How to get CRF support to oil-heated households on low incomes quickly and efficiently

This week the government announced a top up to local authority Crisis and Resilience Fund allocations to help families meet the cost of rising home heating oil caused by the war in Iran.

Households using other fuels are currently protected by the energy price cap, and thankfully, the demand for energy is expected to fall as we move into spring and summer.

The funding has been allocated to 54 local authorities across the UK, based on the prevalence of heating oil as mapped across the UK.

Local authorities can allocate the extra funding immediately and don’t need to wait until the Crisis and Resilience Fund officially starts on Wednesday 1 April.

Local authorities have received confirmation of their allocations and are awaiting further guidance from DWP on delivery. The initial communication indicates that targeted approaches and streamlined application processes are expected to be valid routes to support households.

Rising oil prices will affect many households across the UK, particularly those on low incomes that rely on oil heating. While not the majority, this group faces yet another difficult cost of living shock.

Indicative market data from BoilerJuice suggests that heating oil prices have increased sharply in recent weeks, rising from around 60 pence per litre in early February to around 129 pence per litre in mid-March. This kind of sharp increase is similar to what was seen after the start of the war in Ukraine, showing how quickly heating oil prices can rise.

This represents an increase of approximately 70 pence per litre. For households that rely on heating oil, and are not connected to the gas grid, this can translate into a substantial rise in annual costs.

A typical household using heating oil consumes around 1,200 to 2,000 litres per year. Based on this range, the recent increase in prices could add approximately £840 to £1,400 per year to heating costs. Please note that these figures are indicative and based on quoted market prices, rather than actual household spending.

In practice, this increase is likely to be felt most by households in rural and off-grid areas, where alternatives are limited and energy costs already make up a larger share of disposable income.

However, not everyone will know support is available. Without work to identify low income households that are reliant on oil-fired heating, only those who know about the Crisis and Resilience Fund, and how to access it, will be supported.

Similarly, if local authorities do not know which households in their area rely on heating oil, they cannot effectively target support to the right people.

Policy in Practice believes in the power of using administrative data to support households who are in crisis or struggling with the cost of living. Since the announcement of the additional funding we have been working with our local authority partners to develop a data driven approach for local authorities.

Within our LIFT analytics platform, used by over 120 local authorities across the UK, we linked EPC data and census fuel data with benefits administration records to gain deeper insight into the fuel types used by these households.

This enabled us to create a list of households that rely on heating oil for local authorities to target the extra Crisis and Resilience Fund support to.

Using this analysis as a foundation, local authorities can apply additional filters within LIFT, such as disability status or household composition, to further refine the target list. This allows councils to follow DWP guidance by pinpointing those with intersecting vulnerabilities and ensuring support reaches the most at-risk residents. This methodology has been shared with the DWP, who in turn shared it with councils as a leading example of good practice.

How homes are heated, by council area

Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS), Census 2021: how homes are heated in your area (2023)
Note: We used Census 2021 data on central heating to identify households without heating information in administrative data and assess their likelihood of relying on oil

South Cambridgeshire District Council is at the vanguard of using its data to proactively identify and target support to households on low incomes, having secured over £4 million in unclaimed support for residents using LIFT.

Following the DWP and HMT announcement of additional CRF funding for households using oil heating, South Cambridgeshire and the team at Policy in Practice mobilised quickly to identify those most likely to benefit from this targeted support.

Using LIFT, we identified 6,526 low income households currently receiving support including Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Universal Credit and Pension Credit. These records were then matched to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data to identify the type of heating used in each property.

This analysis found that:

• 5,158 households (79%) were successfully matched to EPC data
• Of these, 235 households (5%) were identified as relying on oil-based heating

To extend coverage beyond households with EPC matches, we also incorporated Census-based information. This allowed us to include an additional 1,365 households that were highly likely to be heated by oil.

Combining multiple energy and benefits datasets in this way allowed the council to:

• Identify eligible households with high confidence using EPC data
• Extend support more widely to households who are likely to be affected, even where direct data is not available

Once funding has been finalised, South Cambridgeshire DC will look to proactively contact the households identified via SMS, email, and letter to support them in accessing the additional help available.

LIFT’s analytics also enable the council to prioritise households most at risk of financial hardship, supporting a more targeted and proactive approach to crisis support, alongside longer term interventions to improve financial resilience.

1. Councils already using LIFT: contact your Client Services manager to run a heating oil campaign in your area now
2. Councils not yet using LIFT: book a demo of the platform and discuss how to get started
3. Read more CRF-related case studies