We asked witnesses about the take-up rates for the vouchers. The Department told us that 76% of vouchers had so far been redeemed across Great Britain. It accepted that take- up was lower in metropolitan areas, and that the take-up rate was just 60% in London.29 The NAO found that the Department believed that voucher redemption was likely to have been affected by a number of factors, including the weather (people might hold on to vouchers in anticipation of cold snap), voucher loss, and some people not opening their post.30 The Department told us that it thought that take-up in urban areas might also have been affected by changes in tenancy as it was more complicated to keep track of people in urban areas, particularly London. It explained that it had work underway to support this in the remaining weeks of the scheme. The Department told us that it will continue working to increase the redemption rates beyond the end of the scheme in April 2023.31 We asked what more government needed to do to ensure take-up of the vouchers. Citizens 24 Department of Energy & Climate Change, Understanding the behaviours of households in fuel poverty, July 2014 25 Committee of Public Accounts, Regulation of energy suppliers, Twenty-Fifth Report of Session 2022–23, HC 41, 13 November 2022 26 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes Government Response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-third to the Twenty-sixth reports from Session 2022–23, CP 781, January 2023 27 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Energy Bills Support Scheme – Guidance for Electricity Suppliers, November 2022 28 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13 29 Qq 161–163 30 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13 31 Qq 163–164 14 Energy bills support Advice told us that one in 20 people do not have the internet, and roughly one in 10 do not have some of the essential skills to engage digitally, so it would be important to ensure there are offline methods of delivering information about the vouchers.32