Essential bills made affordable: A blueprint for targeted support
For people struggling with the costs of essentials, providing bill support can be transformative. It can be the difference between being able to balance the books, or being pulled into a negative budget each month and into spiralling debt.
But current models of support are failing to meet the scale of need. The extent of the challenge is laid bare in our latest report on the National Red Index, which shows that four million people couldn’t afford their essentials in 2024/25, and a further 320,000 people were £50 a month away from falling into a negative budget (where their essential expenditure is more than their income). It’s clear that urgent action is needed to address the living standards crisis.
These reports, a collaboration between Citizens Advice, IPPR, and Policy in Practice, present a blueprint for transforming targeted bill support. Citizens Advice are calling for the government to implement the following interventions:
Introduce a single water social tariff, aimed at supporting households on low incomes or facing 5% water poverty.
Introduce a new voucher to reduce the cost of motor insurance for households on means-tested benefits.
Reform the Warm Home Discount so that it increases the level of support, provides tiered support to different households based on their energy need, and receives funding from the Treasury to reduce the bill burden.
Introduce a new voucher for targeted broadband bill support to low income households and make key improvements to existing broadband social tariffs.
Taken together, this package of measures could provide a struggling household with bill discounts of over £950 per year, and make the current patchwork of support more coherent and effective.(1) For households struggling to make ends meet, this could finally put an end to soaring bills dragging them into debt.
Reports:
Essential bills made affordable
Broadband bills made affordable
Motor insurance bills made affordable
Data sharing for implementing targeted bill support
Methodology and notes for targeted bill support blueprints
These reports have been developed through a collaboration between Citizens Advice, IPPR and Policy in Practice.
Citizens Advice has led the design of the blueprints to propose effective and sustainable targeted bill support across essential markets.
IPPR has led the economic modelling using IPPR’s tax-benefit model, mapping the impact and costs of different levels of support across each market.
Policy in Practice has researched how user-centred design and pragmatic implementation processes can streamline take-up across essential markets through automation.
(1) A household would need to be eligible for all four targeted bill supports to receive the proposed £950 discount. Some households could be eligible for a higher discount if they have higher energy needs.