Wirral Council: using ethnographic research and partnership working to tackle fuel poverty

Qualitative researchers in Wirral Council’s Public Health team have been using ethnography to see and hear how residents are affected by fuel poverty, including those that may be hidden from the national statistics on fuel poverty. 

In February 2024, four residents welcomed researchers from Wirral’s Qualitative Insight Team into their homes. These resident’s stories are helping Wirral Council’s staff, local partners and stakeholders develop a collaborative fuel poverty action plan. 

Fuel Poverty is a priority area within Wirral Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2027, as 1 in 7 people in Wirral were estimated to be living in fuel poverty in 2021, with the figures rising to 1 in 4 in the borough’s most deprived areas. Consequently, an action plan is being developed by Wirral Council’s Public Health team and partners to tackle fuel poverty as a local system.

However, understanding the full picture of fuel poverty and its effects on residents is challenging. Definitions and measures of ‘fuel poverty’ have varied over time and across the devolved nations, meaning it is possible for residents in need to be overlooked if they don’t meet the set criteria. The Qualitative Insight Team at Wirral Council know from experience that people can tend to be reserved when sharing the true extent of their circumstances whilst using traditional qualitative research methods, such as structured interviewing. 

To ensure that Wirral’s Fuel Poverty Action Plan addresses the real experiences and needs of residents experiencing fuel poverty, the Public Health team called on the Qualitative Insight Team to produce ethnographic case studies of residents living in fuel poverty. The Qualitative Insight Team was introduced in Wirral Council’s Public Health team in 2022, and the team works with residents to ensure their voices inform council policy and decision making. 

For the first time, the Qualitative Insight Team used ethnography, which is an immersive method that uses observation and interviewing to understand people’s behaviours and surroundings up close. 

The researchers visited four residents at their homes and spent the day observing and asking about their day-to-day activities, such as their energy use, mealtimes, and shopping. Where consent was given, researchers took audio recordings, photos, and videos.

The residents described how fuel poverty was affecting many different aspects of their lives, such as their health and wellbeing, finances, housing conditions, and family relationships. They also showed the ways they save energy and money, such as using LED lighting, switching off boilers, and limiting the quality or quantity of meals. 

One participant, Phillipa, aged 51, had to stop working because of her long-COVID-19 diagnosis. She explained the clever ways she saves energy in her home: 

“We’ve got sensor lights, so they only stay on enough for you to walk past or to go to the bathroom, and they’re all USB chargeable, so we charge them up in the car, and that saves us a little bit as well.”

Watch three Wirral residents talk about their real life experiences:

Having the opportunity to be immersed in the resident’s lives gave the researchers a more nuanced understanding of the issues the residents face. An ethnographic method allows for a greater focus on relationship building, which resulted in residents opening up more – offering to show parts of their homes and talk about parts of their lives that couldn’t be captured in a one-hour interview in a café. 

The case studies, including a video summary, were used at the first in a series of fuel poverty workshops run by Wirral Council’s Public Health Team, and helped the attendees to identify action plans for tackling fuel poverty as a local system. The case studies drew attention to the reality and complexity of fuel poverty in the borough. They were an emotive way to get partners to think about strategic and operational actions that could have meaningful impact for real people in the community. 

How is the new approach being sustained?

Further workshops will take place later in 2024, and to inform these, the Qualitative Insight Team will be gathering further insights. The focus will be on understanding the differences in experiences of fuel poverty across the borough, including in more affluent areas of West Wirral, where fuel poverty can be hidden.

• Ethnography can offer local authorities the opportunity to see the complex and often unspoken ways that fuel poverty affects residents.
• Introducing resident’s lived experiences into the workshop brought the issues to life and led to more focused discussions. 
• Three out of the four residents lived in properties with Energy Performance Certificates of bands B or C, meaning they would not meet the criteria of England’s current fuel poverty measure. This highlights the limitations that national measures pose when trying to understand the lived experiences of residents. Instead, qualitative insights can be used to uncover the breadth of the issue.