Official Statistics

Warm Home Discount statistics, 2023 to 2024

Published 20 June 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Summary findings

In 2023/24 the Warm Home Discount (WHD) Scheme delivered Core Group rebates of £150 to 3.14 million households in Great Britain ^{[footnote 1]}. The total spend on Core Group rebates was £471 million. In comparison with the equivalent parts of the scheme in 2022/23 this represents an estimated increase of around 646 thousand households receiving rebates and an increase of around £97 million of support. 

Warm Home Discount rebates by core group between 2011/12 and 2023/24, Great Britain

Note: Figures for the number of WHD rebates delivered between 2011/12 – 2021/22 come from Ofgem. Figures on the number of WHD rebates delivered from 2022/23 onwards are sourced from DWP administrative data. The England and Wales scheme was reformed in 2022/23 to extend and better target the rebate to those with the highest estimated energy costs. These figures do not cover the Broader Group in Scotland as this data is not collected via DWP.

• Core Group 1 (Known as Core Group in Scotland) provides rebates to all households in receipt of the guaranteed element of Pension Credit. This was given to 956 thousand pensioner households across Great Britain in 2023/24, representing 11 thousand more households than in 2022/23. In Scotland, 91 thousand households received the rebate as part of the Core Group, representing 9% of the Great Britain total.

• Core Group 2 provides rebates to low income households living in homes likely to have high energy costs. This was given to 2.19 million households across England and Wales in 2023/24, compared to 1.55 million households in the previous year.

• In 2023/24 the majority of households (2.89 million, 92%) received an automatic rebate based on data matching with a further 252 thousand receiving rebates after contacting the WHD Helpline.

• The regions in England and Wales with the highest rate of households receiving the WHD rebate in 2023/24 were in the North East (15.8%) followed by the North West (14.6%), Wales (14.6%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (14.1%). The regions receiving the lowest rate of WHD rebate were the South East (7.8%) and the South West (8.8%).

What you need to know about these statistics

The Warm Home Discount is a government scheme which places an obligation on larger energy suppliers to support low income vulnerable households with their energy costs in the form of direct rebates on their electricity bills. The England and Wales scheme was reformed in 2022/23 to extend and better target the rebate to those with the highest estimated energy costs. These households each received a rebate of £150.

These are Official Statistics in Development, which are undergoing an evaluation process prior to being published as official statistics. We welcome user feedback on this release of WHD statistics following last year’s reform of the scheme and are working with data providers to improve the timeliness of this release.

Accompanying tables

Tables showing the number of households receiving WHD are available here. The tables show the delivery of WHD at local area level, by dwelling type and household composition together with the share of households receiving a rebate via the helpline and comparison with some historic data from earlier scheme years. Additionally, alongside the main WHD tables, WHD trends tables have been included in the 2024 statistical release, showing the number of households receiving WHD as recorded via administrative data, from 2022/23 onwards.

1. Introduction

The Warm Home Discount was introduced in 2011 with the scheme administered by energy suppliers and regulated by Ofgem. Reports on the number of households receiving the rebate in previous years were published by Ofgem. A summary of the number of rebates provided and value of those rebates is reported in table 17.

In 2021/22, prior to reform, 2.32 million households in Great Britain received a rebate of £140. Of these 969,000 households were in the Core Group (equivalent to the new Core Group 1 in England and Wales and Core Group in Scotland) and 1.35 million households were within the Broader Group of vulnerable households of which around 200 thousand households were in Scotland. Together these households received £325 million with a further £35 million spent across 40 Industry Initiatives to support vulnerable households.

The changes made to the England and Wales scheme in 2022/23 now determine the recipients of the scheme primarily using administrative data. These changes enabled the production of these statistics that provide more detail on the households receiving the rebate. To administer the scheme, households are identified primarily based on data held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on those receiving certain means-tested benefits or tax credits. Where applicable (for Core Group 2 outlined below), this data is then matched with energy costs derived from Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Council Tax Valuation Lists to identify households likely to have the highest energy costs. Additional data is obtained via the WHD helpline where households who consider that they meet the eligibility criteria can seek to obtain the rebate.

In 2022/23 there was an underspend on WHD as fewer eligible households were identified than expected, and fewer households than expected contacted the eligibility helpline. Therefore, in 2023/24 the eligibility criteria were made more generous by lowering the threshold at which a property is deemed to have “high energy costs”, making more households eligible to receive a Core Group 2 rebate. More information on changes to the eligibility requirements for the England and Wales scheme is available here.

This release presents statistics on the following WHD eligibility groups:

Core Group 1 supports pensioners on a low income who are receiving the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit. This applies to households in Great Britain and is equivalent to the Core Group of earlier phases of the scheme. It is known as Core Group in Scotland.

