Helping people stay warm and healthy in their homes

From February to April 2023 you shared your views to help us design a service for Oxfordshire residents to help them stay warm, safe and healthy at home.

390 of you gave us valuable feedback, helping us to understand Oxfordshire homeowners’ experiences of keeping their home warm and energy efficient, how our current services (called Better Housing Better Health(External link)) could be improved, and more!

You said:

• Residents told us that keeping their homes warm and free damp were their biggest priorities.
• Cold, mould and damp were the top three problems reported by professionals on their clients’ behalf.
• People were most likely to go to the internet, Citizen’s Advance or their family and friends for advice about high energy bills.
• The biggest barriers to staying warm, safe, and independent in homes were:

1. Eligibility criteria of grants to help make changes
2. Not having impartial advice and information about energy efficiency and what to do
3. Knowing where to find trusted, reliable, and affordable tradesmen

We did:

• We updated the specification for Better Housing Better Health (the Single Point of contact service) to better support people with vulnerabilities
• We are improving the ways we tell people about Better Housing Better Health (including ways that are not on the internet) so that more people can know about it and benefit
• We shared the results with:

1. Trading Standards, so they can help more people feel confident in finding tradesmen they can trust
2. The Livewell team(External link), to help improve they way information about services is shared
3. The Policy team, to help us to understand the different ways we can help with residents’ cost of living needs
4. The Climate Action team(External link), to help inform their work on grants to help people increase their energy efficiency

More information about the initial engagement can be found here.