All unrestricted donations received by NEA are held in a central pot until the end of each financial year (31 March) and are then used in the following financial year to deliver a project that will directly help the fuel poor. NEA's staff who are experts in their various fields input into this process and suggest possible projects that could be funded with the donations received. These proposals are considered by the NEA management team before the final sign-off is given for the donations to be used for a specific project.
Thank you to all of you who have donated to NEA during the 2009-10 financial year. All donations received during 2009-10 will be used to deliver a new project in the North East of England titled A Warm Handshake, recognising that public donations have helped to keep homes warm.
This project will offer advice and guidance to fuel poor and low-income families with children. Each family will receive bespoke energy advice in a holistic way to help deliver a solution to the multiple problems faced by the client. Services will include:
• Energy advice surgeries
• Personal home energy advice visits
• A telephone advice service
A hardship fund will also be allocated to assist those families most in need. The hardship fund will be used for individuals who are having difficulty paying their fuel bills or to help towards the cost of servicing appliances or for minor repairs. No cash payments will be made. Only families who are involved in the project will be eligible to apply for the hardship fund. Each application to the hardship fund will be assessed by NEA on a case-by-case basis, however a cap will be placed on applications to ensure the fund is distributed evenly.
This project has a direct link to the campaigning message of NEA. NEA has campaigned for a number of years for the extension of the Winter Fuel Payment to other vulnerable groups such as families with children, in addition to vulnerable older households. This view is also shared by many of NEA's supporters and in particular one of the donors to this fund who made the following comments when making their donation to NEA:
The A Warm Handshake project will build on this campaigning message by delivering support to fuel poor families with children who do not currently benefit from a winter fuel payment.
The project will educate families with children in the North East on the solutions of fuel poverty and fuel debt with the overall intended outcome of removing them from fuel poverty and/or avoiding the future fuel poverty trap.
In the short term the project will equip them with the knowledge to be able to reduce their fuel bills and maximise their income. In the longer term the project will ensure that they enjoy a good quality of life. It will encourage people to undertake behavioural change, thereby impacting on their long-term energy use and fuel bills.
Monitoring and evaluation is a vital part of this project to enable NEA to report back to donors of the fund and to demonstrate exactly how their money has been spent. NEA will gauge a family's situation and their level of knowledge on energy efficiency both before and after the intervention. This will allow NEA to build a series of case studies to demonstrate the difference the project has made. These case studies will be added to the NEA website during summer 2011 once the project has been completed and all reporting and evaluation has been finalised.
The case study below demonstrates how an older couple, who were helped through a similar project based in NEA's Coventry office, were assisted.
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