The City of Edinburgh Council has withdrawn the 2023 Statement of Intent for ECO4 flexible eligibility Version 3, with effect from 22 October 20241. The council lists the document among its previous Statements of Intent, marked "(Withdrawn 22 October 2024)"1. A Statement of Intent is the document through which a local authority sets out the criteria it uses to determine whether a household qualifies under ECO4 Flex, the route that lets councils widen access to the ECO4 energy efficiency scheme beyond the households that qualify automatically1.
The council's current document is the Statement of Intent for ECO4 Flex and GBIS Flex Version 5, which sets out the eligibility criteria now in force1. Version 4, the 2024 Statement of Intent for ECO4 flexible eligibility, was itself withdrawn on 8 May 2025, so Version 5 is the only version the council currently publishes as live1. Earlier versions have also been retired: the 2020 Statement of Intent for ECO3 flexible eligibility Version 2 was withdrawn on 28 March 2023, and the 2018 ECO3 Version 1 was withdrawn in January 20201.
Under the three additional routes to eligibility the council currently supports, owner-occupied households with an EPC rating of bands D to G, and private rented sector households with a rating of bands E to G, qualify where gross annual household income is less than £31,0001. A second route covers owner-occupied and private rented homes rated bands E to G that meet at least two proxies listed in the current Statement of Intent1. A third covers homes in those bands where an occupant has been identified as vulnerable by a person on the General Practitioner Register, a Scottish Health Board, a Welsh Health Board, an NHS Foundation Trust or an NHS Trust, with health conditions that may be made worse by living in a cold home; those conditions must be cardiovascular, respiratory, immunosuppressed or limited mobility related1.
"This scheme will close from April 2026, updates on a replacement scheme will be made available on this webpage."
Why it matters for households
Flexible eligibility is the mechanism that decides whether a household can be declared eligible for ECO4 Flex funding, so which version of a council's Statement of Intent is in force determines the criteria a home is assessed against. A household that was assessed under the withdrawn Version 3 criteria, or that is reading an older copy of the document, may be looking at routes and thresholds that no longer apply. The council states that it is responsible for determining whether households are eligible for ECO4 Flex and GBIS Flex and for producing declarations for all eligible households1. For a home's energy independence, the practical effect is that the qualifying test runs through the council's current published criteria rather than any earlier version, and the council's own page is where the live document sits.
What happens next
The council states that the scheme will close from April 2026, and that updates on a replacement scheme will be made available on its webpage1. No replacement scheme has been named or dated beyond that. The council also states that it is working to support applications to ECO4 Flex and GBIS Flex1. Further detail on how councils use these powers is set out in the grants and schemes section.