Tenant Energy Advice Service Procurement Supplier Event

Bristol City Council’s Housing Delivery service will shortly be procuring a new contract to offer advice to council tenants around energy issues and will be holding a supplier’s event on 19th January 2016 10am-12noon (registration from 9:30am) at Netham Pavillion to provide more information about this opportunity. Bristol City Council has 27,500 social housing homes.

Their tenants are generally amongst the poorest households (over 70% of tenants receive Housing Benefit to help pay their rent) and have been further affected by reductions in welfare benefits. They have a high proportion of older tenants, large families and tenants with vulnerability issues – making warm, energy efficient homes crucial.

When asked for their priority for investment in their homes, most tenants placed energy efficiency top. Much of the Council’s housing stock was built 50-80 years ago, or built using non-traditional construction methods and over half the stock is flats.

All of these factors makes it a challenge to transform them into energy efficient homes. Housing Delivery has made significant investment into energy-related improvements/repairs to homes (cladding, improved heating systems, heat metering, etc.), however they are aware of situations where tenants are not getting the most from energy improvements due to a lack of understanding or awareness of how to use them.

Therefore, Housing Delivery will shortly be procuring a targeted energy advice service for tenants to include: • ‘Proactive’ advice to complement investment in energy measures to ensure tenants make the best use of improvements. • ‘Reactive’ advice to tenants who are having financial difficulties (possibly as a result of welfare benefit reform) to ensure they are getting the best value for money from their energy bills. The advice service will be freely available to all tenants without an eligibility criteria, however the main focus will be on targeting advice at the most vulnerable tenants.

The tender process is expected to begin in February 2016 and more information about the opportunity will be shared at the supplier’s day and via the Proactis procurement system. As part of the tender process, applicants will be asked to answer questions about how they would use their expertise in the energy field to provide a valuable and accessible advice service to tenants, and how they would ensure successful joint-working with other council services. To register your attendance please follow this link and provide the information requested: https://tenantenergyjan16.eventbrite.co.uk