3 things our cost-of-living dashboard is showing us
We welcome the government support but it won’t prevent a challenging winter
I’ve been part of the team at Citizens Advice that has put together our monthly cost-of-living data dashboard, which is now live with new stats from August and will be shared at our cost-of-living briefing. We are using it to track the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the people we help and to track the impact of the Government’s support package so far.
There are so many important insights in the more than 20 interactive charts. But these are my 3 key takeaways:
1. We’re seriously concerned about prepayment customers
Prepayment customers will likely have to pay more this winter than those paying by direct debit — their tariffs are higher and they can’t spread out their costs over the year. In previous years, we used to see fewer people who couldn’t afford to top up their prepayment meters in the summer months — as people used less energy and costs tended to be lower. But not this year.
Our chart below shows that, by the end of August, we had seen over 15,000 prepay customers who couldn’t afford to top up — more than 3 times higher than at this stage last year and nearly as high as the last 3 years combined.
In August, the trend increased at a faster rate than in the first half of the year — which is staggering given that this includes the winter months of January and February.
We’ve added a new graph deep diving into trends around debt collection practises. There’s some concerning developments. Since 2021, we’ve been seeing much higher numbers of people with energy debts being forced by energy companies onto a prepayment meter.
We are worried that customers that are forced onto a prepayment meter due to arrears will be effectively ‘disconnected’, by rationing their energy use. That’s why we want to see the Government and the energy regulator step in to suspend this practice this winter.
2. It seems the Government’s support package only had a temporary and limited impact — as worrying cost-of-living trends return
Last month, there were signs that the Government’s cost-of-living package was reversing some of the worrying trends we were seeing. But the impact of this seems to have been short-lived — something my colleague Morgan Wild explained in his blog.
Other key graphs seem to confirm this. The number of people we’re helping with 5 key cost-of-living issues have increased again — after dipping over the last 3 months.
The sharp increase this month is clear when looking at our food bank referrals. The last 2 months saw promising dips, before this month returning to near-record levels.
This suggests that, while the Government’s support package had some impact, it’s not been enough to help people through the crisis. And even with the Government’s new energy price guarantee — everything is pointing towards an incredibly challenging winter for people on the sharp end of the crisis, in the absence of further support.
3. For emergency charitable support, we’ve seen a striking increase in the number of people we’ve helped for the first time
The trend for food banks is a little different, but most people coming to us for food bank referrals each month are being helped with this issue for the first time.
There’s also more people coming to us repeatedly, though this trend is less stark. It all adds up to a worrying picture — more people are in hardship, and more are falling deeper into hardship.
Next cost-of-living dashboard briefing
If you’re interested in finding out more and seeing the next round of stats from our dashboard, come along to our next cost-of-living briefing event in October.
If you have any thoughts, feedback or questions on the dashboard, contact us at coldatadashboard@citizensadvice.org.uk.
