Warming Homes, Changing Lives: Scarf's 40-Year Fight Against Fuel Poverty

Speaker A: Welcome to Sustainability Solved where we help businesses reduce their impact. I work for 51 to carbon zero, a mission driven climate and sustainability partner that combines AI with deep expert advisory services. We help medium and large enterprises future proof against climate and sustainable sustainability, risk building, lasting environmental and stakeholder capital and contribute meaningfully to the well being of the planet and the communities in which they operate. Thank you. So we recorded this last summer when I was working for Green Element and it's taken a wee bit of time for us to um, bring out. Thank you to Sam who helped bring this back. Um, Sam ran Soundquake, our production services. And so I'm now going to introduce six months later Charlie, my wonderful co host and ask him how he's doing.

Speaker B: It's good, it's good. I tell you what's a bit, a bit arresting is that as of Saturday I think the days start getting shorter, which is a bit worrying.

Speaker A: You're full of good news, aren't you? Full of positive news.

Speaker B: Someone told me this morning, I was like, oh man. But uh, the weather's been fantastic and it's gonna be sunny a week, so everything's good.

Speaker A: Good. And welcome to the show, both David and Lawrence.

Speaker C: Hi guys.

Speaker D: Great to join you guys. Thanks very much for having us.

Speaker A: Now I'm really excited to have you both on the show largely because uh, I've recently just joined you um, on your board and I've learned so much about what you do and how you um, do it. And it is a brilliant, brilliant organization. And um, we're talking about SCARF here. So could you, in your words tell us a bit about Scarfe and what it is that you do?

Speaker C: Yes, sure. So scarf, we're actually uh, it's quite timely to have this opportunity today because we're actually in our 40th, uh, year of being a registered ah, charity and social enterprise. Uh, and our objectives, I guess, focus around uh, reducing uh, fuel poverty, improving energy efficiency and uh, supporting people, getting access to information, advice and support, uh, ranging from general energy efficiency advice through to getting funding for improvement measures within domestic and uh, business properties.

Speaker A: Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. David, anything you want to add?

Speaker D: Yeah, I think our principles are really engraved in supporting households with the information. Just to kind of echo exactly what Lawrence said there around our kind of purpose and a goal. It's really to fight the conduit for households that could be really struggling with energy costs and their current situation or in crisis in the home to help them out of that and to have a more sustainable lifestyle. So I think for Us it's very fundamental that who we are and what we do is very much about the impact on the coal face.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: How much support do you get from the Scottish government as an organisation?

Speaker D: Yeah, we are the primary deliverer of the Home Energy Scotland program in the northeast of Scotland Scotland. So we, on behalf of the Energy Saving Trust and Scottish government we have around about 30 to 35 employees who provide direct advice or support for the northeast of Scotland which is ultimately that kind of area in Scotland from Perth and Kinross up to Murray. So it's a substantial amount of homes and a substantial amount m of target audience that will look to provide the ultimate wraparound support ultimately as well. It's kind of like a giant funnel to support the local council programs that we deliver also. So it funnels everything through that kind of pipeline to provide base telephone support but then uh, really in depth in home advice around tailored support to try and eradicate personally fuel poverty and maximize the household income.

Speaker B: And how many houses a year do you touch?

Speaker C: So the organisation's probably split into two main areas of service provision. As David commented there, in terms of the Home Energy Scotland program it's primarily uh, a remote uh, based service, call centre based approach. Although there are opportunities for specialist advisors to go and visit homeowners uh, or tenants in their properties to give them more direct face to face support. So in terms of engagement there we're probably looking at access unique engagements and access 20,000 uh, per annum probably unique interventions. Unique engagements. That uh, uh remote approach is also supported by our uh Home Energy Advice Team or HEED is the acronym that differs from the Home Energy Scotland service in terms of it's more tailored to specific household circumstances and the advice team will go out and uh, visit properties uh on a face to face basis people to do a visual assessment which can often lead to better outcomes because you can see things. Maybe for example a property is experiencing damp and condensation, uh, an advisor will visually be able to see this and identify that and give more tailored advice to the household. In terms of the home visits as we call them for the Heat team, uh, in the last 12 months we probably did in excess of uh, uh 4,000, between 4 and 5,000 unique home visits.

