The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) Research Study

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 received energy saving measures funded by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. You also previously completed a survey for us about your experiences of these energy saving measures.

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 in another way.

You may also be invited to take part in a follow-up group interview. Those who take part in a follow-up interview will receive an additional £50 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/shdfpost 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.

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 originally sent to us by your landlord or Housing Association if you consented to participate in this research study. When you completed our previous survey, you may have provided us with additional or different contact details that we are now using instead. We store your details securely and no one else can access them.

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

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

• 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?
• 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 5 and 10 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.

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 at: Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund: Wave 1 (closed to applications) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

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.

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/