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.

Thanks,the email states that Ovo have had confirmation from the DWP that I qualify for the WHD.

I always used to get it without problems when I was with SSE.My query about the delay stems from Ovo stating that I’ll get the discount applied by 24th November this year.

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. 

Hey @Nighthawk99 

Some great advice here from Firedog, the majority of the scheme is run out-with OVO’s control until the DWP actually send over the funds for each claim.

I’m glad to hear you’ve received your letter already, this is a really good sign of things running smoothly like Firedog also mentioned. 

The Warm Home Discount homepage run by the Government has only just been updated so you can check out a little more on there too: https://www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

It does provide a broad date range of when payments are due to be made, so it’s nice that your letter gives you something a bit more specific to look out for.

Update;

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

If you post if you get the WHD by 24th Nov as per the email from ovo I am sure it will help re assure others

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/my-account-140/warm-home-discount-delay-16201?postid=101441#post101441

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.

Me too - eleven days early 😊

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 @Nighthawk99 

Glad to hear you’ve receive your Warm Home Discount payment already! It’ll be nice to know it’s there and you’re not still waiting for it.

Hopefully everyone else has as smooth a process as yourself.🙂

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:

Have you had your payment now @Rhirhi308 

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 

Hey @Rhirhi308,

Just to confirm you’ve been advised you’ll get the payment in January 2024? 

This is the advice taken from the website:

Once we're told by the Government to apply your discount, we'll aim to do this within 30 days unless an exception applies. An exception could be that we weren’t your registered supplier on 13 August 2023. If this happens, we'll tell the Government and ask they give the discount to the correct supplier.

For automatically matched eligible customers

The Department of Work and Pensions should tells us to apply the discount to these customers between October 2023 and December 2023. We'll aim to apply the discount for these customers by the end of December 2023 or within 6 weeks of being told to by the Government.

For customers that need to get in touch with the Government

We should be told what discounts to apply between October 2023 and the end of March 2024.  We'll apply discounts to accounts we're told about before March 2024 or within 6 weeks of being informed.

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. 

Hmm, winter is winter I’d have thought. 22/23 or 23/24.

Each is referred to as a Scheme Year by Ofgem

So SY13 (which is current) runs through to 2024 

I don't know what else to do, the warm home discount team said I need to deal with this through OVO as I live in Scotland and OVO are refusing to even give me any further info. I escalated a complaint about it and heard nothing back and feel like they're going to screw me out of my discount that they've clearly applied to the government for on my behalf because they confirmed I was eligible and getting it by the 15th of November. 

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’m a pay as you go customer who’s just been swapped by SSE to OVO. I downloaded the OVO app but have not been able to register my account. It just keeps coming up with the words “ oops something has gone wrong “.

Not very helpful. I was trying to find out about my warm home discount payment which is due, and hasn’t been put on my key yet. I’ve had confirmation from government with a letter, but nothing yet from OVO. 

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.

Hey @Jackfrost3 

Sorry to to hear about the issues you’ve been having.

Firedog is right here about the Warm Home Discount, there has been a delay at the moment, you can find out more about that here:

Regarding the OVO app, is it the OVO Energy top-up app you’re trying to use or the my OVO app? The My OVO app won’t work with Pay as you Go, so it has to be the OVO Energy top-up app. 

If you’ve not already got it, you can download the OVO Energy Top-up app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, where you can top up quickly and easily at you’re own convenience. You can also make a top-up payment here.

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