The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) Research Study (Wave 2.1)

The survey is being sent to a random selection of those who have received or will receive energy saving measures through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. To ensure the survey is valid, IFF Research cannot send the survey to people who have not already been selected to take part.

This research has been designed to gather information from tenants and residents whose homes have received or will receive energy saving measures funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. The aim is to help the Government understand the views and experiences of social housing tenants and residents.

This research involves surveys and interviews which will include questions about a range of issues, such as questions about your living situation, your experience of having insulation or other energy saving measures installed in your home, and the impact of these works.

You will have been invited because your home has been (or will be) selected by your landlord to receive energy saving measures funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. You may have also been invited to participate in the survey if you were asked about receiving energy saving measures funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, but decided not to proceed.

The more voices we hear, the better this research study will be. We know that each tenant’s or resident’s experience of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is unique, and your views are therefore very important to us. What we find out is used to inform policy and make a difference to the lives of tenants and residents in England.

As a thank you, we will send a £10 shopping voucher to each household that takes part in the survey. The voucher will be sent via email, which will include instructions for how to claim it. If you do not have your own, or cannot access an email address, you will have the option to receive the shopping voucher by post.

You may also be invited to take part in a follow-up one-to-one interview. Those who take part in a follow-up interview will receive an additional £40 shopping voucher.

Taking part is voluntary and you do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to. It’s up to you to take part in this research study, but we hope you will as your views will help to make this study even better. See “Why should I take part in the study”?

Please either scan the QR code in your invitation letter or go to our website at www.iffresearch.com/shdf2 to take part in the survey. To begin the survey, you will be asked to enter your unique reference number which is shown in the top right of your letter.

Yes. IFF Research will give you a call to see if you would like to complete the survey over the telephone. There is nothing you need to do if you would like to complete the survey over the phone. If you would prefer not to receive a phone call, please email us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381.

Please contact SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381 if you have not received your shopping voucher but were expecting one. If you have it available, please provide your unique reference number shown in the top right of your invitation letter when contacting us. If not, please provide your full name and email address.

To redeem your shopping voucher online, please follow the steps below:

1. You will receive an email to say that you have been issued a voucher. Please select ‘Click to redeem voucher’.
2. When you click on the link, you will be taken to a page where you will need to enter your email address and then press ‘continue’.
3. You will then be taken to a page where you can create your account. Please enter your details, then tick the terms and conditions and privacy policy box before pressing ‘save and continue’.
4. You will then be asked to check your inbox to confirm your email address.
5. Once you have received the email, please press ‘click here to login’.
6. You can now select the retailer you wish to receive a voucher for.
7. Once selected, scroll down and tick the box to confirm your choice, then press ‘confirm’.
8. Click ‘View voucher’. You can now access your voucher and can spend it.

If you selected the option to receive the voucher by post, you will be sent a physical voucher that can be spent in a range of high street shops.

You can ask a relative, friend, or a carer to help if you are having trouble claiming your voucher. If you are still having trouble, please contact us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381.

Your details were sent to us by your landlord or Housing Association, as part of the process of signing you up to have the energy efficiency measures installed at your home. The project team working on this research will store your details securely, and will not allow them to be used for any purpose outside this research project.

Selected tenants and residents will be asked to complete a survey and some tenants and residents will also be invited to take part in a follow-up one-to-one interview.

The survey and interviews will ask you a range of questions relating to your home and your experience of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. For example:

• Understanding your living situation, for example: what type of flat or house do you live in?
• Understanding how you heat your home, for example: how easy or difficult you find keeping your home warm?
• Your experience of having insulation or other energy saving measures installed in your home, for example: how satisfied are you with the work that was carried out? How did your landlord keep you updated on the works?
• The impact of having energy saving measures carried out in your home / development, for example: how has the work impacted the way you heat your home? Has it made it cheaper to heat your home?

The survey should take between 15 and 20 minutes to complete.

You can contact us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381 and we will try to help locate your reference number. Alternatively, if you do not complete the survey and do not contact us to opt out of the research, we will send you a reminder email with these details included. The unique reference number will be printed in the top right of the email.

Yes, you can take a break anytime by clicking ‘pause’ in the survey. You will be able to re-enter the survey by following the instructions on your invitation letter (or see ‘I have received an invitation letter asking me to complete a survey. What should I do?’). This will take you back to where you left off.

If you or someone else needs to complete the survey in another language, please contact us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381 and we will do our best to arrange a telephone interview in the language that you require.

The survey should be completed by the person(s) who received the invitation, or by another member of the household who is aged 16 or over and was living in the property when the works were carried out. Only one survey can be completed per household, and one shopping voucher will be available per household as a thank you for completing the survey.

All the questions in the survey will require a response in order to allow you to continue – however, you can select ‘prefer not to say’ for any questions that you do not feel comfortable answering, or ‘don’t know’ if you are unsure about the answer.

Please reach out to us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or or via telephone at 0808 169 9381 if you would not like to take part in this research. We will remove your contact details and ensure that you are not contacted about this research again. If you have it available, please provide your unique reference number shown in the top right of your invitation letter when contacting us. If not, please provide your full name and email address.

