Proposals for a new Fuel Poverty Action Programme have been criticised.

New fuel plans revealed by Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, to assist the poor have been slammed by anti-fuel poverty campaigners as being “deeply disappointing”.

The Fuel Poverty Action Programme, borne out of the Ofgem-led Fuel Poverty Summit in April, contains a number of practical proposals to help low income customers. Included in the programme are a pilot scheme to help ensure 3,000 vulnerable households are on their suppliers’ best tariffs, and an effort to ‘ramp up’ the level of help available from suppliers to those at risk of fuel poverty.

Sir John Mogg, Ofgem’s Chairman, explained the idea behind the programme: “Fuel poverty is caused by a combination of rising energy prices, low incomes and poor housing. That is why action must first and foremost come from government. But we have to find ways to identify and target more effectively low income and vulnerable customers most in need of help from the government, suppliers and non-government agencies.”

However, energywatch, the gas and electricity watchdog, has led campaigners in criticism of the programme. Adam Scorer, the company’s Director of Campaigns, was disappointed by the regulator’s and government’s reluctance to move more quickly on the issue.

He said: “There’s very little in the statements that hasn’t already been said and almost nothing new on the table. These announcements are going to have a hollow ring to them for the millions of households who need the government and regulator to respond to the true scale and consequences of fuel poverty.”

With regards to the practical proposals outlined in the programme, energywatch believes that these would have little effect, given that “the least expensive [energy supplier] deal was still too much for a fuel-poor consumer” and that to propose more switching as a response to the issue was to “misunderstand both the causes and the solutions”.