Energy Advice Programme Manager

Last year Burnham and Weston Energy launched a Home Energy Saving Service for local households struggling to pay their bills. We work in partnership with Age UK Somerset, Citizens Advice Somerset, Citizens Advice West Somerset and West Somerset Green Forum to help low income and vulnerable households across the former districts of Sedgemoor and West Somerset and Taunton, and North Somerset.

The service is delivered by a small team of trained Home Energy Advisors who visit people in their homes to provide tailored advice on how they can save money on their bills and make their homes warmer and healthier to live in. Our Home Energy Advisors also install small energy efficiency measures such as LED lights, draft proofing and radiator reflectors. Households are then referred on to further support to check they are receiving the correct welfare and financial support and to help them access grant funding for home upgrades including insulation, boiler replacement and energy efficient appliances.

Home visits are funded through a Local Energy Advice Partnership (LEAP) with AgilityEco. A grant from Somerset Community Foundation enabled Burnham & Weston Energy to expand its service to help combat fuel poverty experienced by people over the age of 60+ living in Sedgemoor and West Somerset and seek to embed energy support in the community through establishing a network of community-based Energy Ambassadors. We also run pop up energy advice sessions and are looking to establish permanent Energy Hubs to reach those who would not ordinarily know how and where to find help with reducing their energy bills, managing fuel debt, and keeping their homes warm.

The current team of 2 Home Energy Advisors have capacity to deliver around 700 home visits per year. We receive referrals for households needing energy support from a range of local organisations including our partners and other community organisations. We employ a full time Programme Co-ordinator to manage and generate further home visit referrals and bookings, provide follow up support, and manage events and communications.

From this foundation, our growth objectives for the Home Energy Savings service are to:

• Continue to raise awareness of the service amongst local organisations and the public, and increase the number of referrals and vulnerable householders who benefit.


• Grow the team of Home Energy Advisors as demand requires, with a vision to at least double the team by the end of 2025.


• Secure additional funding to support the service to enable us to help more households and provide more in-depth support.


• Develop partnerships which broaden and deepen the ways we can help households, including unlocking funding and support for energy efficiency retrofit.


Our other local energy saving activities

• We are carrying out community engagement and feasibility work to understand local needs and interests for an energy efficiency retrofit support service that could include bulk purchase, finance, advice and project management support.


• We offer funded energy surveys for community buildings to develop energy savings plans, and help implement them.


• We offer schools and community buildings 'Solar Soft Loans' to fund solar PV, and recover the capital over 20 years out of a share of the savings generated.


• We provide small grants via our Sunshine Fund to support community-led environmental projects.


Who are we looking for?

Are you locally rooted? Are you passionate about helping lift people out of fuel poverty? Would you be driven to help shape a future where our homes and community buildings are warm, healthy and affordable to live in and energy is a benefit to rather than a drain on our local economy? Do you have the ambition and confidence to grow our energy support programme into something which could make a big difference to our local communities? Are you motivated by social and environmental justice, a collaborator and a change-maker? Do you understand the complex world of energy support funding and have experience of grant programme management? Do you recognise the burdens energy advisors carry from the sometimes-challenging cases they have to deal with? Can you manage yourself and your team with limited support from a board of non-exec directors?

If you are one of the few people that would say yes, to all of those questions then we would love to hear from you!

Role responsibilities

Management and development of the Home Energy Saving Service (core to the role)

The core responsibility of the Energy Saving Programme Manager is to manage the operation and development of Burnham &Weston Energy's Home Energy Saving Service:

• Manage, mentor and support our team of Home Energy Advisors and the Programme Co-ordinator. To expand the team to deliver our growth objectives for the Home Energy Savings service.


• Responsible for team safeguarding, H&S, mental health, team building, mentoring and training;


• Manage the delivery of our Home Energy Saving Service across North Somerset and the former districts of Sedgemoor and West Somerset and Taunton, seeking opportunities to strengthen and grow the service.


