Warm Home Discount statistics: methodology
Published 18 June 2026
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
© Crown copyright 2026
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/warm-home-discount-statistics-2025-to-2026/warm-home-discount-statistics-methodology
1. Introduction
The Warm Home Discount statistics were originally published as official statistics in development following reform of the England and Wales scheme for 2022/23. The latest statistics for 2025/26 are published for the first time as official statistics, following an internal review of methodological improvements. These improvements are discussed in the main report. The statistics cover Great Britain. The Warm Home Discount (WHD) was introduced in 2011, with the scheme requiring obligated energy suppliers to provide energy bill rebates to eligible households. Ofgem is the scheme administrator. Reports on the number of households receiving the rebate have been published by Ofgem since the beginning of the scheme.
The changes made to the England and Wales scheme in 2022/23 now determine the recipients of the scheme primarily using administrative data. These changes have enabled the production of these statistics that provide more detail on the households receiving the rebate. Households are identified primarily based on data held by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) on those receiving certain means-tested benefits. Additional data is obtained via the WHD helpline, where households who believe that they meet the eligibility criteria can seek to obtain the rebate.
WHD is administered in England and Wales through two distinct eligibility groups:
Core Group 1 supports pensioners on a low income who are receiving the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit. This applies to households in Great Britain and is equivalent to the Core Group of earlier phases of the scheme.
Core Group 2 supports other low income households receiving a qualifying means-tested benefit, other than the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit.
Eligibility for the Warm Home Discount expanded in 2025/26. Before this change, Core Group 2 supported a narrower group of low-income households based on more restricted eligibility criteria. From 2025/26 onwards, eligibility was broadened so that any household receiving a qualifying means-tested benefit, other than the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit, is eligible for support under Core Group 2. In the next scheme year, in England and Wales, both CG1 and CG2 will be merged to create a single Core Group.
There is a separate WHD scheme in Scotland. While there is a group equivalent to Core Group 1 in Scotland, known as the Core Group, there is no Core Group 2. Instead, low-income and vulnerable households apply to their energy supplier for a rebate as part of the Broader Group, which has been a feature of the scheme since it began in 2011. Although the Government sets minimum eligibility criteria for the Broader Group in the regulations, obligated suppliers can set additional criteria, subject to approval by Ofgem. The Government does not have household-level data on the Broader Group rebates, and therefore the Broader Group rebates are not part of these statistics. In the next scheme year, the Scottish scheme will see increased data matching with DWP benefit records.
2. Data sources
The data of which households will receive a rebate through WHD is provided to DESNZ by DWP. There are two parts to the final dataset; the first consisting of households identified directly by DWP through data linking and the second for additional households who demonstrate their eligibility for the scheme through contacting the WHD Helpline run by DESNZ.
In all cases, data is provided by DWP at household level with a unique identifier of the Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN). This is the code for the electricity meter to which a credit of £150 will be applied by the energy supplier of the household. DESNZ statisticians have used this to match to other data sources, including allocating the households to geographic locations. This dataset also includes information on benefit type, disability indicator, benefit age and household composition for these households in receipt of WHD.
2.1 Matched data
The majority of households that receive WHD have been identified by DWP directly by applying the eligibility criteria for the scheme to administrative data records. This is slightly different depending on which Core Group the household is eligible under.
Core Group 1 households in Great Britain (referred to as the Core Group in Scotland) are identified where at least one household member is receiving the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit in the DWP benefits data.
Core Group 2 households in England and Wales are identified through DWP benefits data. This dataset is linked by DWP using the benefit claimant’s address.
In both cases, DWP then link eligible households to customer data they receive from energy suppliers to identify the subset of eligible households who are “matched” with an energy supplier. DWP returns unique reference numbers to each energy supplier for their “matched” customers. Suppliers are required to provide these matched customers with a rebate.
2.2 WHD Helpline data
The Core Group 1 and Core Group 2 eligible households where DWP could not find a match in the energy supplier customer data are referred to as “unmatched” households. This may include households where the household member receiving the eligible benefit was not listed as the bill payer and hence a match was not made, or where circumstances had changed (e.g. they had moved house) and one of the datasets had not been updated. These unmatched customers are sent a letter and invited to contact the helpline to provide details of their energy supplier customer account. If the helpline confirms the customer’s eligibility the helpline issues an ‘Instruction to Pay’ the WHD rebate to the relevant energy supplier, who is then required to award those customers a rebate.
The dataset of all ‘Instructions to Pay’ issued by the helpline are provided to DWP after the end of the scheme year (31 March) and DWP match back to their benefit records to enrich the data and provide the variables required for the production of these statistics.
3. Understanding the population of households
Most of the tables that have been published seek to identify the total number of households either within a local area or type of property (e.g., homes built pre-1919). This enables us to show the share of households in a cohort receiving the rebate. It is not meaningful to split this by Core Group and so population totals and shares of households are not broken down for these groups. Different data sources are used to understand the population data for England and Wales and for Scotland.
These datasets have been used both to understand the population of households but also to classify the WHD data by dwelling type, dwelling age, floor area and tenure.
