Vienna audit criticises energy bonus payment system

Vienna’s City Audit Office has criticised the administration of the city’s energy bonus, saying automated payments in 2023 led to thousands of recovery claims. The findings were reported by ORF.

Vienna introduced the 200-euro bonus in 2022 in response to rising costs. Eligibility was subject to income limits, and the payment was granted per address. When the scheme was renewed in 2023, many people who had received the earlier bonus were paid automatically if their registered address had not changed.

The audit found that income eligibility was not checked before the automated payments. Vienna’s social affairs department carried out checks later using the national transparency database, leading to demands for repayment from about 61,000 people. Almost 10 per cent of the total grant amount had to be reclaimed. After repayments, the scheme’s total cost was about 252 million euros.

In 364 cases, the city sought repayment through court payment-order proceedings. The audit said about 3,900 outstanding claims were then transferred to the collection and enforcement service of another city department. The cost of pursuing the claims could not be established because the city’s cost accounting did not record data in sufficient detail.

The auditors also criticised the scheme’s publicity. Although the rules specified one payment per address, communications usually referred to a payment per household. This led to repayment demands when multiple households were registered at the same address. The city spent 1.8 million euros promoting the bonus.

The Greens and the Vienna People’s Party criticised the administration, citing frustrated residents and the unquantifiable costs of recovery efforts. The Social Democrats, by contrast, said the audit’s three recommendations reflected the project’s quality and the speed of the payments.