10% of All Households Are In Fuel Poverty

Before any analysis on fuel poverty, we need to decide what we mean by it. Helpfully, Professor John Hills (LSE) has provided us with a revised definition of fuel poverty. A household is considered to be fuel poor where:

·         they have required fuel costs that are above the average, and

·         were they to spend that amount, they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line.

Incredibly, using this definition would mean that 10% of all households in England are in fuel poverty (over 2 million households). But who are these households? They aren’t distributed evenly across the country, but reflect complex relationships between income, stock condition, household formation, climate and how far the gas network stretches. Read more on the NHF website.

Universal Credit Thrown Into Doubt by Government Findings

Iain Duncan Smith’s floundering Universal Credit system will have to deal with 1.6million changes to people’s claims every month, a Government adviser has revealed. The shocking figure throws fresh doubt over whether the Work Secretary’s flagship scheme will ever be fully up and running after being dogged by delays and glitches. Professor John Hills reveals the scale of the challenge in a new book that explodes the “strivers versus skivers” myth peddled by politicians. Professor Hills, of the London School of Economics, warns: “This will make the system hard to run.” Read more on the Daily Mirror website.