PART 2: Progress on the Scottish Government’s Priorities and Actions

The Periodic Report lists the Scottish Government’s 10 strategic priority areas and the 55 actions set out in the Fuel Poverty Strategy and reviews progress against them. The Panel has decided not to provide commentary on the progress given against each of the actions but instead to provide more thematic observations.

The Panel feels that the Scottish Government overstates the engagement with the Panel on the strategic priority actions. There has been little direct or structured discussion with the Panel on Scottish Government priorities of understanding how people with protected characteristics use energy or in tackling the stigma of fuel poverty. The Panel’s input to developing an outcome focussed monitoring and evaluation framework has not been sought in recent months.

The Panel identified weaknesses in the setting out of the 55 actions in the existing Strategy, in that the connection between the actions and the contribution they make to meeting the fuel poverty targets is not clear, the ownership and allocation of responsibilities for the actions is not set out and, for the most part, timeframes are not specified. It would appear that none of the few explicitly stated target dates for actions have been met.

In setting out progress against each action, the Periodic Report is severely limited by the lack of a monitoring and evaluation framework. The completion date of 2022 for the monitoring and evaluation framework has been missed and it is noted that there is no commitment to a new date. The Panel notes that a monitoring and evaluation framework has been developed and published for the Heat in Buildings Strategy[30], and that it is stated that it will support the development of the fuel poverty monitoring and evaluation framework.

In the absence of a monitoring and evaluation framework, the Periodic Report includes a classification to assess progress against each of the actions. The classification is not explained in the Periodic Report and the terminology used appears to overstate progress. The Panel has been provided with an explanation of the progress classifications for the 55 actions but our view of the lack of clarity has not changed. Many actions are listed as “delivered” but the evaluation criteria for this assessment is unclear. Critically, these delivery statements are also not accompanied with an assessment of the material impact of the action on fuel poverty outcomes. In addition, there is a lack of a timeline or next steps for each of the actions listed. While some are noted as “in progress” or “delayed”, the Periodic Report does not outline what action is being taken to progress these or by when, nor any sense of which actions are considered as high priority to deliver based on their expected impact on fuel poverty outcomes. It is not clear where responsibility for the different actions, many of which span multiple Scottish Government policy areas, lie. For the Panel, this represents a missed opportunity to give clarity on implementation of the Strategy beyond the Periodic Report timeframe or to capture lessons on what has worked, what has not, and how delivery across this diverse and extensive list of actions is being prioritised.

There is a clear lack of Scottish Government progress on research, particularly in relation to the weight of different drivers or impacts of new policy interventions on fuel poverty figures, as outlined throughout this document. Research into emerging policy changes (such as market reform), new models of delivering fuel poverty support and how energy is used in the home, can help inform both Scottish Government policymaking and the Panel in advising the Scottish Government. While the Panel has used some of its resource to commission research, this is by nature small-scale and does not cover the breadth of evidence, experience and insights emerging on fuel poverty as a whole.

There is a clear need for the Scottish Government to obtain deeper ongoing lived experience research, including with households who are benefitting from energy efficiency or fuel poverty support schemes. The lack of this to date is hindering understanding of how different interventions, funds or support packages are impacting people in their homes, or how the changing landscape on pricing and decarbonisation measures is impacting those in fuel poverty, making it challenging to understand how effective or sustainable different solutions are in practice. Greater understanding is particularly crucial for any interventions targeted at the drivers of low incomes, energy efficiency and energy use in the home, which are behaviourally complex and cannot be captured via data on spend or measures delivered alone.