Poverty and Deprivation

Research and Knowledge

Poverty and Deprivation

Focus on Fuel Poverty

Fuel poverty relates to households that must spend a higher proportion of their household income to keep their house warm at a reasonable temperature.  It is affected by three factors:

  1. household income,
  1. an increase in household fuel costs,
  1. a household’s energy use.

Fife Fuel Poverty Composite Index 2024

The Research Team have developed a Fife Fuel Poverty Composite Index (CI).  This is to answer the question:

‘Where are neighbourhoods in Fife with increased risk of experiencing fuel poverty?’

The Fife Fuel Poverty Composite Index provides a more accurate measure of fuel poverty risk to enable services to target fuel poverty need more effectively.   It takes account of both demand for fuel, and ability to pay for fuel, to assess the risk of fuel poverty in a neighbourhood.

The Fuel Poverty Composite Index ranks all datazones in Fife from 1 to 494 (where 1 is highest fuel poverty risk and 494 is lowest fuel poverty risk).  Please note that like the SIMD, this is a relative index and does not show by how much more or less an area is at risk of fuel poverty.

Each rank corresponds to one of ten deciles (10% bands) which are used in the outputs of the research to show relative fuel poverty risk.