Vulnerability Team and Business updates
Business updates
Any questions on our general business updates, please just get in touch with Eileen – ebrown@northerngas.co.uk
GD3 – 2026 to 2031
- Work has started on our next business plan, which will run from April 2026 to March 2031. Working groups have started with Ofgem, and we are working on our consultation responses. Ofgem welcome responses from all stakeholders, so please take time to review the consultation questions and reply with your thoughts. More on this shortly.
Decarbonisation of heat
- In December, we received confirmation that the government would not be progressing with the Redcar Hydrogen Trial, due to hydrogen production issues outside of NGN's control. Over the past three years, we had built up a strong relationship with charities and support organisations in the area, and will continue to work with them in the future.
New VCMA Collaborative Projects
- NEA Health project – NGN Leading
- Kidney Care UK – all 4 GDNs
- NSPCC – safeguarding support - all 4 GDNs
- E-Learning for health – all 4 GDNs
New VMCA NGN Projects
- Skills 4 Work – newly approved
- Redcar Centre For Warmth - critical resource for communities
- 5 further CFW to be established before the end of March
- Digital inclusion project – NHS South Tees
- Maternity Enhancement project – NHS South Tees
- NHS Heating on Prescription – Middlesbrough Environment City
Community Partnering Fund (CPF)
We have 7 local North East projects funded (totalling c£64k) covering the themes of supporting BAME communities, provision of energy advice and support to tackle the Cost of Living crisis
Common social impact tool
When we receive an application for VCMA funding we carry out an analysis to forecast the potential social value of the project. To do this we apply Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this, to put it very simply, what this does is forecast the potential outcomes of the project, how many beneficiaries we expect to achieve the outcomes and applies an approximate or proxy value to each outcome. All of the proxy values are summed up and divided by the investment to give us a social value per £1 invested. Each project requires a positive social value to be approved and to demonstrate it is good value for money. This is in line with the VCMA governance from Ofgem.
A key principle in the SROI approach is not to overclaim the value of the outcomes, and to prevent overclaiming we apply discount factors. These factors include:
- Deadweight – which is the extent to which the outcome may be achieved without the project
- Drop Off – how long the outcome is likely to last,
- Optimism Bias – How accurate the proxy value is, and
- Success Rate – the likelihood that the project will be successful
Across the networks we have a standard tool to do this and we are currently finalising the tool to ensure a consistent approach. A critical part of this is to establish how we calculate the discount factors.
