Who gets free insulation these days?

People keep asking us this, and it's strange that it's so hard to find out the right answer. Hundreds of millions of pounds a year are spent on this, but it's not very transparent at all. If you want to know exactly who gets what, well then you have to pick through a bunch of horrendously complicated government documents. 

Anyway, we've done the work for you and here for the record is the answer. To be considered a "Priority Group" for energy saving, you must be :

1. Age 70 or over, or 
2. In receipt of 
• council tax benefit
• housing benefit
• income support
• an income-based jobseeker’s allowance
• an attendance allowance
• a disability living allowance
• a war disablement pension including mobility supplement or constant attendance allowance
• a disablement pension  which includes a constant attendance allowance
• state pension credit, or
3. Earn under £16,040 and be in receipt of
• child tax credit
• working tax credit

So there you go. There aren't actually any hard and fast rules about what you can get for free, exactly, but in practice if you're in one of the Priority Groups above, then you can usually get your insulation for free, and if you're not you can get about a third or a half of the cost paid for.

There are also some "Super" priority groups now too, but I think we'll come back to that another day.