28th April 2025 – there’s a feeling of excited tension as Fair By Design and Poverty Alliance staff log into a Teams meeting room at 9:45. It’s not often a Monday morning meeting has us excited, but this one feels a little different.

As the clock ticks over to 10:00, 15 people join the call and meet each other for the first time – these 15 people are our new lived experience advisory group. The group will draw on their experience of the poverty premium – the extra costs faced by people on low incomes – to help guide our work.

Over the course of two hours, everyone introduces themselves, we hear what has made people smile in the last week and get to know each other’s pets. Shared values and motivations for taking part come to the fore as we discuss the purpose of this group.

It’s clear there is a feeling of frustration, and sadness at other panel members’ difficulties with benefits and companies who haven’t supported them in the way they should have. But overwhelmingly, there’s a shared sense that things need to change.

Who’s around the table

The panel is made up of 15 people from across Great Britain, with representation from England, Wales and Scotland.

It includes a diverse range of people to ensure those most disproportionately affected by the poverty premium are represented. We know that some communities are particularly at risk of paying a poverty premium for household essentials, so we’ve made sure that there’s good representation from those communities on our panel.

The aim is to create a safe, supportive and collaborative environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute their experience and knowledge of poverty-related issues.

Support and training will be provided to help build confidence in speaking up – whether to politicians, the media, or in meetings.

Panel members are being reimbursed for their time, with options on how they receive this. We understand not everyone wants financial compensation, so other benefits are available. This is our way of recognising the value their lived expertise brings to our work.

What we’re going to do together

Over the next year, the panel will meet five times to help shape and guide our work. It will sit alongside our existing governance structures, our steering group and the Barrow Cadbury Trust Board.

The panel’s experience will input into all areas of our work. This will include helping us set priorities by identifying which issues are affecting people most, what we should focus on, and what we might be missing.

They will also help shape our policy work by advising where further research is needed and what type of work we should undertake.

In addition, panel members will guide our research by working alongside academics and staff from other organisations to help shape individual research projects.

We’ll also support those who are comfortable sharing their voices and lived expertise through blogs, videos, social media, media interviews, or public speaking.

Conclusion

We have a strong track record of working with people with lived experience in our communications and policy work. But we want to go further – making lived experience a central part of shaping our strategic work.

Over the next year, the voices and experiences of these 15 people will be at the heart of everything we do. Keep an eye on our work to see how their insight is helping shape change.

If you’d like to learn more about the process, or how to set up a similar panel, please get in touch.

Fair By Design outlines key principles for a future energy system that is fair to those on low incomes

Today, energy prices are still around 45% higher than winter 2021-22, with an estimated 6.1 million households living in fuel poverty across the UK. This is also born out in debt statistics – consumer energy debt reached £3.82 billion at the end of Q3 2024, according to Ofgem.

As the Government looks to reform the market and support the transition to net zero, at Fair By Design we think there is an opportunity to design a system that works for everyone, especially people on low incomes who are most prominent in the statistics above.

This blog highlights our thinking on the future of energy, especially focusing on how a new system can work for low-income consumers and reduce some of those sobering numbers. With numerous consultations and calls for evidence currently taking place, not least the Government’s consultation on an update to the Fuel Poverty Strategy, here we outline key principles for a future energy system that is fair to consumers on low incomes:

1. Energy should be treated as an essential good, not a luxury.

1. Everyone should have access to the energy they need to stay safe and well at a price they can afford. This means designing a market without poverty premiums — where people on the lowest incomes aren’t charged more because they pay differently or lack the digital tools needed to access cheaper tariffs.

1. It also means reducing the amount of energy people need to use, by supporting energy efficiency.

1. Affordability must never rely on people dangerously rationing the energy they need to stay warm, cook meals, or keep the lights on.

How should the future look like?

As the domestic energy market evolves, we are calling for a commitment from Government and the regulator that there will be no new poverty premiums in the future.

More broadly, trust in the energy market must be rebuilt. That means addressing the basic affordability challenges people face today. We look forward to seeing Ofgem’s fully developed proposals for a debt matching/debt relief scheme to ensure people can escape the shackles of debt they found themselves in during the energy crisis. Crucially this must be accompanied by a social tariff to ensure energy is affordable going forward.