Speaker B: That's extraordinary. Lawrence, can I just ask you, I think you're slightly hitting the table when you're talking and it's just your mic is, your camera is slightly twisted round. Um, so two things. One, could you just slightly pull the camera back the other way? Perfect. And if uh, you try not to sort of hit the table. I know it's very hard to do. I do apologize. Just uh, thank you very much. Yeah, exactly. Hands in the air. Keep it working.

Speaker C: Yeah, we're getting a little bit of feedback. When you were, when you were kind of talking there,

Speaker B: all of us or,

Speaker C: or just, well just there when you're talking.

Speaker A: Just me and me.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. That's annoying. We're not hearing that. So the recording won't be hearing that. So I know it's distracting. Um, so, so you, you, you touch between 2020, well 20, 000 through that one stream and 4 or 5000 through the other stream. What would be the typical solutions, outcome and reduction in energy consumption that these households might expect?

Speaker C: Yeah, so in terms of the general uh, objective as we're talking about fuel poverty or fuel poor households in particular, uh, the definition being if a household is spending uh, more than 10% of its income after rent, etc, etc, uh, mortgage, etc. Uh, that would be defined as being a household uh, who is fuel poor or suffering fuel poverty. Uh, so what our objective as an organization is to remove people from that position. So essentially to ensure or facilitate them in reducing their energy or uh, utility spend to 10% or as low a percentage as possible. So that would be a typical KPI for uh, any of our funders that they would be measuring the impact of Scarf's ah, intervention in terms of the fuel spend. So that's one metric or one key KPI. Uh another example may be through some of our schemes is support householder, uh, with uh, improving the energy efficiency of their property through retrofit installation or potentially installation of renewable technologies. Uh and therefore ultimately the objective there is to improve the EPC rating of the property. So that's another example of a metric that we would be measured on by our uh, uh, funders.

Speaker B: And so what kind of, what number of households do you actually sort of enact these solutions on a year? Uh, if you're talking to 20,000, how many people actually do things and get these kind of reductions?

Speaker C: Yeah, I guess it would be difficult to kind of give you that number for the whole organization right now. But if we take one of our schemes that we run, for example our Eco4Flex program, um, uh, which we facilitate through uh, on behalf of a number of local authorities, I think nine local authorities now across Scotland that we facilitate this scheme for and for the duration of this scheme, which is since its inception as ECO3, it's evolved into ECO4 currently, uh, we're talking at probably over 4,000 measures have been installed at an average of uh, maybe four measures per property. So over 1,000 properties have benefited from either uh, uh, retrofit installation or renewable technology installs. And that is averaged. So uh, we're currently almost recording about 20 million pounds of private investment has come in through the scheme that we have been responsible for facilitating. Uh, and that's an average of 18 to 20,000 pounds of work per property. And this work has been at uh, no cost to the homeowner themselves because they've met the eligibility criteria that the scheme uh, you know, runs, runs via.

Speaker A: And do you go back um, maybe two years time and see what the impact of the work that you've done is?

Speaker D: Yes, the. On, on some occasions, on some occasions we do it depending on, on how the householder would like to engage. Okay, yeah, sorry, two seconds. Uh, yes, on some occasions we go back depending on the engagement from the household. The statistics that we're recording, uh, as an annual uh, saving that's uh, generated by the EPC saving. So what we are kind of looking at is the average lifetime CO2 saving of a project and then look at the lifetimes of the measures and then that gives us the calculation of the, the, the CO2 saving for that period of time.

Speaker A: Because it'd be interesting to see wouldn't it, because that each house will have slightly nuanced different um, like insulation or building structure etc, but then equally you'll be putting on, putting in different things as well. So it's, and I know the answers. We, we haven't got this because we just don't have enough money to be able to put it. But how much better would it be for, for us to be able to look at all the projects we do and go uh, that works really well for that, that's worked really well for that, that's etc. Etc. And then we can be really specific with knowing exactly what it is that we're doing for each of these households.

