Making the journey to an energy efficient home more transparent for residents

Every opt out is a missed opportunity to help a household in need of a more comfortable, more affordable home. Resident disengagement outs also lead to wasted resources, including both time and grant finance, that mean fewer homes and households benefit overall.  

These conditions need to be addressed to for us to move toward retrofit at scale in London.  

To help tackle the issues around lack of clarity for residents, and create more informed insight for us to begin to make targeted interventions, Warmer Homes London has procured and is developing a new digital platform for London’s Local Grant programme. The Local Grant programme is designed to support low-income owner occupiers and tenants: the programme is delivered in London by the Greater London Authority, on behalf of 31 boroughs, with the support of Warmer Homes London. 

What are the current pain points? 

• The retrofit process is often opaque and unclear to residents - updates can come from multiple different contractors, and include references to unfamiliar steps and/or measures. 
• This confusion can lead to hesitation, delays and opt-outs. 
• Currently under the Local Grant programme, London's residents apply via the national DESNZ delivery portal: then they will receive updates delivered via post, phone and/or email. Residents lack a simple, accessible way to see what happens next or who to contact.
• Boroughs also lack a single, consistent view of where residents are in the process, making it harder to offer timely, targeted support.

How can a new platform help address this?  

The new digital platform is designed to create a clearer digital touchpoint for Londoners who are making their homes energy efficient: helping to guide them through the process, and create the opportunity to explain individual steps in clearer language. Standardised engagement across the city also allows us to better track and measure resident sentiment over time, keeping us close to any emerging patterns.  

The platform is being developed in partnership with boroughs, and being beta tested with both boroughs and residents. Both boroughs and contractors will benefit from the end-to-end workflow management the platform will enable: this will be even more vital as London moves to a 6-contractor model of delivery for the Local Grant programme.  

What's next? 

Beta testing will continue boroughs and representative groups, before the platform will be fully rolled out to Londoners applying to the Local Grant programme.  

We understand that there are groups of vulnerable residents who need further support, that the digital platform cannot provide directly. This is especially true those who may be digitally excluded. That is why we are exploring the opportunity to deliver targeted support with local third parties, designed to help key groups at risk of energy inefficient homes complete the process. This follows our Expression of Interest issued earlier this year.  

In the future, resident feedback collected alongside data around where key drop out points are will also be combined with other previously dispersed streams, such as delivery costs, smart meter data, and damp and mould sensors. For example, integrating data from damp and mould sensors with data held on sentiment, measures delivered and building types will allow social housing landlords and tenants in London to have assurance that works have had no adverse effects and also potentially even identify and prevent mould problems before they escalate. Work in this area is being delivered in partnership with LOTI, through our joint IoT Temperature and Humidity Sensor project.