We would also like to see high standing charges reduced, and the premium charged to those who pay by standard credit eliminated. Practices like excessive back billing must be tackled, and the period for which suppliers can back bill should be reduced

There is also an opportunity through the Government’s consultation on a new fuel poverty strategy. We welcome the Government’s commitment to review progress towards the statutory 2030 fuel poverty target. We support retaining this target and urge the Government to fulfil its promise to invest £13.2 billion in the Warm Homes Plan at the next Spending Review. With National Energy Action identifying an £18 billion funding gap, this investment will be vital to ensuring homes are made more energy efficient and affordable to heat. Improving energy efficiency is one of the most sustainable long-term ways to bring down bills and ensure a fairer energy future for everyone.

A fair transition to net zero

We must design a system that works for everyone from the outset. That starts with building a stronger evidence base about how market reforms will impact different groups of consumers.

The rollout of smart meters is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Without one, consumers may be unable to access time-of-use tariffs or new flexibility services in the future. But the current target, to achieve a rollout to 75% of households is set to end in 2025 . Depending on if this figure is met, there is a risk of locking a significant proportion of households — including many on low incomes — out of the new energy market. The smart meter roll out must be extended before the end of this year.

In addition, the shift to net zero assumes that consumers will engage more actively with the market — by switching between tariffs or flexing their usage to take advantage of lower prices at off-peak times. But we know that many consumers do not proactively engage with the energy market.

In 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority found that 56% of consumers had never switched supplier or didn’t know if they had, and 72% had never switched tariff or didn’t know it was possible. People on low incomes were even less likely to be “active” consumers. Research by the University of Bristol (2016) for Fair By Design found that 73% of low-income households had not switched supplier in the previous two years.

More recent analysis by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) shows that low-income households gain very little from reducing demand at peak times. Innovative tariffs may be too complex or simply inaccessible to people without smart meters, digital skills, or flexible incomes. At present, the cheapest unit rates and standing charges are often only available to those who own electric vehicles — not those struggling with their bills. CSE has therefore highlighted the opportunity to support fuel-poor households to increase their usage at times of excess generation and low prices, not just encourage high-use consumers to reduce demand at peak times.

Finally, we believe Ofgem should carry out a full distributional analysis of the move to market-wide half-hourly settlement, using insights from existing pilots and building where there is evidence of disadvantage, Government and regulator must act to mitigate those disadvantages – not wait to pick up the pieces afterwards.

In conclusion, to build a fairer energy market, we must design policies around the needs of people on low incomes. That means removing poverty premiums, tackling existing inequalities, and ensuring no one is left behind in the transition to net zero. The future must be fair and affordable for all.

Today Fair By Design is launching its new film featuring people with lived experience of the poverty premium in payments.

Everyday millions of payments are made in the UK, from online transactions to cash in shops. They are an essential part of life today. However, some payment methods create a poverty premium, meaning people are charged more for the way they spend their own money.

Today Ofgem, the energy regulator, announced a lasting solution to eliminate the extra costs for paying for energy using a prepayment meter. This announcement is a big win and follows years of campaigning for this poverty premium to be eliminated.

The pricing and tariffs are over complicated on purpose. Energy companies have far too much power for an essential service.” – Lived experience focus group participant, April 2023.

The Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Committee has launched an inquiry to investigate the process of billing customers for their gas and electricity, to look at whether the rules on charging for energy are fair for all. The Committee wants to understand how a social tariff should be implemented to address inequalities in billing.  

Fair By Design are part of a coalition of Charities and groups calling on the Government to re-commit to the policy as part of a permanent solution for fuel poverty in the UK.

The Labour Party has published its Financial Services Plan, a blueprint laying out the party’s plans for financial services if it wins the next general elections. The plan mentions poverty premiums as a consequence of lack of access to financial services and pledges to develop a national financial inclusion strategy, something Fair By Design have long called for.

“It’s absurd that standing charges are such a large part of bill. The whole way that energy is purchased and passed to customers is absurd” – Lived Experience focus group participant, April 2023.

By Martin Coppack, Director, Fair By Design

It’s not every day that we see the financial services market reacting so strongly to what the regulator says on a relatively “niche” area, but one that affects many people: premium finance.

Premium finance is the loan and interest that insurance providers charge you if you can’t afford to pay for your car insurance all in one go, and pay monthly instead. It’s also used with other financial products.

Our response focuses on ensuring that households on low incomes do not incur a poverty premium based on the way they pay for their energy.