OFGEM to tighten up licenses for New Energy Companies

[Deleted User]

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/11/ofgem-proposes-new-tests-for-energy-suppliers-to-get-licences0/

New energy suppliers may have to pass financial and customer service tests in order to obtain a licence, the energy regulator has said.

Companies would have to demonstrate they have adequate financial resources and can meet their customer service obligations before being awarded a licence to supply energy, Ofgem has announced today.

The regulator says that a quarter of all customers are now supplied by small and medium sized suppliers, but while smaller suppliers frequently top customer service league tables, it says there have been increasing instances of some new entrants providing poor levels of customer service, prompting action by Ofgem against the worst offenders.

A bit late in the day.

beardiedog

gsmlnx wrote: »

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/11/ofgem-proposes-new-tests-for-energy-suppliers-to-get-licences0/


A bit late in the day.

The words bolted, stable, horse come to mind :rotfl:

JohnB47

It is appalling that these measures hadn't been put in place in the first place.


Is there any chance that anything introduced will be retrospective?

markipad

Seems incredible that this is only now being addressed by OFGEM.

System

It has taken Ofgem a while. This is what Citizens Advice was saying nearly 2 years ago:

https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/to-supply-or-not-supply-7e2b5ea5dc5f

Quote: Having 50, 75 or even 100 suppliers in the market isn’t a good thing if many of those suppliers aren’t fit for purpose. Unquote

joe134

Hengus wrote: »

It has taken Ofgem a while. This is what Citizens Advice was saying nearly 2 years ago:

https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/to-supply-or-not-supply-7e2b5ea5dc5f

Quote: Having 50, 75 or even 100 suppliers in the market isn’t a good thing if many of those suppliers aren’t fit for purpose. Unquote

The market was a Cartel and totally ruled by the big boys, and competition was needed
However, it has gone into reverse, too many now, and as you say, unfit for purpose.
Not being vetted in the first place.
Anyone could start up, and this is the result!
The big boys should have been brought to heel first, instead of allowing too many fly by night companies to venture into an unregulated market.
Ofgem are as much unfit for purpose, as some” of the small companies.
It can only end in the smaller companies amalgamating, to survive ,or the big boys will take them over.

[Deleted User]

JohnB47 wrote: »

Is there any chance that anything introduced will be retrospective?

No because then it might give legal grounds to sue OFGEM by either the energy companies or the consumer.
And OFGEM might end up bankrupting too many companies and have no one able to take them on-board as Supplier Of Last Resort.

System

gsmlnx wrote: »

No because then it might give legal grounds to sue OFGEM by either the energy companies or the consumer.
And OFGEM might end up bankrupting too many companies and have no one able to take them on-board as Supplier Of Last Resort.

You make a valid point: it will be interesting to see whether The Administrator/creditors of the failed Iresa feel that they have a case against Ofgem.

Jakubk

I agree that this should apply to existing suppliers.

I feel that Solarplicity should not be allowed to take on new customers as it's systems and staff are unable to run a fit and proper system. By system, I mean take readings, issue bills on a given date using those readings, respond to customer issues etc.

I thought that it was refreshing that a company came to the market with three fundamental promises and values; 100% renewable energy, that they did not believe in Standing Charges and that their customers would at the same time pay less than the top 6.

Now in addition to the gross failures of the company they go against these promised values by introducing standing charges, it is more than a tariff change, it is a fundamental breach of the promises they made about the kind of company they were. So how can anyone trust ANYTHING they say?

They have now hired a new call centre in South Africa, but these poor staff are nothing more than an answering service, they can't even update my meter readings after four updates online fail to show and this was out of 12 attempts online, 9 ended with a system failure. They also suffer the same disease of not coming back to you, so you call again and get another apology because they find they can't help. Nobody comes back to you and they do not do what they say they are going to do.

So what has changed, before we wrote emails and these were ignored, now we have a foreign call centre take the message and they are ignored by same UK staff who are either overloaded or incompetent.

My feeling is that the problem is cultural from the top down, I think the CEO should be sacked.

He did write a letter admitting a lot of problems, he said they had appointed so called Customer Champions who would respond within 72 hours. They didn't and then halfway through solving the problems the customer champions were no more. Messages to them got automated responses and nothing was done with the outstanding issues.

My thinking is that OFGEM should consider merging some of the companies, look at their USP's, what they have in common.

I can't believe that DMA on advice from OFGEM allowed Npower and SSE to merge, this will make things worse and prices will rise.

I think the concept of Solarplicity was great but it seems that they have had some finance company come in an tell them to change the company so radically that they are not the company they promised to be.

Who the company actually is may be a difficult question, companies house is full of Solarplicity companies, some of which have had winding up application issued by HMRC.

brewerdave

I hope that OFGEM look seriously at their SOLR procedure too; Its no good appointing a Company as SOLR if they can't cope with the resultant demands on their Billing and Customer Service teams as appears to be happening currently with Octopus and First Utility.

Jakubk

Just an another example of OFGEM not being fit for purpose.