Speaker D: I think this is where the before and after data login element of it would really kind of support these kind of programs because you've got the behavior change, you've got a person living in the home, how they behave is very unique to, to each home. And then understanding the, the impact of the measure along with the behavior change advice. So kind of logging and experiencing the, the kind of information that's received from both parts is critical. But I think as well that's something that we need to be working towards as an industry.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Do you do Any sort of quality of life analysis as well, because I know that there was some really interesting research in Wales about the impact of poor quality housing on their economy. And obviously there's money spent on fuel that, uh, you know, extra energy that you don't need to spend. There's money spent on refurbishing and repairing buildings that are damp and cold, they fall apart quicker. But there was also a load of, load of evidence that there was a huge amount of money spent on the NHS on additional social services costs because people are ill and unhappy and not working to their potential. You know, it gets into a, you know it starts off very technical, but there is a huge, a huge element of it which is about people in society, isn't it? I mean, is it. Do you get any insights into the kind of social benefit that you're providing?

Speaker C: Yeah, for some of our programs we do actually, uh, generate what we call post, uh, installation social surveys if you like. So we will talk to the householder before they've had any work done in their property. It'll be quite basic questions around temperature in the home, uh, how they've generally been feeling, maybe their own health conditions, uh, without going into too much, uh, depth of detail, uh, and then we revisit the property, probably anything between six and 12 months after they've had work done and we go through the survey again and then we report that to the funders directly. Uh, and then information for many of the programs will then be uh, forwarded back, uh, to Scottish government in some cases, because m. If they are the original, uh, funder.

Speaker D: Yeah. And we have delivered programs in the past focusing on copd, ah, against readmission rates. And ultimately a couple of years ago we paid the energy bills for around 450 homes in Aberdeen with COPD sufferers working with NHS Grampian to look at uh, a kind of cost benefit analysis of prevention rather than continuing to battle the reoccurrence of COPD and the cold seasons. So that report ultimately ended up through one of our partners, capital, ended up at uh, Westminster, going through the process to be considered as uh, a potential program for government to look at prevention. Because I think we all kind of realize that uh, we can't keep doing things the same way. Things really need to change, change. So I think we're really trying to get to the forefront of making change and I think that's a big thing of what SCARF is here to do is to facilitate a different way of doing things.

Speaker A: Okay. And uh, what, what were some of the main issues that SCARF identifies when it comes to energy efficiency across Scotland.

Speaker C: I think in the main you would probably have to say it's the property fabric, uh, you given the high level of granite stone built properties with solid walls, uh, and retrofit insulation becomes a little bit harder and ah, more expensive uh, to apply.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think that as well is the type of heating system homes have because if you're on a gas boiler you're looking at 6 pence per kilowatt. If you're with an electric heating system you're looking at 27, 28 for the same level of heating. So a lot of the fuel poor households in Scotland uh, find themselves having electric heating which ultimately means they're penalized because the cost of electricity is almost five times as great as the cost of gas.

Speaker B: M that's not including air source heat pumps which obviously have a cop of sort of three or four, don't they? So you get that bit more towards parity. But I do think there is a general misconception that uh, low carbon heating is low cost heating and it's not always the truth, is it?

Speaker D: Completely. And I think that's why for us when we do our eco programs we're really keen to look at solar PV to try and offset the air source heat pump again as well as uh, a completely well insulated property where we wouldn't consider putting uh, an air source heat pump in a property that is not very well insulated.

Speaker B: Because I think it's really interesting that the sustainability side and I think there's been such a focus on the sort of ecological side of sustainability, if you know what I mean, the planetary side of sustainability. And actually it feels to me like there's two very distinct actions. There's a social sustainability and there's a sort of environmental sustainability and without both of them we won't get a just transition and we'll lose the room. And I feel like in the uk, I think actually across the western world the sort of focus on sustainability has been so much about the environmental that I don't think we've told the sort of social sustainability side of it, which is why we're getting the pushback on the low carbon agenda potentially or might be one of the mitigating circumstances. So it's fantastic that you're really front and center is the impact on people, health, well being, happiness, you know, and I think that's such an important message we need to share. Isn't it that sustainable? Just transition is about that at its core.

Speaker D: Yeah. And I think, I think that's the other key thing. It's looking at uh, putting the people forward. Right. And doing it in a correct process. Like for us we realize that the transition has to happen to some form of electric heating or an alternative to gas. So it wouldn't make sense to look at the people in fuel poverty just now, to look at them as the primary people to receive the green heating system when we know all that would do is acupate the situation. I think for us, like Lauren said with the Eco program that scarf deliver, we really are looking at the EF&G properties which are the hardest and most expensive properties to heat.

