The Department told us that an important lesson it had learnt from the schemes was the complexity in implementing a universal scheme to reach all energy consumers living under different circumstances. The Former Permanent Secretary explained that the Department did not have enough bandwidth to look at such a complex market to make sure that support reached all the different groups at the same time. They said that it was a point of regret that this had often meant it took longer to ensure support reached consumers who are often vulnerable and need it most.21 The Department acknowledged that implementing the schemes at speed created value for money risks of providing support to homes and businesses that did not necessarily need it and would have been able to manage their energy costs even without support. But did not have access to a dataset necessary to determine those who did not need support.22 Providing support to prepayment meter customers