Why financial support this winter makes sense

PA Consulting's Amy Marshall, energy and retail market expert, comments on offering vulnerable customers financial support this winter in an article by Adam John in Utility Week.

Commenting on this, Amy says: "Educational outcomes are quite often linked with broader environmental factors like air quality and quality of food. So if you have kids that are going to school cold and/ or hungry because they are from a low income household that doesn’t have the means to give them that basic support, then there is going to be a knock-on impact in the long term on the education system and to educational outcomes."

Amy goes on to say: "That’s very broad brush but I think those links between social demographic and life outcomes is quite well made. So you could say that the energy crisis is compounding some of those already quite well understood relationships therefore if you intervene you will be either lessening the risk of it worsening or potentially alleviating some of those negative outcomes.”

Adding: "Consumers can also benefit from positive health outcomes, a very strong evidence base that intervening in a critical service such as energy has wider benefits for the economy in terms of avoiding poor health outcomes."

Amy concludes: "If people are feeling more comfortable that they have enough to survive because they have other support and/ or control over their costs in terms of heating and eating, it creates more headroom for discretionary spend and of course that’s broadly helpful for the economy."

Read the full and original article in Utility Week