Partnership crowned winners of Best Building and Housing Initiative at the Association for Public Services Excellence awards

The South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership was the proud winner of the Best Building and Housing Initiative at the Association for Public Services Excellence (APSE) awards.

The award honoured the Sustainable Warmth delivery through the Home Energy Advice and Retrofit Team, who stepped up their retrofit programme.

In 2023, the team delivered £7.5m of capital grants to improve the energy efficiency of properties under two funding schemes, HUG1 and LAD3. The funding was secured from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero via the Midlands Net Zero Hub.

This saw 575 properties improved with the team being the top deliverer in the Midlands Net Zero Hub accounting for 24% of all Midlands delivery under the HUG1 scheme and and 27% of all installed measures.

Furthermore, the Team delivered 337 measures - 181 more measures than the next highest performing local authority.

Under LAD3, the team delivered improvements to 357 properties - securing additional funding and delivering well in excess of the initial target of 200 properties.

Under HUG1, this equated to average annual bill savings of £693.50 per resident with the scheme saving an average of 605 tonnes of CO2 annually.

The targets for delivery on the programme were set at 208 properties in HUG1 and 200 properties in LAD3 but the end results were 218 properties in HUG1 and 357 properties in LAD3 after additional funding was secured from underspend at other local authorities.

The Partnership's in-house team is unique in terms of local authority delivery. It doesn't rely on outsourced customer journey support and this approach has seen a great deal of personal development and upskilling to equip the team with the knowledge and tools to deliver an in-house operation.

The unique way the team works is to drive their own customer referrals, to allocate a dedicated case officer to each resident and to retain control over the process from start to finish.

The Partnership is now recognised nationally for its method of delivery and is frequently asked to advise other local authorities on how to establish similar approaches to support residents better.

The Retrofit Academy's PAS Healthcheck in June 2023 said: "The delivery of energy projects stood out as a beacon of good practice in the HUG world. Many LA's have had struggles with delivering these projects. Your approach is really refreshing in a number of different areas."