18 August 2023 , 23:01
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Hundreds of thousands of older people have missed out on vital support with their energy bills after a Government scheme "completely flopped", new analysis shows.
Research published by Age UK reveals four in five people eligible for a £400 payment actually got it, with 735,240 households missing out. The charity found that of 883,000 people who qualified for the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) Alternative Fund, just 17% received a payment.
As a result £300million remains unspent in Treasury coffers, the charity said. Caroline Abrahams CBE, Charity Director of Age UK said: “Unfortunately, we have now established that most older people who receive their energy indirectly and who were eligible for £400 to help them with their bills, never actually received their money. In fact, almost four in five of them totally missed out.
"The process designed by the Government to distribute the funding was flawed so we’re not surprised the scheme has flopped, but rather than siphoning off the unspent £300 million for other purposes we call on the Government to do the right thing and improve the scheme so these older people get the money they are due. After all, with energy bills expected to stay high this winter, they are going to need all the financial help they can get."
In June the Commons Public Accounts Committee criticised the scheme - which was set up for people with no direct relationship with an energy supplier. It said many such households only became eligible for funding at the end of February, almost five months after consumers began receiving discounts on the main scheme.
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Care home residents were least likely to have got their £400 funding, with just 7% getting the payment, Age UK said. A Government spokesman said: "We spent billions to protect families when prices rose over winter, covering nearly half a typical household's energy bill - this includes more than £60 million supporting over 140,000 households without a domestic electricity supplier.
"We used a range of methods to communicate the scheme with as many eligible households as possible, so they could apply to access this vital energy bills support - including a contact centre and requesting councils to write to eligible care homes and park home sites. We recommend that any household that did not apply should visit our webpage to view what other support they may be eligible to receive."
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