Overview of EPCAS Project
We are delighted to introduce a new Stage 2 project, awarded £139, 566 by the European Social Innovation Fund. The project, entitled ‘Improving Equality and Empowerment through Person-Centred Energy Advice Service’ or EPCAS for short, aims to improve citizen access to and benefit from energy advice services in the Renfrewshire area. It will run for twelve months, including creation, framework development, testing and evaluation phases.
This proof-of-concept project aims to empower the citizens of Renfrewshire by working with them to co-design, test and deliver local, digitally-enabled and person-centred energy advice services. The key outcomes of the project are:
- reduce friction in the citizen’s journey to access energy advice services
- improve the process of accessing these services in terms of time and effort
- reduce costs for organisations processing applications
- improve the uptake of available benefits to those in fuel poverty
- demonstrate that person-centred services can improve the outcomes of public services for citizens and organisations
The resulting front-end layer — the journey and experience for citizens and those helping them — will be published as an open source framework that can be used by anyone to implement the same solution elsewhere, or to develop new journeys for new services. Creating a reusable asset for Scotland and beyond is a critical result of the EPCAS project, to provide a framework for others to build on the results of this program and improve outcomes in their own areas.
Project Partners
Mydex CIC — a social enterprise and the lead partner in the project, Mydex will provide the underpinning technological components, giving each citizen a Personal Data Store and privacy-protecting identity. These will allow them to collect verified proof about themselves and re-use this to make it easier to access future services like energy advice.
University of the West of Scotland — The University will provide two research assistants who will work primarily on the development of the open source framework.
Linstone Housing Association / Connect 4 Renfrewshire — will be an integral part of co-producing citizen journeys and testing the resulting services. Linstone’s tenants will be invited to participate in the project in both the design and testing phases.
Renfrewshire Council — will provide support, resources and experience in co-creating and co-producing citizen journeys for the project.
Recovery Across Mental Health (RAMH) — will provide support, resources and experience in co-creating and co-producing citizen journeys for the project.
Project Observers / Sponsors
Renfrewshire Access Panel — a Renfrewshire-based charity tackling accessibility challenges both physical and in attitude, the Renfrewshire Access Panel works across sectors to promote all aspects of independent living within the Renfrewshire community.
Scottish Government — have provided grant funding to support the project over the next twelve months, and are moving towards administration and management of a number of benefits in the new Social Security System for Scotland.
Department for Work & Pensions — We have representatives from London and Scotland on the project. DWP provide a number of benefits to citizens aimed at tackling poverty, including warm home discount, which can benefit from the outcomes of this project.
Ongoing updates on project
We will publish regular updates using our EPCAS blog hosted on Medium. The publication aims to accompany the progress of the project and provide insights into specific parts of the process both to uphold transparency as a core value of the project, and to inspire or provide knowledge to others working in similar endeavours.
More about the Social Innovation Fund
Web: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Business-Industry/support/17404
Twitter: @scotgovESIF
Email: InfoGrowingtheSocialEconomy@gov.scot
