Trust in me

When LGE last heard from the Energy Saving Trust (EST) it was forging ahead with plans to open a network of regional advice centres across the UK. Chris Newbould caught up with Andy Deacon, head of local authority services, to find out how it’s going.

As an organisation that prides itself on its work direct with communities, the EST is keen to be in close contact with those communities as much as possible, and to this end its regional centres are now very much up and running. Deacon explains: “Over the last couple of years we’ve been rolling out a total of 21 locally-based advice centres throughout the UK, all accessed through the same central advice number, but in a position to offer advice with the local knowledge required.

“Each advice centre has advisors in specialist posts covering areas like community outreach and local authority work, and we work with the community at every level, from the authority through faith groups and community groups, right down to individuals who may come to us seeking advice about energy efficiency.”

Typically EST’s work with communities may involve simply identifying carbon emissions and ways to reduce them, or helping with the process of obtaining planning permission to build the infrastructure to reduce emissions. The trust does also get involved with the physical side of cutting carbon however,
for example by giving out smart meters to help customers identify and reduce their energy usage, or referring customers to companies that can install insulation and other energy efficient products.

In Oxford and Milton Keynes, the EST has recently run pilots in an attempt to address a number of particularly hard to treat homes. The aim has been to encourage householders to complete a survey on the energy performance of their home, offer a home energy check and identify where improvements can be made, what grants may be available from local authorities or other sources for improvements such as insulation or microgeneration technology and make early stage recommendations about ways to improve energy efficiency.

The trust also works closely with local authorities themselves. Each year it takes on about 50 authorities which then receive one-to-one support from EST, as Deacon explains: “Following our annual recruitment process, each successful authority gets a named advisor who works as their dedicated consultant,” he says. “We tend to work with authorities that don’t yet have a carbon reduction strategy, and can work with them for anything up to two years in order to deliver a carbon reduction plan.

While the EST tends to focus on homes, as well as offering green fleet reviews and helping to improve the energy efficiency of authorities’ fleet and transport policies, it also works closely with the Carbon Trust and Salix Finance, who can provide advice and funding for estate work by local authorities. Where EST may not be able to help councils with this type of work, it is happy to refer them to these organisations.

Its housing programme, meanwhile, focuses on maximising uptake of insulation, draught proofing and new technologies, as well as demonstrating these technologies to householders. The EST considers doorknocking a key part of its strategy, so that it can be seen to be ‘out there’ in the communities it serves. The Government’s desire for as many homes as possible to have cavity wall insulation by 2015 is currently keeping the organisation busy, as is keeping homeowners abreast of what may be available to them.

Deacon concludes: “The helpline is available for anyone who needs our help or advice. There are still grants out there for people on benefits or the over-70’s. These include grants for loft insulation, which are given out by the energy companies, but accessible through the EST helpline. We currently put around three million customers a year on the path to increased energy efficiency through our helpline, and with the Code for Sustainable homes now ramping up to level 5, and level six on the horizon things look set to remain busy for the foreseeable future.”