Citizens Advice Scotland has called for Scots who make their homes more energy efficient to be given council tax rebates.
A new report by the charity’s Consumer Futures Unit into the Scottish Government’s new Scottish Energy Efficiency Programme (SEEP) recommends offering households a £500 rebate the year after installing home energy improvements, like double glazing or insulation.
The report warns one of the biggest challenges for SEEP, which will be introduced in 2018 is improving energy efficiency standards in owner-occupied properties.
According to the report, two thirds of owner-occupied homes in Scotland are below the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of C, which is generally seen as a “good” standard.
In order to encourage more households to invest in energy efficient measures, it recommends the introduction of a new incentive system and a council tax rebate would be the “most popular and motivating” of all the ideas it considered.
“If the ultimate objective of SEEP is to upgrade all homes to a Band C energy rating, around one million owner-occupiers in Scotland will need to upgrade their homes,” said the unit’s energy manager, Kate Morrison.
“The Scottish Government therefore needs to persuade people of the benefits of installing energy efficiency measures, and design a scheme that makes it easy for them to take action, and incentivises them to do so.
“Our research suggests the most popular incentive for householders would be a prompt £500 council tax rebate the year after upgrading their properties,” she added. “This would be a national policy so it would entail government providing support to local authorities to enable them to make these rebates available.”
“We believe that creative and innovative ideas are necessary to persuade people to make the necessary changes to their homes in the interests of making SEEP a success. This report is our contribution to that discussion.”