To exercise a one year extension of the existing ‘Keep Herefordshire Warm’ contract with Marches Energy Agency. The service offers access to advice and assistance around affordable warmth and home energy efficiency. A part of this is to facilitate resident’s access to Energy Company Obligation grants.

The Keep Herefordshire Warm service has been successfully delivering affordable warmth measures, outcomes and advice for Herefordshire residents as well as helping to contribute to the carbon reduction targets as set out in the Re-Energising Herefordshire Charter since May 2015.

The contracted term for the current service, run by Marches Energy Agency is due to end on 5th May 2018.

That:

A)    The contract with Marches Energy Agency is extended for a one year period until May 2019 to provide the Keep Herefordshire Warm Service at a cost of £20,000

1               Do nothing; this would result in a termination of the successful ‘Keep Herefordshire Warm’ scheme. Residents would then need to be signposted to both the national Energy Saving Advice Service (ESAS) and their energy companies. Our previous experience has been that this does not always lead to a satisfactory resolution and in many cases residents are signposted back to the council or are left without a resolution which could leave them in fuel poverty and the associated implications that this has.

2               Deliver in-house; the responsibility to provide home energy advice would then fall to the Energy and Active Travel team as well as the added activities that the Keep Herefordshire Warm service currently provides of energy efficiency referrals and developing links with installers, fuel poverty awareness raising, policy research and specific strategy development around affordable warmth. This option would likely involve further resource to be required within the Energy and Active Travel team that would cost more than re-procuring a fit for purpose service provider to deliver the scheme.

3               Undertake a full procurement exercise; it is felt currently that MEA are still delivering value for money (see resources section) and that changing provider at this point would reduce momentum that has built up over the contract period at a transitional time for nationally funded domestic energy schemes. This would therefore enable residents the easiest route to access such funding until a national consultation has taken place (see key considerations for further detail).