Speaker B: So that's the EPCs of EF and G. Yeah. So really, really poor performance.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker D: So even if we are putting an electric heating system and taking out gas, then the builds are highly likely to be less anyway because it's such a poor performing property that we're currently looking at as well. So I think it's about the transition and getting the people who can afford just now to do the transition, but also to start picking off the hardest to treat, most expensive to treat properties

Speaker B: in the uk because we've run a similar program in our village. Um, we got money from the Labour government, the uh, last Labour government, uh 2009 and we started a rolling refurbishment fund and we've done about 60 houses out of 600, 700 now. But it's been incredibly hard. After we've got the people that are interested, if you know what I mean. The 60 we can't seem to get to people to get them to work with us to make their houses better. I mean what are the barriers to getting people to, to sort of get on this journey?

Speaker C: I think there's still right at the front end, uh, there's still a lack of awareness uh, across uh, householders of what type of support is there, uh, and if they know what type of support's available, sometimes they don't know who to talk to, uh, get that support. So for us we still see, although we've been in and around the Northeast for 40 years, we still find uh, one of the challenges being just a lack of awareness uh, around what's available and then who to talk to about it. Uh, and if you're talking about fuel poverty as well, which fuel poverty and energy efficiency of a property, carbon reduction, they're all intrinsically linked and one obviously impacts the other directly. Uh, so if you're looking at from a fuel poverty aspect there's still uh, a high level of stigma around just poverty in general. So People can often be resistant or hesitant to reach out uh, to organizations like ourselves. So those I would consider to be barriers uh, to what can happen. But in terms of the renewables for example, the barriers still remain like from a supply chain perspective, the installation costs, heat pumps, um, and thereafter the running costs of heat pumps are not aligned with supporting people who are uh, trying to improve the energy efficiency of their property to reduce their spend on their energy bill. So there's quite a clear contradiction there.

Speaker D: I think the other barrier as well is that sometimes the schemes seem too good to be true for people. Uh because to give you an idea of the scarf program there, we're looking at uh, an 18, 19,000 pounds spend on a property with either little or no customer contribution at all. So when that kind of opportunity or proposal comes forward it does feel like there's some things attached. Um, and I think as well people have been used up. The amount of scam that's been out there for not just this but generally. So I think everybody goes into everything just on a basis, rightfully so just now of this does seem too good to be true. What's the catch? Or is this something I need to be wary of? So engagement can be difficult because sometimes the, the, the offer does look too good to be true.

Speaker A: And do you think that you're hearing a lot about this and I'm going to put it in versa commas up, um, right wing rhetoric that goes on at ah, the moment of anti climate change stuff. Do you think that plays into some of those barriers or do you, do you just, do you feel that that actually isn't there and it really is rhetoric on the right wing?

Speaker D: That's quite a difficult question to answer because we do a lot of our programs focused on local authority homes where uh, the home improvement fabric element of it is up to the local authority, not necessarily the household. But I think for us as well though we've never been as busy for renewables, for inquiries and for people looking to do that. So I think there is a particularly uh, where we are, there's a particular draw towards it and I would kind of hope that uh, people are expecting that this journey to net zero that we're on will continue, uh, and we'll get behind it. But again for us to, for us to get to the kind of momentum that's required, like Lauren says this, it needs to be, it needs to be really put into turbo for it to actually achieve net zero. Whereas just now we're still working with the low hanging fruit of people who are really keen to do things.

Speaker A: Gotcha. Gotcha.

Speaker B: And who, I mean if you're delivering this in the north east of Scotland, who's delivering it in other parts of Scotland and who's delivering it in uk, uh, England, Wales, m. More widely?

Speaker D: Well the, the again it's all kind of separated on um, on different organizations. So the, the picture in Scotland currently just now for the Home Energy Scotland program, Scarfe does that northeast of Scotland. And you have changeworks, the organization who does Edinburgh Central Belt and Highlands. We have the Wise Group who cover Glasgow Strathclyde, an energy agency who cover Ayrshire in that part of Scotland. The local authority picture is very much depending on if the local authority want to use one of these organizations, including ourselves, do it themselves or use local community organizations which are all available. I'm not aware of a uh, similar program like Home Energy Scotland functioning in the rest of the uk And I believe that the local authorities are quite a fragmented area. I don't, don't think want.