• Manage the delivery of the Somerset Community Foundation grant including ensuring KPIs are met, budgets managed and reports provided.


• Manage the delivery of our referral partnership contract with LEAP AgilityEco including ensuring KPIs and contractual requirement are met and that households referred to LEAP receive the best possible support possible given their needs and eligibility for funding.


• To secure and manage further funding partnerships (such as Redress or MCS funding) to deliver our growth objectives,


• Responsible for ensuring company policies relating to the advice programme are kept up to date and consistent with requirements or partners. Responsible for ensuring working practice is in accordance with our policies and that risk assessments and management plans are in place and adhered to.


• Manage relationships with organisations referring households to the energy support programme and receiving onward referrals from us.


• Develop partnerships which broaden and deepen the ways we can help households, including unlocking funding and support for energy efficiency retrofit.


• Develop our CRM and IT systems so we can work effectively and easily deliver funder and board impact reporting requirements.


• Represent Burnham & Weston Energy at local events and forums, nurture and grow our networks and relationships with local stakeholders and deliver our comms via the website and social media channels.


Management and expansion of our other local energy activities (optional)

Depending on capacity and experience, there is potential to broaden the Energy Saving Programme Manager role to include:

• Manage the energy efficiency retrofit support service feasibility study, and development of the service.


• Work with our partner to help the 5 community buildings we are working with to implement their energy savings plans, including support with funding and procurement of contractors.


• Promote the 'Solar Soft Loans' offer to local schools and community buildings and work with CfR CIC to support them through the process of feasibility, loan contracting and procurement and management of installers.


• Promote and oversee the administration of our Sunshine Fund.
  
  Essential:


• Experience of leading and managing home visit teams including safeguarding, H&S, mental health, risk assessment and management, team building, mentoring and training. Experience of managing front line service teams is more important to us than energy advice experience. We can organise mentoring support from other community energy enterprises who have developed and scaled up local energy advice services.


• Experience of overseeing complex case work.


• Experience of grant programme and service contract management including management of budgets, KPI delivery, reporting and meeting funder requirements.


• Experience of securing grant and service contract funding including applications, contract negotiation and ensuring funding requirements are in place.


• Committed to and rooted in the communities we serve: Weston-super-Mare, Burnham-on-Sea, Highbridge, Mark, Winscombe and the surrounding rural areas.


• Understand the local public, community and private sector landscape and be well networked.


• An ability to bring people together, bring out the best in people and make things happen.


Useful:

• Understand the complex world of energy support funding.


• Experience of being a home energy advisor and/or managing home energy advice teams.


• A track record of business development, ideally in a social enterprise, charity or public service context.


• Competent with communications and social media.


• Confident in network and relationship building.
  
  Burnham and Weston Energy CIC is a not-for-profit local energy enterprise working towards a future where our energy is locally generated, locally owned and low carbon.


We own a 9.3MW community solar farm at Wick Farm, between Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare. The 36,000 panel solar array has been up and running since 2016, generating electricity for the equivalent of over 2,000 homes. The electricity generated by the solar farm is sold to the grid and surplus income (after operating and finance costs) is put to work to help tackle fuel poverty in the local area, provide grants to local community projects, and fund renewables and energy efficiency measures for local schools and community buildings. As a CIC our priority is community organisations and households with the greatest need.

We are supported by CfR CIC, which set up Burnham and Weston Energy, developed and financed the solar farm and provides ongoing support with company administration and looking after the solar farm.

Salary £45,000 FTE
Hours Part time/full time - 3-5 days per week
Contract Initially to March 2025, to be made permanent depending on ongoing success of the programme
Benefits Basic pension, 25 FTE days holiday (pro-rata) + bank holidays
Reporting to The non-exec Board of Burnham and Weston Energy

Application Please send a CV and cover letter, which between them should demonstrate why you are interested in the role and how you meet the requirements.

Applications should be emailed to Jake Burnyeat (Director of Burnham and Weston Energy CIC and CfR CIC): [email protected]