Director of Energy Advice Hannah Persaud calls out the gulf between utility companies’ profits and their vulnerable customer care.
It may be getting warmer, but at Severn Wye the phone lines are as busy as ever. Here to support people who find themselves in fuel poverty, we receive thousands of phone calls every year from people worried about how they’re going to afford to pay their energy bills. Just as they manage to pay off one bill, another unaffordable expense lands, trapping them in a cycle which can feel (and be!) impossible to break out of. Concern about debt exacerbates mental health conditions, plays havoc with physical wellbeing and, increasingly frequently, is leading to suicidal thoughts.
Survival in a country as wealthy as ours shouldn’t be a struggle, but it’s the reality for many. With 3.17 million households in England currently in fuel poverty, and energy bills double what they were two years ago, escalating prices mean that people are being forced to make hard decisions between being able to feed their families or paying their bills. Impossible decisions that no-one should have to make, but here we are.
Or rather, some people are.
Some more equal than others
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people are getting very rich from energy. Take the boss of Centrica, the energy giant that owns British Gas for example. On a salary of £8.2 million – pause here and take that in – he’s unlikely to be worrying about where his next meal is coming from, or how to pay his bills. By his own admission his salary is ‘impossible to justify’. And yet into his bank account it goes while millions across the country watch their bank balances slide into deficit. The disparity between rich and poor is hard to swallow, but it gets worse. In 2023 British Gas announced that annual profits had increased tenfold since 2022, to £750 million. What a profitable industry energy it is – for some.
Giving their customers accurate and timely bills does not seem to be a priority.
Impossible to justify
We recently analysed the main problems the people we support are experiencing. From homes being overwhelmed with damp and mould, to the exacerbation of existing medical conditions due to being cold, the issues caused by unaffordable energy are many. And one significant problem mentioned by many is British Gas – the company that raked in £750 million in profit last year alone. You’d think that with those kinds of profits there’d be plenty to invest into making sure their internal systems and processes work. But giving their customers accurate and timely bills does not seem to be high on the company’s priorities. With the transition to a new computer system, payments are going missing, credits are often ‘lost’, day rates are being applied to night rates and vice versa. In summary, it’s a mess.
But let’s not give all the credit to British Gas, for they are not the only culprits; we are seeing similar issues with other energy suppliers. Human errors when entering account numbers, faulty or failed installation of smart meters, engineers who don’t show up for appointments, newly built properties where the gas meter wasn’t registered correctly… the list goes on.
Millions of account holders are missing out on the promised benefits of smart meters.
Citizens Advice recently reported that nearly a third of household smart meters are not working properly, meaning that millions of account holders are missing out on the promised benefits. Installed properly, smart meters can help households track energy use and adapt behaviour, reduce energy consumption and help everyone contribute to net zero targets. Faulty or badly installed meters, on the other hand, can have dire consequences, with customers left clueless as to their energy consumption for months through no fault of their own.
Not waving but drowning
So the big energy companies mess up, their customers are plunged into debt, and charities like us chase those companies for months to help resolve the issue. It doesn’t feel right, does it? Sure, energy companies get told off. In 2017 British Gas was fined £9.5 million for letting customers down. But £9.5 million doesn’t touch the sides of the golden profits – it’s not even a smudge. British Gas does have its own independent charity that supports people who are struggling and in 2021 it gave out almost £6 million in grants, debt relief and fuel vouchers. But as impressive as this number is, it pales in contrast to profits 125 times larger. Isn’t this the wrong way round? Shouldn’t the root issues be tackled to prevent people going into fuel poverty in the first place? Throwing a lifebuoy to someone who is drowning is better than letting them drown, but it would be better to stop them falling into the water in the first place.
It’s just not good enough. Until the big energy companies are held properly accountable for their errors – not just a (metaphorical) slap on the wrist – I can’t see things changing for the better. If they were made to compensate fully for the human suffering they inflict on society’s most vulnerable, perhaps they would invest in doing a decent job for their customers in first place.
