The purpose of this work has been to quantify the impact of Warm Front on the decent homes target.

The study uses the Warm Front database to assess the potential contribution of the Warm Front scheme to achieving the government’s Decent Homes target, including:

In 2002 the Government set a target to increase the proportion of vulnerable private sector households living in decent homes.

A home is classed as decent if:

Each of these criteria is defined in detail in guidance published by Communities and Local Government. The impact of the Warm Home programme (which provides grants for packages of heating and insulation measures to households in the owner-occupied and private rented sectors) in implementing these targets is assessed by this piece of research.

The analysis is based on two separate databases of Warm Front grant recipients provided by Eaga Partnership and Powergen, who between them were responsible for managing the scheme across the whole of England (until mid-2005).

 Using the information contained in this database, it has been possible to identify those grant recipients who are living in homes that do not meet the Decent Homes Standard on the thermal comfort criterion.

Over 800,000 vulnerable private sector households in England received a Warm Front grant. Just under half of all these grants went on homes failing on the thermal comfort criterion and less than a fifth of all grant recipients were still living on non-decent homes post-Warm Front.

Over the first five years of the scheme, nearly 200,000 dwellings were made decent as a direct result of the measures installed under the scheme. The effectiveness of the scheme is due in part to the way the scheme has been targeted with all Warm Front recipients falling into the “vulnerable” category.

Warm Front was significantly greater for older people in receipt of means-tested benefits. The proportion of homes made decent is relatively low for flats.

Communities and Local Government
Phone: +44 20 7944 4400
Contactus@communities.gsi.gov.uk

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21/02/2007

Communities and Local Government

research

Urban Policy > Housing

Housing quality