ECO Flex for suppliers

ECO4 Scheme and Great British Insulation Scheme

South Lanarkshire’s Local Housing Strategy (LHS) 2022-2027 highlights good quality, well-maintained, warm, and affordable to heat homes as a core requirement for achieving its five-year vision that by 2027: “Housing in South Lanarkshire is more suitable, affordable and sustainable to help meet current and future residents’ needs”. The Local Housing Strategy is available to view and download on our website

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) is an obligation that the UK Government has placed on energy suppliers to improve the energy efficiency of homes and obligated energy suppliers are set targets to meet. 

The ECO Scheme is a government energy efficiency scheme that aims to tackle fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions to support private tenure households that are in fuel poverty or that are on a low income and vulnerable to the effects of living in a cold home.  

The scheme has operated since 2013 and has helped to improve the energy efficiency in thousands of properties across South Lanarkshire, and this is the fourth version (ECO4). It continues to improve the least energy efficient homes helping to meet the UK Government’s fuel poverty and net zero commitments. 

The Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) is a new government energy efficiency scheme that aims to deliver improvements to the least energy-efficient homes in Great Britain to tackle fuel poverty and help reduce energy bills.  

The GBIS scheme complements the ECO4 scheme: the GBIS mostly delivers single insulation measures and the ECO4 scheme mostly delivers multiple energy efficiency measures. Both schemes run until March 2026. 

ECO4 Flex and GBIS Flex 

ECO4 Flex and GBIS Flex are aspects of the overall ECO4 and GBIS schemes, that allow local authorities to widen the number of households that may be eligible for energy efficiency measures. 

Local authorities who wish to participate in either or both schemes are able to identify additional households that may be eligible for energy efficiency measures under the eligibility criteria established by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero [DESNZ]. South Lanarkshire Council is participating in both schemes. 

The role of the local authority within the ECO4 Flex and the GBIS Flex schemes is to confirm that a household meets the eligibility criteria, only. The decisions to install measures and what measures will be installed are made by the energy supplier. The installation of measures must result in an improved Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band rating. 

The council's Statement of intent version 2.1 provides further information about the scheme and the application process. It replaces the previous versions:

Statement of Intent version 1.0 Withdrawn published 2 June 2023; withdrawn 31 August 2023

Statement of Intent version 2.0 Withdrawn published 1 September 2023; withdrawn 1 October 2023.

If you do not qualify for ECO4 or GBIS you may qualify for energy efficiency measures through another scheme. You can contact Home Energy Scotland here, or the council’s Housing Investment Team for further information at Housing_Investment_HP@southlanarkshire.gov.uk