Apply for a Fuel Voucher
There are 2 types of Fuel Voucher:
- Energy Vouchers are for gas and electricity pre-payment meters. These are be provided through PayPoint or The Post Office.
- Utility Vouchers are for gas and electricity credit bills (people who pay gas and electricity for example, monthly, by direct debit or quarterly bill), oil, bottled gas or smart meter pay-as-you-go. These are provided through the Post Office.
Utility Vouchers for credit bills:
- support workers must explain to the recipient that Utility Vouchers must only be credited to their gas or electricity bills
- recipients take the Utility Voucher and their bill to the post office for the voucher to be credited to their bills
- people will need to show the receipt or credit on the account to the support worker before receiving any further vouchers
Utility Vouchers for oil, bottled gas and smart meter pay-as-you-go:
- before awarding a utility voucher for oil, bottled gas or smart mater Pay-as-you-go the support worker must see a receipt for a relevant fuel payment dated within the last 3 months
- recipients take the Utility Voucher and their bill to the post office for the voucher to be cashed as a contribution towards the costs
Fuel vouchers awards are allocated at standard award amounts of:
- £56 (2 x £28) for a single person household
- £98 (2 x £49) for a 2 or more-person household
Households can receive a maximum of 2 standard food awards and a maximum of 2 standard fuel awards from the scheme from Monday 1 April 2024 to Monday 31 March 2025.
This is in addition to vouchers received in previous years.
Applications for food and fuel vouchers are treated separately.
Find out more about:
Eligibility for the Fuel Voucher Scheme
Households must meet the scheme eligibility criteria.
You'll need to confirm these before your application can be processed:
- applicant’s name
- applicant’s address
- applicant’s income
- number of people in the household
The service must confirm that they have seen documentary evidence from the applicant, such as:
- bank statement
- council tax bill
- payslip
- Department for Work and Pensions benefit notification
- driving licence
- passport
- utility bill
To be eligible:
- the application is for a household resident within City of York boundaries
- the applicant must have recourse to public funds
- the household is seeking advice and support from the partner service due to fuel poverty or have fuel debt
- and they are a vulnerable household
A vulnerable household may include, but is not restricted to:
- a person who has a physical or sensory impairment, learning disability or mental health problem and who may be unable to protect themselves from harm or abuse, or their carer
- elderly, frail or confused older people
- people who are seriously ill or have a severe long time health condition
- people who are recently bereaved
- pregnant women or those who have recently given birth
- those who have obvious difficulty in understanding, speaking or reading English
- care leaver
- those fleeing domestic abuse
- anyone suffering severe hardship
Apply for the Fuel Voucher Scheme
Applications for Fuel Vouchers are made through advice and support services in York.
Applications can only be considered is part of an overall financial capability advice or support assessment, by phone or face to face, including as appropriate benefits checks and other information about reducing out goings, for example, social tariffs for broadband or energy efficiency measures.
Please note: advice and support agencies need to be a registered partner with the scheme to be able to distribute fuel or fuel vouchers.
Registered partner services carry out the assessment. Successful applications are processed via the Charis online platform.
Approved Fuel and Food Vouchers are sent electronically to the resident by SMS text or email. Contained within the email or SMS is a link to the unique voucher code as well as all the redemption instructions. Vouchers should be used within 2 weeks.