure housing stock, that is buildings containing both
social rented and privately-owned dwellings. Half (49%) of
providers who have carried out energy performance improvement work
on their stock included mixed-tenure units
- the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is perceived
positively: 78% of providers were likely to apply, of which 90%
would seek assistance from the Technical Assistance Facility
(TAF)
However, the findings of the research also highlighted a number
of potential barriers to success:
- This research identified that the energy performance of
providers' housing stock is typically a secondary consideration in
planned maintenance works. Respondents highlighted that the main
barriers experienced in incorporating broader energy performance
objectives into maintenance plans were related to a lack of
long-term external funding and attempting to keep resident
disruption to a minimum.
- Financial barriers were commonly regarded as the principal
barrier in meeting energy performance targets in future: 42% of all
providers identified a lack of budget (this was a particular
concern for small providers), while 36% identified a lack of
internal skills or experience in applying for funding.
- One in eight (12%) providers noted that tenants had
specifically resisted activities that were part of the provider's
energy performance improvement plan. Providers had typically looked
to overcome tenant refusal through: targeted communications
containing case studies of previous work; minimising disruption by
integrating one-off activities with their continuous maintenance
programme, undertaking external work first to ensure buy-in; and
educating tenants on the benefits of energy performance
improvements.
- Just over one in ten providers (11%) with mixed tenure stock
reported that the nature of this mixed stock had a high or fairly
high impact on the amount of work they did to improve energy
performance. This included work being cancelled, altered or
delayed. Over half (53%) of providers with properties within mixed
tenure developments thought that recouping costs from leaseholds
and shared owners would be a barrier to carrying out energy
performance works.
- Close to half (48%) of providers considered that government
policy regarding energy performance initiatives was generally
unclear. Small providers in particular found it difficult to engage
with policy and felt that communications were not sufficiently
targeted at them.
- The qualitative interviews revealed that providers perceived
financial support as a key mechanism to enable them to achieve and
expand on their energy performance plans, and this underpinned
their enthusiasm towards the SHDF. There were three broad factors
that might impact likelihood to apply: the complexity and
timescales of the application process, the eligibility criteria of
the fund, and the amount of available funding.
A copy of the full report and research
findings is available to download from the Government
website.