I attended a really useful webinar this week on behalf of the Winter Warmth Network, a campaign supporting vulnerable individuals and families to find holistic financial support this winter spearheaded by Lightning Reach. By joining the collaboration, Foothold can link our community members with a vast range of support.

Fuel poverty affects every sector of society, including many people in our engineering community who are struggling with basic energy costs this year. We have connected with the Winter Warmth Network to enable our community to get the right support at the right time this winter

At the moment, around 6 million households in the UK are struggling with the costs of energy (source National Energy Action) with fuel prices still more than 50% higher than in October 2021 and with energy debt continuing to spiral for many.

Various organisations in the UK offer guidance on what to do if you are struggling to pay your energy bills, such as Money Saving Expert founded by financial journalist and campaigner Martin Lewis.

Even so in the last 12 months 86% of our enquires were for financial support, with many engineers describing their struggles to meet their daily household bills. Data from organisations such as Lightning Reach and Gingerbread report that families with children, and especially single parents, are struggling the most with the costs of energy although groups such as the elderly, people with a disability and those with caring responsibilities are also encountering difficulties.

“I lost my job – since 2016, I have not been able to be employed. This has made it impossible for me to put food on the table for my family, meet daily expenses, pay bills, house rent, and utilities.”

So how can Foothold help – alongside working with coalitions, such as the Winter Warmth Network, any community member applying for financial support in the UK is given a “My Money Checker” report providing guidance on the statutory benefits available to our community members, other non-statutory support such as utility company schemes which help to reduce energy bills and local initiatives, and schemes such as Warm Welcome Spaces run by all sorts of organisations from libraries, community centres, faith-based spaces to cafes, sports centres, businesses and museums.

And why do we do this – because we know that in the UK alone it is estimated that £23 billion of income related benefits and social tariffs remain unclaimed each year and, as winter approaches, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimates that 970,000 older people could be missing out on Pension Credit and so lose access to the Winter Fuel payment – so for us, helping our community members maximise their statutory income is a small but important step towards minimising fuel poverty.

For many of our community members the choice between heating and putting food on the table will be a real one this winter – we are here to help so please get in touch on [email protected]