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Abstract:

This document is a summary of the study titled 'Assessment of the impact of Warm Front on decent homes for private sector vulnerable households'.

In 2002 the Government set a target to increase the proportion of vulnerable private sector households living in decent homes (the overall national PSA7 target). A home is classed as decent if:

It meets the current statutory minimum standard for housing.

Is in a reasonable state of repair.

Has reasonably modern facilities and services.

Provides a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.

The purpose of this work is to quantify the impact of Warm Front on the decent homes target. This report builds on initial analysis undertaken in 2003 of the potential impact of Warm Front in those areas previously administered by Eaga Partnership. This work updates that analysis up to 2005 and extends the coverage to the whole of England, including those areas previously administered by Powergen (Yorkshire & Humberside, East Midlands, and East of England). It aims to provide a comprehensive picture of Warm Front activity and the progress being made in terms of the decent homes target.

The specific objectives of this study are as follows:

To develop a database of all Warm Front grant recipients from mid-2000 until early/mid 2005, including consistent data on the characteristics of applicants, their homes, and the measures installed under the scheme.

To use this database to help assess the potential contribution of Warm Front scheme to achieving the Decent Homes target, including an analysis of the number of homes that fail the thermal comfort criterion prior to Warm Front, an analysis of the measures installed under the scheme, and the numbers made decent as a result.

Over the period covered by this analysis (mid-2000 to early/mid-2005), over 800,000 vulnerable private sector households in England received a Warm Front grant. Just under half of all these grants (44 per cent) went on homes failing on the thermal comfort criterion and less than a fifth of all grant recipients (18 per cent) were still living on non-decent homes post-Warm Front. Thus 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 - a quarter of all Warm Front recipients or one third of all recipients of non-minor measures. On the one hand, this may over-estimate the reduction in non-decent homes, because some of these homes, whilst meeting the thermal comfort criterion, may still fail the Decent Homes Standard on one of the other criteria. On the other hand, this estimate does not take into account the scheme's 'hidden' contribution to the decent homes target from repairs to existing heating systems, increasing by up to 65,000 the number of dwellings made decent by Warm Front.

Publication Year:

2003

Publisher:

Department for Communities and Local Government

DOI:

No DOI minted

Author(s):

Department for Communities and Local Government

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