Fuel poverty related policy: Lessons learned in the UK and ... - ÖIN

esearch) can – as the studied cases show - be hampered by ministries or departments arguing over
responsibilities or limited funds. Similarly, after the political recognition of FP, the question who is
responsible for overseeing policies also needs to be answered.
Brenda Boardman summarised the problem in an interview for this dissertation: “As many other
policy issues fuel poverty is an interdisciplinary issue that does not fit into departmental
boundaries. What you need is an interdepartmental group, with one department given the primary
responsibility to get solutions [...] it could be (the department responsible for) energy, social issues
or even health” (Interview Boardman) These conflicts become more complex, as the examples of
Austria, Belgium and France will show, when the responsibilities and funds are also divided
between national, regional or local authorities.
The fact that an emerging policy issue will not fit into established political structures is certainly not
an unique characteristic of FP. However this interdisciplinary uncertainty has implications for
successful policy making, as well as making it hard to address and establish as a political issue in
the first place.
4.2 Definition vs. targeting
As illustrated in the literature review the debate about how to quantify, identify and define fuel
poverty is complex and very policy relevant. “Any definition of fuel poverty will involve political
choices. So therefore it is important to distinguish between what fuel poverty actually is - a lack
energy services to meet certain standards of health and culture – and understanding how it needs to
be defined politically to best target particular groups. These are two different things.”(Interview
Bouzarovski) Like Bouzarovski several academics emphasise that a distinction has to made
between the rather academic discussion of defining and quantifying FP, the individuals perception
of FP and eligibility criteria for policy (Waddams-Price et al 2007, Fahmy et al. 2011, Boardman
Interview)
Defining fuel poverty Targeting fuel poor
Characteristics Theoretical, strategic, academic Practical, applicable
Policy level Agenda setting, policy formulation Policy formulation, implementation
Purpose Indicate scale of problem and trends, Determine eligibility for funds
Scale National, regional Local, “on doorstep”
Table 1
While this dissertation lacks the scale for a detailed discussion of definitions, it is important to
stress the importance of targeting effectively. “It is so hard to precisely pin point people with a
22