Priority Services Register ('PSR')
48. The supply companies are required under their
licences to provide special services to customers on their Priority
Services Register. Those eligible for registration are people
who are of pensionable age, blind, deaf, otherwise disabled, or
with a long-term medical condition. The services provided include
repositioning of meters, redirecting bills to third parties, and
quarterly meter readings, all of which may be of use to customers
experiencing difficulties in paying for their fuel. The Register
also contains information about any special needs that a customer
may have in respect of energy supply. This and the general eligibility
criteria for the PSR help companies to identify vulnerable customers.
Unfortunately, only the customers themselves can ask for inclusion
on the PSR: no one else can refer them.
49. Our witnesses agreed about the importance of
registering eligible people. However, at the time of our oral
evidence session, commentators were suggesting that the PSR was
not working as well as had been hoped: customers were not aware
of the service, a comparatively small proportion of those eligible
were registering, and there were concerns that the energy companies
were making too little effort to maintain the PSR. Energywatch
reported to us that, when it undertook a 'mystery shopper' exercise
by telephone, some staff had even denied that their company had
a PSR.[85] Some of the
companies claimed that they proactively encouraged vulnerable
customers to register, but the charities felt that they could
do far more to promote awareness of the PSR and persuade at risk
customers to register.[86]
50. Since our evidence session, further work by Ofgem
has confirmed low awareness and use of the PSR by eligible people.
Both Energywatch and Ofgem have recently made considerable efforts
to publicise the existence of the PSR and the benefits of registration,[87]
and the ERA claims that companies have made progress in training
staff to recognise those potentially eligible and make them aware
of the scheme.[88] However,
Ofgem's research shows that much remains to be done.
51. In its September paper, the Energy Retail
Association suggested a number of ways in which the Government
could help to publicise the Priority Services Register. It proposed
that health workers and providers of social services encourage
those eligible to register; that information could be targeted
at families on child benefit, and that leaflets on the PSR could
be made available in benefit offices, doctors' surgeries, schools,
and the offices of housing associations and local authorities.[89]
All of these suggestions seem sensible. We ask the Government
to inform us which are being taken up.
Warrants process
52. If, despite their efforts, companies are unable
to contact their customers about outstanding bills, they may as
a last resort apply for a warrant to allow entry to the premises
to disconnect supply. The companies are supposed to ensure that
they have exhausted all other approaches, and they have to provide
assurance to this effect, on oath, to the magistrates to whom
they apply for a warrant. However, Energywatch said that the companies
did not take the warrant application process seriously enough.
Fairly junior company officials made the decision that enough
effort had been made to contact the customer and—Energywatch
implied—there might be a temptation to end the attempts
at contact as this reduced their caseload. The magistrates, who
were supposed to provide a final check on the need for a warrant,
were faced with piles of applications, and, in some areas, the
magistrates examined only a few in detail and then simply signed
the rest.[90] Energywatch
suggested it should be mandatory that, in order to obtain a warrant,
a responsible senior official from the company should certify
that all appropriate checks had been made, that the debt was genuinely
owed to the company, the address was correct, and that the company
had obeyed all its licence conditions and had followed best practice
in debt processing.[91]
53. British Gas acknowledged that in 2003 it had
processed 60,000 warrants, but noted that a significant proportion
of those related to properties that were later found to be unoccupied.[92]
It rebutted Energywatch's suggestion that the warrant application
process was cursory, and listed the proofs of due process that
its officers had to provide on oath to the magistrates.[93]
Ofgem, however, thought that Energywatch's suggestion was sensible:
companies should have good processes that were 'signed off' at
an appropriately senior level to demonstrate that the issue of
a warrant was justified.[94]
54. We agree with Ofgem. If the companies' processes
are as thorough and robust as they claim, then there should be
little difficulty in relatively senior company officials' satisfying
themselves that proper procedures have been followed in full,
and signing a document to confirm this. We ask Ofgem to inform
us what progress has been made in pursuing Energywatch's proposal.
78 App 7 (ERA), App 2, paras 3.2 and 3.4 and Annex (BG),
Q 42 (ERA) Back
79 Q
124 Back
80 App
7 Back
81 App
9, passim Back
82 App
2, para 1.3 and Annex Back
83 Q
141 Back
84 See
appeal from Ofgem: Q 159 Back
85 Q
10 Back
86 App
2, para 3.2(c) (BG); Q 114 (NEA) Back
87 See,
for example, Ofgem press release no. R/78, dated 30 November 2004,
'New research identifies need to target vulnerable customers more
effectively' Back
88 September
paper, p 18 Back
89 Ibid. Back
90 Qq
16 and 7 Back
91 Q
7 Back
92 Q
82 Back
93 App
3, para 3.5.1 Back
94 Q
132 Back