Core Group 2 supports working age low income households receiving eligible benefits AND assessed as living in a home with high energy costs. The high costs element is determined based on the VOA data held for the address of the household based on the type, age and size of dwelling. The specific criteria used to model this are updated on an ongoing basis by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. This aspect of the scheme only applies in England and Wales and replaces the Broader Group of the previous phase of the scheme.

There is a separate WHD scheme in Scotland. While there is a group equivalent to Core Group 1 in Scotland, known as the Core Group, there is no Core Group 2. Instead, low-income and vulnerable households apply to their energy supplier for a rebate as part of the Broader Group. As the Government does not have household-level data on the Broader Group rebates, this group is not part of these statistics.  In 2022/23, approximately 168 thousand households received the WHD rebate as part of the Scottish Broader Group, representing a total expenditure of £25 million.

2. WHD delivery rates by area

Overall, in England and Wales, 11.5% of households received the WHD rebate, up from 9.1% in 2022/23, an increase expected in line with the changes to scheme eligibility criteria for this year. There was a high level of variation in the rates of WHD between regions. In the case of Scotland, the figures in this report are restricted to the Core Group; Broader Group Scotland rebates and spend are not included in these statistics.

The highest regional rates of WHD in 2023/24 were in the North East (15.8%) followed by the North West (14.6%), Wales (14.6%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (14.1%). The regions receiving the lowest rate of WHD rebate were the South East (7.8%) and the South West (8.8%).

The level of regional variability is affected by the share of eligible households and is a consistent pattern with the fuel poverty statistics with higher rates of fuel poverty in northern regions due to lower incomes. Fuel poverty statistics for England are available here.

Map 1: Proportion of households receiving Warm Home Discount in Core Groups, by Local Authority, 2023/24^{[footnote 2]}

The share of households receiving WHD in urban areas was 12.2% (up from 9.5% in 2022/23), higher than semi-rural areas at 9.9% and rural areas at 7.0% (up from 8.0% and 6.2% in 2022/23, respectively). While homes in rural areas are more likely to have higher energy costs, they are less likely to qualify for eligible benefits. Analysis for data in Scotland has been excluded from this section since a different classification of rurality is used in Scotland and only part of the scheme covers Scotland.

Figure 1: Percentage of households receiving Warm Home Discount, by Rurality, 2023/24 (England and Wales)

3. WHD delivery rates by dwelling types

In this section data for Scotland has been excluded since the data classification used is based on data from the Valuation Office Agency for England and Wales. This is consistent with the data linking used to identify eligibility of households in Core Group 2 with high energy costs. While these comparisons cover WHD delivered in both core groups, the patterns they show are driven by Core Group 2, where larger and older homes are more likely to meet the high costs eligibility.

Figure 2 shows the share of households receiving WHD by dwelling type. This is a mixed pattern with lower rates for detached homes (4.8%) reflecting their lower likelihood of receiving eligible benefits and lower rates for flats (7.6%) reflecting their lower likelihood of meeting the high costs eligibility of Core Group 2.

Figure 2: Percentage of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by dwelling type (England and Wales)

Figure 3 shows the share of households by dwelling age receiving WHD. This shows a trend with households living in older properties more likely to receive the rebate. This is driven by the trend within Core Group 2 with older properties generally having higher energy costs. The highest rate of WHD was 15.7% (for properties build 1919 to 1944) compared with 2.1% for properties build post 2012.

Figure 3: Percentage of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by dwelling age (England and Wales)

Figure 4 shows the share of households by floor area receiving WHD. The variation will be driven by competing drivers within households; whereby those that meet the Core Group 2 high costs eligibility criteria are more likely to be in larger properties, but households on lower incomes and which receive qualifying benefits are less likely to live in larger homes.

Figure 4: Percentage of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by floor area (England and Wales)

Figure 5 shows the share of households receiving WHD by tenure. The highest rate of WHD was in social housing (22.7%) compared with private rented (10.2%)and owner occupied (7.2% Overall, social housing accounted for around 37% of all rebates.

Figure 5: Percentage of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by tenure (Great Britain)

Note: Experian’s Household Directory data estimates household characteristics utilising various survey and administrative sources. For WHD statistical breakdowns, VOA data is primarily utilised due to its robustness and completeness. As the VOA data lacked tenure information, Experian data was utilised as a substitute.

4. WHD recipients by household characteristics

The following analysis shows the type of households receiving WHD based on the benefits they receive, benefit unit, and age of the lead beneficiary.

Figure 6 displays the principal benefit that determines if a household qualifies for the WHD. Note, if a household is in receipt of multiple benefits, these are not shown here, and only the principal benefit which determined their eligibility for the scheme.  If a household receives the guaranteed part of the pension credit, it qualifies as part of Core Group 1. Overall, 30% of households were eligible through Core Group 1. Households in receipt of other benefits qualify under Core Group 2. Of these households, 63% were in receipt of Universal Credit, followed by Child or Working Tax Credit (15%), and Income-based Employment and Support Allowance (14%). Other benefits are as per their order in the chart below.

