Is my Warm Home Discount delayed?

There are an awful lot of claims to be assessed and a lot of accounts to check, and it all takes time. If you’ve had the letter already, at least you know that the discount will be applied sometime during the winter. There’s just no way to tell when; I can only say that mine has always arrived before Christmas. 

More details may be available from Monday onwards at Warm Home Discount Scheme: Overview - GOV.UK, but I suspect it will as usual only give the end date, probably in February or March.

It sounds like you’ll still get it ‘without problems’. 

Just guessing here: everybody pays a little bit towards the scheme via the daily Standing Charge. The treasury gets the money, and another department (DESNZ, I think) administers the scheme. They decide what classes of citizen should get WHD, then have to rope in DWP to identify the eligible ones. There’s another step while the electricity industry matches eligible recipients to energy suppliers; DWP then have to inform both the suppliers and the recipients, the administrator has to persuade the treasury to part with the funds and pass them on to the supplier, who then dishes them out. There have to be checks at every stage to try and make sure that those who are eligible benefit and those who aren’t don’t.

It’s a really complicated and time consuming process, where errors could creep in at every exchange of data between the various actors, and there will always be some cases that fall into the cracks, requiring manual intervention from an army of harassed civil servants who might rather be processing asylum claims. It couldn’t possibly be done ‘all at once’, so it will be chopped into more manageable batches. The first batch may be completed in a few weeks’ time, the last probably not until sometime next year.

It sounds as if you’re one of the luckier ones. 

Update;

I’ve now had the letter from DWP confirming that I’ll get the WHD,so all is apparently on track.

If I can,I will.

Update;

I got the email from OVO today saying the WHD has been applied to my account.I’ve checked my account and it’s showing as a £150 credit.

The original date was given as 24th November,so it’s nine days early.I hope this reassures people who may be waiting for the WHD to be applied.

So I applied for the WHD weeks ago, the email I received confirmed I'm eligible for it and it'll be applied to my account by the 15/11/2023. Which it hasn't!? 

I'm seeing others posting on here who weren't due for it until December but have received theirs early. 

Has anyone else had the issue I'm having? 

Hey @Rhirhi308 

Sorry to hear about this.

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum, so you’ll be best placed to have the Support Team look into this for you.

If you’ve had your letter from the government, it might be helpful to the Support Team if you’ve got that to hand.

For more on the Warm Home Discount, check out the following topic:

No I haven't. Been told I got one for last year that I applied for in Nov 2022, payment was given January 2023 so I've had one for this year, then told I will get it in January so idk what's happening. Never had these issues with SSE 

Yeah I've been told several different things. But according to them because my last discount through SSE wasn't applied until January 2023 I'll not be entitled to one this winter until 2024. But then I've had nothing in writing saying that. But I've had them calling and harassing me every day for the outstanding bill I have which ofc I was expecting my discount to cover. So I think they've applied for it for me and just not given it to me. I've never had these issues before. 

Each is referred to as a Scheme Year by Ofgem

So SY13 (which is current) runs through to 2024 

Hey @Rhirhi308,

Sorry for the issues you’re having,

We’ve temporarily paused payments but aim to re-start payments over the next few days:

We’re pausing Warm Home Discount (WHD) payments for now
 
What’s happened?

We’ve noticed an issue with the VAT applied to WHD transactions, so we’ve made a change to make sure VAT is being applied correctly.

What have we done to fix this?

We’ve temporarily paused WHD payments while we fix the issue. We’ve also created two new transactions which will replace the existing WHD transactions, which clearly describe how VAT is calculated. 
 
The payments will be applied at £142.86 with VAT calculated at 5%, which is an additional £7.14. The total payment customers will receive is £150. 
 
For Core Group (customers notified to us by the Department of Work and Pension as eligible) customers we’ll use the following transaction:

• £150 Warm Home Discount CG13 (£142.86 + £7.14 VAT)

For Broader Group (customers in Scotland who have applied to OVO for WHD) customers, we’ll use this transaction:

• £150 Warm Home Discount BG13 (£142.86 + £7.14 VAT)

The payment is applied prior to VAT being added to the bill, so the amount is added as £142.86 and then the VAT attributed is 5% at £7.14. 

We’ll give another update soon and will aim to restart payments over the next few days. 

I can’t help with your account problem, but I can tell you that there has been an unavoidable delay in paying out WHD to some OVO customers. They had to pause for a few days because of a mistake in the VAT calculation, but they’re working hard to keep the delay as short as possible. Two days ago, I heard that almost 40% of affected accounts had already been dealt with, so it shouldn’t be long now.

I've been waiting since November too (16th i was told i would have it by) and still no sign, previously SSE, Traditional Pay G “Key” meter, all get told is there's a delay, with no further information