Here's an idea

Merton council decided to team up with energy broker Simply Energy to work out the best energy options for its customers – our tenants.

The partnership arose after Simply Energy emailed some information on spec to Merton.

The company operates a free service, whereby it finds the most cost-effective energy provider for individual users.

It does this by asking customers a series of questions, such as how many people are in the house, how high their energy bills are, whether they use the most energy in the morning or the evening. Using this information, the company can find the best deal for each person.

This is something we decided to embark upon because fuel poverty is a big issue for us – the borough of Merton has some of the poorest wards in the country, and this is a way to help those families that are most vulnerable.

Also, the council benefits from this financially because, each time a person switches their supplier using the telephone number we have set aside, the council receives £8. If a person switches their gas and their electricity supplier through our number, we get £16.

We use this money to improve energy efficiency throughout the borough.

We raised awareness of the scheme by sending out fliers to tenants with information about the service and the benefits for them.

It's still quite a new thing, but we are hoping the tenants will look at the information we send them and take up the offer.

The fact that we are working with this organisation is reassuring for tenants because they know that they can trust the company because otherwise the council would not encourage tenants to take part in it.

This is especially useful for elderly people because often they are concerned about the cost of heating their homes but do not know where to go for good advice.

Hopefully this partnership will go some way to helping them overcome this, as the service is another resource of information for them.