Speaker B: I mean this seems to me a big part of the problem. And we've. In the UK we've tried the, in England we tried the Green Homes grant. And I mean there's been a series of very badly handled, I think, I think not even my words. I think the, the Office of Budget Responsibility said like complete failures, like monumental failures to try and implement and wind this up. So what are you doing right, that England can't get it right?

Speaker D: I think for us we come from a very. Nobody works for a charity to get rich. We're never driven by funds. It's all about impact. And I think we take on new projects or we take on our existing programs thinking, okay, what kind of legacy can we leave? How can we help people on an individual basis rather than uh, a locality basis. So I think for us it's very much built into why we do things, why we're here. And if we take care of the people and treat them with respect and go down that route and provide the advice that we can, it really works and makes an impact. And we are aware and we spend the time and energy to be aware of any UK schemes, Scottish schemes, uh, private equity schemes. So we can provide that kind of one point or one stop shop for really for people to get the appropriate advice. So I think for us again it's. We are 40. It's taken about 40 years to get to exactly where we are just now. It's been a journey, but it's been extremely successful. The full time that we've Been kind of been functioning.

Speaker B: So you're saying private equity. So you get private equity organizations giving money um, for this work and is that carbon offsetting money or ESG money? Where's that money coming from? Why are they doing it?

Speaker C: Yeah, so the majority, when we talk about private equity, the majority is through OFFGEMS Energy Redress uh program. So I uh, think uh, the criteria for uh, being part of that ah, program um is that the energy supplier EDF for example, uh, if they have ah, over 250,000 customers then they are obligated to comply with uh, ofgems uh legislations. And also so what they've got, there's two elements to how the fund is generated. Uh one is through uh, fines imposed by ofgem through non conformance or breaches by these larger suppliers. The second is they are obligated to put uh, percentage of surplus uh, back into the pockets of those most vulnerable, uh, homes or properties uh, in the regions. So uh, what happens at the moment is we will. There are kind of two parts to this. The Off GEM Energy Redress Fund opens up currently once every quarter, can be a significant amount of money, millions, tens of billions of pounds. And organizations like ourselves are ah, able to apply uh for funding to deliver programs which are uh, the kind of main criteria is that they are related to energy efficiency and energy efficiency improvement, fuel poverty. Uh, we've been successful in applying for funding uh, really successful actually over the last four to five years. Uh the second part is though with the Eco 4 Flex, which is the one that is returning the really significant numbers. So for example the 4,000 installation measures 1,000 properties, average um, spend of £20,000 per property. Again that's money that's coming directly into that particular program, um, from the larger energy companies themselves, the SSes, the ADFs, the Eons, et cetera. Uh, so that's largely where the private or the route, the private equity money uh, comes in currently.

Speaker B: And do you think this is part of the problem that, that you've got, we've got such a fragmented delivery system for this. You know it's a national challenge isn't it? The 27 million houses or whatever it is in the UK that basically 90%, 95% of them need a full deep retrofit by 2050. Yet it still feels like, I mean you've mentioned five or six organizations in Scotland alone trying to deliver it in the uk. Who knows really what's going on down here. But you know, is that part of the issue that we need to actually learn from the best practices of the people like you are doing and roll that out at speed and at scale.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, I think so. And I think one of the key things about what is particularly done in Scotland, uh, is the, the regionality of things. So the people that are doing the support and advice are in the same locations as the people, people requesting it. So they understand the homes, they understand their community, they understand how to break barriers and engage. So I think for us it's kind of what's happened in Scotland replicated across the UK would definitely push in the right direction because it would be local people supporting local delivery and local impact, uh, which just now, for example, if it was a call to one organization, say in England, say in Manchester, you lose the local feel, you lose the local understanding, you lose a local outreach. So for me, the regionalized support goes a long way to removing the barriers that we discussed earlier.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that you can see that because of the different architecture that you've got throughout the whole of the UK and uh, having moved up here from say London, uh, the architecture is different and you can see the housing fabric is different. And if you're dealing with someone in London helping someone in say Aberdeen, they wouldn't have a clue what the granite, you know, how it feels, what it feels like to live in that house.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think as well the actual environmental conditions are massively.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker D: Between say take, take Portsmouth and then look at like Aberdeen or Murray or. The conditions are extremely difficult from the north, the top point of Scotland, to the south of England. And I think an example of that was when the financial aid came, when the energy bills went over two and a half thousand pounds average household, the people in the most comfortable living conditions in the south were getting the same amount as people who are living in the hardest conditions on the Highlands and Islands. So there is your problem. It needs to be looked at very, very closely and specifically rather than generalized.

