The National Audit Office (NAO) has published its findings on the Warm Front Grants Scheme which provides help with heating and insulation improvements. Grants are available to:

• householders who are aged 60 or over
• disabled people and
• families with children

who own or privately rent their home and are getting a qualifying benefit.

Their research focused on:

• the extent to which the scheme has helped those in fuel poverty
• the costs of the work done and
• The Department of Energy and Climate Changes contract with EAGA.

EAGA are the company who manage the scheme on the department's behalf. The government classifies a household in fuel poverty when it needs to spend more than ten percent of its annual income on energy costs. Older people are more likley to be affected by fuel poverty than any other group.

The NAO found that customer satisfaction was high with the scheme and judged against a number of criteria the scheme was good value for money. However grants are not sufficently targetted at vunerable households in fuel poverty and where grants do not cover the full cost of the work households unable to pay the remainder are excluded from the scheme.

The report makes a number of recommendations including:

• excluding energy efficient properties from the scheme and
• that the government should ensure that the various different energy efficiency schemes, including Warm Front, are co-ordinated to avoid duplication.

The National Audit Office audits the accounts of all central government departments and agencies, as well as a wide range of other public bodies, and reports to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which they have to use public money. Their report: The Warm Front Scheme can be downloaded from:

 http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/the_warm_front_scheme.aspx