Citizens Advice response to Ofgem’s Consultation to Review the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme
Citizens Advice has statutory responsibilities to represent the interests of energyconsumers in Great Britain and provides both statutory and non-statutory adviceservices to energy consumers. As such, we welcome the opportunity to respond to theconsultation to Review the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme.Overall, we think that the Energy Redress Scheme is working well, meeting the currentobjectives of the scheme and agree with the funding split proposed in theconsultation.
Given the ongoing financial difficulties that low-income consumers are likely to face asa result of the coronavirus pandemic, we think there is likely to continue to be anelevated consumer need for financial support this winter. Therefore, we think that thefuel voucher scheme should be extended with support targeted at prepayment meterconsumers as they continue to be at risk of self-disconnection and self-rationing.
However, we also noted that the objectives of the Redress Scheme mean thatgenerally smaller funding amounts are provided to smaller charities andorganisations. This is a particularly pressing issue in relation to the fuel voucherfound, where it can lead to a poor consumer journey for people accessing emergencysupport. We think that fuel vouchers should be distributed through a centralisedprovider that has experience of providing fuel vouchers and other support becausethis would result in a simplified consumer journey and access to support regardless oflocation.