All data will be held securely within IFF Research’s secure drives and will be retained for 3 months after the end of the research study, i.e. until November 2026, and then securely destroyed.

More about our data protection can be found here: Privacy policy | IFF Research

The project team working on this research will see your individual survey responses and these will be used for research and analysis purposes only.

Survey responses shared amongst this team may be linked to address data.

No information that will identify you as an individual will be shared in the public domain, or with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero or with anyone outside the project team.

The project team will use responses for research and analysis purposes only.

Responses from all individuals taking part in the study will be reported anonymously, meaning your responses to questions are presented in a way that they will not directly identify you.

You can also read our Privacy Policy here: Privacy policy | IFF Research

The project team conducting this research is formed of a small number of individuals from the following organisations:

• IFF Research: https://www.iffresearch.com/
• Technopolis: https://www.technopolis-group.com/
• BRE: https://bregroup.com/
• UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/

Please contact your social housing landlord in the first instance to find out more about what is happening in your area. If you would like to learn more about the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund more generally, please visit the Government website.

As a part of the research, our research partners University College London (UCL) wish to use smart meter data to analyse how effective the installations have been at improving energy efficiency. We can do this by linking your smart meter to the national smart meter systems via n3rgy. If you agree, we will collect this data between September 2022 to September 2025 on a weekly basis. We will use these findings to contribute to the findings in reports that will be published in 2026 on gov.uk. The only organisation with access to the data will be University College London (UCL). The data will be recorded anonymously and there will be no way to link the data or findings in the reports back to you.

By providing consent to sharing your smart meter data, University College London (UCL) will be given permission to receive your smart meter data through the national smart meter systems via n3rgy from between September 2022 to September 2025 on a weekly basis. This will provide UCL with:

• Energy consumption & generation information for both gas and electricity (where available).
• Energy tariff information containing information of the price you are charged for energy consumed.
• Information identifying the energy meter (number, location, type).

Your personal data will be recorded anonymously and there will be no way to link the findings in the reports back to you.

At any point before the final report is published in 2026, you will be able to ask to withdraw your data from the research by:

• Using the email address: SHDF@iffresearch.com
• By ringing our freephone number: 0808 169 9381
• By filling in a form on the IFF research website at: https://www.iffresearch.com/privacy-policy/
• The n3rgy customer portal: https://data.n3rgy.com/consumer
• In the n3rgy customer portal you can:
  • Review which organisations you have granted access to.
  • Download a copy of your data held by n3rgy data limited.
  • Withdraw consent for any or all of the organisations listed.

n3rgy data service ( https://data.n3rgy.com ) is used by IFF research to interface with the national smart meter systems in order to collect, store, manage and share with University College London your Smart Meter data. This service uses the Smart Energy Code (https://smartenergycodecompany.co.uk/) Party credentials and Party ID of its parent, N3RGY LIMITED, incorporated and registered in England and Wales with the company number 11203504 whose registered office is at 4 Ovington Drive, Fleet, United Kingdom, GU51 1DF.

This research is important as it will help ensure that Government funding to support social housing landlords improve the energy efficiency of social housing is efficient and cost-effective. In turn, this will help the Government and landlords to:

• Improve the comfort and wellbeing of those living in social housing
• Reduce energy bills for those living in social housing
• Reduce CO2 emissions
• Improve the energy efficiency of social homes
• Support the green economy and associated jobs

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is funding that social housing providers (for example, Local Authorities and Housing Associations) in England can apply for. The money they receive is used to improve the energy performance of social homes in England – in other words, to help social homes to use less energy, which results in benefits such as lower bills and less pollution.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is being funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which used to be known as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero wants to understand whether the fund has worked well, particularly for social housing tenants and installers, and to know what could be improved. This is what the research allows us to do. To do the research, we speak to tenants and installers to hear their views on the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.

IFF Research is an independent market research agency based in the UK, that operates under the strict guidelines of the Market Research Society’s Code of Conduct, the 2018 Data Protection Act and UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). IFF Research is conducting surveys and interviews with tenants and installers involved in the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. For more information about IFF Research, please visit the website.

Please contact us at SHDF@iffresearch.com or via telephone at 0808 169 9381 if you need help. If you have it available, please provide your unique reference number shown in the top right of your invitation letter when contacting us. If not, please provide your full name and email address.

All data will be held securely within IFF Research’s secure drives and will be retained for 3 months after the end of the research study, i.e. until November 2026, and then securely destroyed.

More about our data protection can be found here: Privacy policy | IFF Research

The project team working on this research will see your individual survey responses and these will be used for research and analysis purposes only.

Survey responses shared amongst this team may be linked to address data.

No information that will identify you as an individual will be shared in the public domain or with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero or with anyone outside the project team.

The project team will use responses for research and analysis purposes only.

Responses from all individuals taking part in the study will be reported anonymously meaning your responses to questions are presented in a way that they will not directly identify you.

You can also read our Privacy Policy here: Privacy policy | IFF Research

The project team conducting this research is formed of a small number of individuals from the following organisations:

• IFF Research: https://www.iffresearch.com/
• Technopolis: https://www.technopolis-group.com/
• BRE: https://bregroup.com/
• UCL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/