Speaker B: So can we just go back a bit and talk a bit about the main and the most effective actions that you take when you're working with a house? What are the low hanging fruit? What's the sort of uh, the sequence of decision making that you go through when you look at a property? And what actions do you tend to implement?

Speaker C: Well, I think starting with uh, we talk about kind of low cost or no cost measures. It's just the, the behavioral advice, the general energy efficiency, your people leaving lights on, uh, leaving appliances on standby, uh, filling their kettle for one cup of tea. That's always Our starting point because these are the things that uh can be implemented immediately uh and uh have no cost uh to the homeowner. And then we begin to build up and look at what uh you know the physical uh improvements could be. So looking at the fabric of the property or the type or level of insulation in a property and again you build it up. We've got like what we call low cost or soft measures which are draft, excluder, tape, letterbox, uh covers uh these types of things, radiator reflector files, uh and we often uh are able out, we have a team of advisors who can go into a property and through funding that we have access to we can actually install uh these low or no cost measures free of charge to the homeowner. So that's the starting point and then we can then build up, then we look at the larger uh physical improvements that could be made and that could be loft cavity, uh wall insulation, uh, or the installation of uh, maybe solar panels or heat pumps. And so the low hanging fruit is what we look at first as I said the behavioral advice, the softer measures, insulation measures. And then we build up uh from there um, and try and give that whole house approach because we could go into uh a property and uh, they may be eligible for uh retrofit insulation. But if their uh behaviors, if their energy behaviors are not disciplined and not focused in the right areas, you know they're not maximizing the benefit of the physical improvements that they are. They are uh maybe able to receive

Speaker D: I think as well the, it's very much uh a tailored approach that Lauren said there. And we will, we will take the, we will look at the household situation, we will look at their income and expenditure uh because everything that we do as an organization works to the Scottish government fuel poverty definition. So we will look at the definition in regards to how far into fuel poverty they are and then we'll look at expenditure and income that is going out of the household and then we may look at the person's situation around any additional benefits that's been claimed or not been claimed. So it's very much uh a person centric tailored approach to look at the individual behaviours and like Lauren said the fabric of the property.

Speaker B: And do you do this um service for businesses because big energy consumers, business premises. Do you also operate in that arena?

Speaker D: As part of our program that we deliver for energy Saving Trust we also deliver in the northeast of Scotland Business Energy Scotland which is again it's a Scottish government program that looks at uh businesses can engage and get Uh, a report done on their, their premise to look at uh, ways to make it uh, more efficient, reduce costs, reduce carbon. Uh, we also run programs for some local authorities from UK shared ah, prosperity funding which allows us to give grant funding out to businesses. Particularly just now we're running one in Aberdeen where we look at a business who may want a uh, £10,000 grant to match funds to look at uh, improving the energy efficiency of the property. And we're working the running at the moment. Most local authorities that have been provided with that fund can look at uh, uh, delivering programs like that to businesses and their locality.

Speaker B: And what are the kind of outcomes from focusing on business, um, premises. What kind of savings do you get? You know, in a typical case, yeah,

Speaker D: it's too vast to say we get. One of the big brick programs that was funded by Aberdeen City Council this year was uh, a solar hub on the top of a storage den which ultimately powered electric bus, the bus centre in Aberdeen, to take trips up and down the coast. So it can have long lasting impacts. However we get inquiries like that, but we also make it a nail technician or we make ah, a corner shop. So it's so varied on organizations and we can see as well, particularly in Aberdeen, a lot of organizations are really keen to look at uh, looking at minimum standards, looking at how they can save by implementing renewables. M.

