So the discretionary fund is.....**drumroll**.......£100 measly quid!?

Spoonie_Turtle

uk1 said:

Presumably people that have a different gas central heating but a different electricity supplier will get it? 

I really can't see the government risking that, it would be ludicrous.
One method I've seen mentioned is it only being automatic in areas where there is no gas.  

(But of course, nothing actually set in stone.)

NedS

I agree - they must have a list of postcode areas that are not on mains gas that they can cross-reference against.

MrsPorridge

Anybody heard when we might get this payment please?

Spoonie_Turtle

February, apparently 

The government is also providing a further £200 Alternative Fuel Payment (AFP) to help those households in Great Britain who use alternative fuels such as biomass or heating oil to meet energy costs this winter. Most households eligible for the AFP support in Great Britain, will receive payment automatically via their electricity supplier in February, with no need to take any action. Those households who will need to apply for the AFP, for example because they do not have a relationship with an electricity supplier, will be able to do so in February, through the same GOV.UK portal as the one that will be used to apply for support under the EBSS Alternative Funding scheme.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vital-help-with-energy-bills-on-the-way-for-millions-more-homes-across-great-britain-and-northern-ireland

Spoonie_Turtle

Cross-posting to get the message out:

Hot off the press!

Customer eligibility
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 BEIS produce a list of Meter Point Access Numbers (MPANs) which BEIS has determined (see paragraphs 3.5-3.6 below) correspond to households who – if otherwise eligible – should be paid the Alternative Fuel Payment automatically through their electricity supplier.

BEIS will in early February provide to each electricity supplier a subset of MPANs for which each supplier is responsible.  Suppliers will receive MPANs for consumers with whom they have an existing relationship. Each MPAN will be provided to only one supplier.

Suppliers are responsible for determining which MPANs correspond to an eligible customer, where eligible customer means a domestic customer who is party to a Domestic Supply Contract or a Deemed Contract for electricity supply which relates to a domestic premises at 00:00 hours on 1 February (the qualifying date), with only one Domestic Customer per Domestic Supply Contract or Deemed Contract per Domestic Premises being an eligible customer. 

Suppliers are not responsible for paying any customer who does not correspond to a provided MPAN, regardless of their relationship with this customer.

Data matching
3.5 The following sets out the basic approach followed by BEIS in matching the various data sets and extracting the relevant list of MPANs for each supplier, identifying consumers to receive automatic payments for the AFP:

a. Off gas grid postcodes. Xoserve have published a list of GB postcodes where there is no active gas meter point connection. Gas connection record as of 13 December 20221.

b. Postcode look-up. ONS’s National Statistics Postcode Lookup is used to map active GB postcodes to Lower layer Super Output Areas (LSOA). Data published on 24 November 20222.

c. Census data on heating type. Provided by ONS and is used to identify the LSOAs that are eligible for automatic payments. BEIS will use this data to eliminate LSOAs that have been identified as predominantly having houses which heat their homes via electricity, as houses which are primarily electrically heated are not in scope of the Alternative Fuel Payment. Households which are primarily alternatively fuelled but have been eliminated through this process are eligible for the AFP Alternative Fund (see paragraph 1.6). 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-alternative-fuel-payment-afp-scheme-in-great-britain-guidance-for-electricity-suppliers

fatbelly

What could possibly go wrong?

MattMattMattUK

fatbelly said:

What could possibly go wrong?

I would be fairly sure the vast majority will not get paid in February, with guidance only issued today there will be too much work for the suppliers to do. Also it means customer services at the energy providers get worse again as huge numbers of people potentially eligible for the payment clog up the customer services department making pointless phone calls and sending pointless emails asking when / demanding that they are paid immediately. 

mmmmikey

....so in a nutshell:

1. BEIS (i.e. the Government) will tell the energy companies who to pay and all the energy company is reponsible for is paying them (as long as they are an electricity customer on 1st Feb)

2. BEIS have created the list by first eliminating the areas where gas is available. They have then taking this list and whittled it down further by elminating those areas where data shows that most houses use electricity as their main form of heating. This second whittling down is done by using census data about the area, not data about individual households.

3. If you live in an area where there is no gas and most houses use something other than electricity for heating and you have an electricity supply you'll automatically get the payment in February.

4. Anyone falls through the net (e.g. you live in an area where mains gas is available but you use oil, you're off grid and don't have mains electricity, you live in an area with mains gas and most of your neighbours use electricity but you use LPG, and so on (there are lots of different exceptions but relatively few customers (we are lead to believe) they apply to)) will have to apply for the AFP through a Government website which we don't have the details of yet.

Possibly a key take away from this for some is that electricity is not an "alternative fuel" - you have to be using something other than gas or electricity to get the payment. Many would have assumed this, but now it is explicit.

maisie_cat

Thank you @mmmmikey for that, I suspect that we'll have to apply then, the village two miles away has gas but our address with no supply is the village name as well.

dunstonh

maisie_cat said:

Thank you @mmmmikey for that, I suspect that we'll have to apply then, the village two miles away has gas but our address with no supply is the village name as well.

I would have thought the postcode changes over that distance.   

The ioserve "off gas" postcode list is here: https://www.xoserve.com/a-to-z/  (scroll down to off-gas) and the spreadsheet shows all the postcodes.      For those that are not used to spreadsheets, press CTRL F to bring a find box up and type in your full postcode).