Recommendation 5

While the energy efficiency of two million homes has been successfully upgraded under the ECO, the number of measures installed has reduced significantly in recent years and the Government’s fuel poverty targets are not expected to be met. The inability to use ECO with other sources of funding is hampering the deeper retrofits that are needed in social housing. Since ECO is funded by all energy bill payers, the poorest pay proportionally the most for the benefits from the scheme: this makes it a regressive policy.