Speaker A: It's fascinating listening to you and what it is that um, Scarfe has achieved. And I think uh, one of the things that has struck me from working and more closely with Scarfe is how well run it is and how much M how good you are actually at delivering what it is that you deliver. And you can see that not just from listening to you, but also the reputation that you have around Scotland. I guess this is a bit of an unfair question, but how can we, I don't know, how can we enhance, how can we take that, um, great running and move it across the UK as a whole? Have you got any ideas on what that could look like

Speaker D: to be, to be cheeky? If uh, a local authority in England want to engage us around programs we'd be more than happy to look at.

Speaker B: Do you hear that? Local councils get on the phone to scarf. These guys know what they're doing.

Speaker D: I think there is, although it's a joke, there is something in the blueprint that we've created and we've developed over time that is very successful and we are seeing some great results. So I think for us it's great being chief executive of a charity, but we still very much get a number of frontline experiences ourselves and we get to see the impact of what we're doing. Because, because ultimately the key driver for myself and Lawrence, we're very like minded. It's all about impact and the amount of positive stories we hear, the m. Amount of case studies that we get, and even letters thanking us for a great service or changing people's lives through actually giving them a home that they can be warm in is massive.

Speaker A: Okay, so here's a question for you, but both of you need to answer this. Um, what if, if you were to try and describe Scarf to someone through a case study or through something positive that's happened that you've seen or heard, uh, what is the story that you would say to that person?

Speaker C: Case. About, like a specific example?

Speaker A: Yeah, case study. Exactly. A case study.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, so uh, I'll, I'll kick off with this one. So, uh, I was picking up my grandson from primary school, uh, a couple of months ago, uh, and I bumped into uh, a young mum who was also picking up one of our children, uh, a generation above of course. Uh, so she was picking up our, uh, we used to work together, uh, probably about 15 years ago at another organization. And she said to me, oh, where do you work now? I said, um, I work with Scarf. And she goes, scarf, the energy people? I says, yeah. She goes, wow. She says, you won't believe what happened to me, uh, after I had a visit from a Scarf advisor. And I says, go on, tell me then. So she, uh, her and her family, two young children and uh, her husband live in our property in Imbrune. They've never had central heating in the property. They used to carry uh, portable electric heaters around whichever room they would be congregating in. Uh, so she reached out to Scarf. She got uh, a visit from uh, one of our home, uh, energy advice team. They evaluated and made a referral because they believed she was eligible to get uh, funding through the eco program. So the advisor made the referral, one of our contractors came out, did the technical survey and uh, she was eligible. So she got uh, first time central heating and retrofit insulation for her property, uh, at no cost to her at all. And uh, her youngest daughter is actually asthmatic. Uh, so the difference that this has made to their lives as a family and to her daughter in particular, she just uh, couldn't really describe it. She kindly agreed to, to uh, be part of a case study which we took forward. And uh, that's the kind of story for me that's kind of like. And the jobs we talk about, what works for Scarf, I think it's because, you know, we have people who are dedicated, they're passionate. We are headquartered in a part of the world which is heavily private sector energy. As a third sector organization, we often struggle with being competitive with maybe the financial elements, but we enhance our other terms and conditions as much as we possibly can, uh, to try and be competitive. And um, the level of job satisfaction that people within our organization get and comment on, uh, is really the thing. And we've got uh, a very, very low turnover of staff for the type of organization we are and where we are located, uh, especially. But you know, it's that element of the, you know, doing something, seeing it through and being able to look at it and say, I made the difference here.

Speaker A: Yes, that's a wonderful story. So now David, you need to top that one.