3.1 Valuation Office Agency data (England and Wales)
The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Council Tax Valuation List for domestic data is a register of dwellings. This is used as a proxy for the number of households living in each type of dwelling and used for comparison with the number of households receiving WHD. Overall, there are slight differences in the number of households and dwellings due to vacant dwellings and dwellings in multiple occupation. This data has been used for the overall household population in England and Wales by local area and by dwelling type.
The VOA data for England and Wales covers all dwellings rated for the purpose of assigning a council tax band. This includes all permanent buildings which are used primarily for domestic use even if the household is exempt from council tax (e.g., students). Other buildings will be included in the separate Non-Domestic Register for business rates unless they are exempt.
Each entry on the Council Tax Valuation lists has a number of ‘Property Attribute Details’ (PADs) recorded, which are codes that describe the features of the property. One of these PADs is the property type code. If a property has no property type code recorded, or if the property type is recorded as ‘House - Unknown’, it is counted as having an unknown dwelling type.
Another PAD used in this release is the age code, which is a single letter that relates to the time period in which the property was built, for example, between 1993 and 1999. In this release, this time period is described as the ‘build period’. If a property has no age code recorded, it is counted as having an unknown build period.
If a property has been improved or extended since it was initially placed on the Register, the VOA can review the banding to take account of the alterations when the property is sold and, in some cases, earlier. These properties are flagged with an ‘Improvement Indicator’ on the Council Tax Valuation Lists. This means that the PADs held on the VOA’s administrative database for properties with an Improvement Indicator may not reflect the current property details. Once a sale takes place, the banding is reviewed, and the PADs may be updated.
3.2 Experian data (Great Britain)
Experian Household Directory data provides estimates of household characteristics based on a range of survey and administrative data sources used for modelling by Experian. Household characteristics for the WHD statistical breakdowns are predominantly produced using the VOA data, as this dataset has been shown to be the most robust and complete; however, as tenure is not recorded in the VOA data, the Experian data has been used for this breakdown.
3.3 National Records of Scotland data (Scotland)
The National Records of Scotland data provides an estimate of households in Scotland[footnote 1]. This provides data on the number of households living in Scotland in each Local Authority Area.
3.4 2022 Scotland Census
The 2022 Scotland census data provides an estimate of households living in Scotland in each Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS) Data Zone and Westminster parliamentary constituency.
3.5 National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL)
The NSPL is produced by ONS Geography. The dataset, which is updated quarterly, classifies each postcode within the United Kingdom into administrative and statistical geographies, e.g. Local Authority, Lower Super Output Area / SNS Data Zone and Westminster parliamentary constituency. It also provides classifications to Census derived classifications such as rurality.
3.6 Approach to population rurality breakdowns
Several categorisations of rurality are used in the publication. For England and Wales, the latest publication now uses the 2021 census six-point classification, moving away from the 2011 census eight-point classification that was used in previous publications. The population data is taken directly from the National Statistics Postcode Lookup, and so is different to Valuation Office Agency based totals used elsewhere.
For Scotland, the latest publication now uses the eight-fold Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification, based on the 2022 census. Population data by rurality in Scotland have been calculated using the Scottish 2022 census data by data zone mapped on to the eight-fold rurality classification.
4. Data management
The Warm Home Discount statistics have been produced primarily from two data sources:
1. The Warm Home Discount administrative data (Matched data & WHD Helpline data)
2. Population data of properties, typically from the National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (NEED) which includes:
- Valuation Office Agency Data
- Experian Data
- Meter Point Administration Number data
Data linking is a key aspect of classifying the WHD administrative data into geographic areas and dwelling types. The WHD data contains the unique identifier of Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN), which is the key identifier of electricity meters used by energy suppliers. This is used by DWP and the WHD helpline within the “Instruction to pay” and issued to suppliers to provide a rebate against the meter. This is therefore the most complete identifier within the WHD data. DESNZ then use the MPAN to match to the other NEED datasets through the MPAN to Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) lookup.
Because data linking doesn’t provide 100 per cent coverage, there are some unknowns in the allocation of WHD records to dwelling types, tenure, and gas connection.
Gas grid connection is based on whether there is a mains gas meter in or around the property.
For 2025/26, we were able to successfully match 97.7% of records on to the VOA and NSPL databases using UPRN and postcode. For the 2.3% of cases where data linking was not possible, these dwelling characteristics are reported as not known in these statistics.
5. Related Data
The overall reports on the final delivery of the Warm Home Discount Scheme are published by Ofgem. These reports show the number of rebates delivered in previous scheme years and will report the overall final delivery of the 2025/26 scheme year next year. The Ofgem report is used for Ofgem’s final reconciliation, which is the process of redistributing the costs of the scheme across energy suppliers so that each supplier pays a fair share of the costs.
Table 17 compares the published statistics with Ofgem’s Warm Home Discount Annual Report. There are differences between the figures in Table 17b and Table 17c, and correspondingly between this publication and Ofgem’s annual report.
These statistics and Ofgem’s report are derived from two different sources. These statistics are based on data delivered from DWP and the WHD helpline, whereas Ofgem’s report uses data from energy suppliers. Specifically, the difference may be due to differences in data cleaning and reporting methods, different timings of data extraction, and different approaches to accounting across financial years.