Figure 6: Share of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by benefit eligibility (Great Britain)

Eligibility for means tested benefits is determined based on a benefit unit (defined as a single adult or a married/cohabiting couple and any dependent children). Where the benefit unit includes a couple, the age could be either partner.

Overall, 1.1 million households (35%) which received WHD in 2023/24 had a beneficiary aged 66+, of which 956 thousand (86%) are eligible through Core Group 1. A further 916 thousand households (29%) had a beneficiary aged 46-65 and 1.01 million households (32%) aged 26-45. Just 112 thousand households (4%) were aged 25 or under.

The variability by age reflects both the number of households receiving eligible benefits together with the type of housing these households live in.

Figure 7: Number of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by age of lead beneficiary (Great Britain)

Of the 3.14 million households receiving WHD, 1.24 million (39.4%) were households with dependent child(ren), up from 770 thousand (30.9%) in 2022/23. Within Core Group 2, 57% of WHD recipients were households with dependant child(ren).

Figure 8: Number of households receiving Warm Home Discount rebates in 2023/24 by type of benefit unit (Great Britain)

Methodology

The Warm Home Discount statistics have been published as Official Statistics in Development following reform of the England and Wales scheme for 2022/23 alongside a methodology handbook.

Annex: Further information

Related data

The overall reports on the final delivery of the Warm Home Discount Scheme are published by Ofgem. These reports show the number of rebates delivered in previous scheme years and will report the overall final delivery of the 2023/24 scheme year later in the year. This report is used for Ofgem’s final reconciliation, which is the process of redistributing the costs of the scheme across energy suppliers so that each supplier pays a fair share of the costs.

Official Statistics in Development

These statistics are deemed Official Statistics in Development as work is ongoing to improve the quality and timeliness of these statistics. The WHD scheme was reformed for the 2022/23 scheme and new administrative data became available through that which has been used now for two years to produce these statistics.

Through close working with the Department for Work and Pensions, data for both the matched allocations and allocations from the Helpline have been delivered to an improved timetable. The possibility of producing two publications a year is being explored, where the next publication reporting the results from the latest matched data would become available towards the end of 2024 or early 2025 and the full data reported in Summer 2025, providing more frequent and timely updates on the scheme.

The quality and completeness of the data is also a key consideration. Much of the value of these statistics is acquired through linking to other data sources to provide further breakdown by property characteristics, for example Valuation Office Agency data. These rely on linking to Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). Approximately 1.2% of records do not match the DWP data, and we are working with DWP on ways to improve the completeness of these data.  Improvements to our validation procedures and data processing methods have increased data quality. More details on these improvements can be found in the accompanying WHD methodology note.

A comparison between these official statistics and the final Ofgem counts can be found in the accompanying tables (Table 17). We are encouraged that for 2022/23 the differences are small, but we will continue to monitor these and undertake further analysis to understand any significant differences. The differences between the figures in the Ofgem report and the figures from DWP reflect the two different administrative sources. Ofgem uses data directly from energy suppliers and these published statistics are based on data from DWP. The causes of these minor differences are discussed further in the accompanying methodology note.

It is crucial we engage with users to ensure the statistics are suitable to meet their needs. During our ongoing development of these statistics, we will collaborate with expert users to understand how these statistics are used, and to test the suitability of the statistical methods and outputs. We invite comments via fuelpoverty@energysecurity.gov.uk. We aim to complete these steps to publish as official statistics prior to our next publication in Winter 2024.

Revisions policy

The Department’s statistical revisions policy sets out the revisions policy for these statistics, which has been developed in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.

User engagement

Users are encouraged to provide comments and feedback on how these statistics are used and how well they meet user needs. Comments on any issues relating to this statistical release are welcomed and should be sent to: fuelpoverty@energysecurity.gov.uk

The Department’s statement on statistical public engagement and data standards sets out the department’s commitments on public engagement and data standards as outlined by the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Pre-release access to statistics

Some ministers and officials receive access to these Official Statistics up to 24 hours before release. Details of the arrangements for doing this and a list of the ministers and officials that receive pre-release access to these statistics can be found in the Department’s statement of compliance with the Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008.

Contact

Responsible statistician: Georgina Smalldridge
Email: fuelpoverty@energysecurity.gov.uk
Media enquiries: 020 7215 1000
Public enquiries: 07741701232

1. Broader Group Scotland rebates and spend are not included in the statistics and are additional to these figures. The scheme does not cover Northern Ireland. ↩

2. Figures for Scotland only cover households receiving WHD through Core Group. These figures therefore only represent part of the WHD scheme in Scotland. ↩