Speaker D: Yeah, well, my one was this is when I first joined Scarf. So I've been at Scarf nine years now. Uh, I come from the private sector but and I actually came as a manager on a maternity contract, just maternity cover. But I kind of got the bug and now nine years later, I'm still here. Uh, when I first joined Scarf, this uh, woman in her 80s contacted us, went out to our home and had a look around the house and she had no heat in or hot water. And it'd been like that for two years. This was an Angus, so it'd been like that for two years. And we said, okay, look, why don't you get in touch with us sooner? We could have done something here. Uh, because I think for us it's like, how do we move things along quickly? So we asked a question and the response was my husband said he was going to do it. And this period lasted for about two years. Ultimately the husband passed away due to natural causes. And then that uh, got left in our own hands and so she contacted us. So within three weeks, the first time we went round, we had a look at it. We provided temporary heating measures, so plug in electric heat in, uh, we provided our access to water, uh, and then within that three week period that we were able to get somebody out there to go and look at our system and then basically replace our complete heat and system. So we left her with hot water running, uh, heating in a situation that she shouldn't have been living in, but wasn't looking for support. So I think for me it was just the fact that we left away with somebody whose lives completely changed and transformed and able to live A comfortable life. And I think the big thing you learn with SCARF as well is you think these are one offs. But there is so much of this happening in the UK that is just people don't want to ask for help or support and people just get by when the reality is there's organizations like ourselves, there's citizen Vice Bureau, there's other organizations that people should proactively feel encouraged to engage. It's not a stigma to be struggling. Just please, if there is anything like that, there is organizations out there to help.

Speaker B: But it's also this sort of defrayed costs model, isn't it? That it's kind of the fact that we're not tackling it systemically in England specifically sounds like much better in Scotland. But those costs like you mentioned, uh, the child with the asthma, well I mean there's a lot of pressure on the NHS because of that. People with a lot of bronchitis, you know, um, uh, respiratory diseases, black mold in buildings causing significant health and you know, immune reactions. And this costs the state an enormous amount of money and then you spend all the energy and the buildings fall apart quicker. You know it just strikes me that there is just an incredible amount of stuff on the right side of the scales that this should be a national priority. And it hasn't been I don't think. Certainly not in England. So I think yeah, uk, um, local authorities give SCARF a call.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting you say that because you know, without going into too much detail, uh, as David mentioned earlier in the program that we have delivered a couple of uh, pilot programs which are linked to uh, supporting people with uh, respiratory uh illnesses by uh, paying their fuel bills over the winter period. But that's. And certainly my seven years with scarf, that is probably the most uh, engagement, interaction as a charity we've had with the health services. Uh, it's always been in my time, certainly historically a very, very door to kind of push open. Uh, but as you say there's such a tie in with people living in cold dump, uh, ill heated properties and having uh, chronic diseases or respiratory disease and continuous readmissions to hospitals. And the cost of that uh, uh. It's always made me scratch my head that there's not been a greater degree of collaboration uh, and interaction uh up to now.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think to kind of echo that with Lawrence when Covid strike SCARF predominantly became a Covid advice center support in shielding households. So I think for us it was a national emergency. Things were done quicker and were done easier. So I think for Us, it's like this really is like a housing national emergency, that a lot of the barriers, the red tapes and local authorities or nhs, we need to be working smarter and more effective or ultimately the situation will just continue to deteriorate.

Speaker B: M. Absolutely. And it's also fascinating that you're, you're working not only with householders, but also with small, small and medium sized businesses to reduce their energy demand, because we know that that's increasingly challenging, you know, in the current climate. So, you know, getting that connection, understanding that this is a national emergency and an energy emerging and housing emergency seems like a very good way to, to sort of tackle it. Gentlemen, I think what you're doing is, is, is incredible.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: And very impressive. Wonderful to hear those stories. And, uh, Will, I understand you're involved in the board now, is that right? You sit on the board?

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I mentioned it at the beginning. You obviously weren't listening to me. I was listening.

Speaker B: I'm just going back to it.

Speaker A: Oh, you were going back to. I'm very good. You're so good at this. On you. Yes, yes, I do. Um, I feel really lucky to be, um, a part of Scarf because I think SCARF are brilliant and hence why I wanted them on the podcast. But I also think that, and we have explored this in this podcast, what I see with SCARF just doesn't seem to be in the rest of, well, England and Wales predominantly. And like, what can we do and how do we draw attention to that? Because we've all alluded and said quite rightly, this is a national emergency. We really need to do something about this quickly.

Speaker B: Definitely. Well, brilliant. Anyone listening? Got any ideas? Get in touch with, uh, us and tell us your fantastic schemes. If you've got a hotline to the government, tell them about Scarfe. Thank you very much for joining us. David and Lawrence, carry on the good work. Really fantastic to have a chat. Thanks again.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker D: Thanks, guys.