Campaign to ban Standing Charges

ariarnia

busybee100 said:

I have to keep repeating myself because people throw in an irrelevant argument or get nasty over intelligence and age. 😱

Just as I keep explaining how complicated the system is to some users, others come back and say it's not or nothings going to change or why should we change? See I do listen. 😁

There is a problem, I do agree the  Government messaging is dire. I think we need more intervention.

no. you are the one that mentioned age and confusion.

and we haven't said nothing is going to change or why should we change. we have said the change you are suggesting would hurt a lot of vulnerable people and not actually fix the problem you are talking about.  

and no one has said it's not complicated we have said the problem isn't the standing charge. anyone that gives advice on here regularly will say there is a problem that lots of people don't understand there bill. one of the people you are arguing with recently made a thread all about how to improve information and teach people how to understand there bill better. 

because the problem isnt the standing charge making things complicated. the problem is much more often that people don't understand how there usage is calculated/forecast and how there dd relates to there usage. 

[Deleted User]

BikingBud said:

Deleted_User said:

It's especially pointless when you insist on ignoring anything anyone says and misunderstanding the situation by comparing incomparable concepts.  There are hundreds of examples of pass-through direct costs, or of requiring a fixed cost to access a service or function beyond membership fees.  You are choosing to ignore all of these with your quite bizarre insistence that only one way of business is permissible despite any evidence to the contrary.

The original topic was "campaign to ban standing charges".  Banning a legitimate way of pricing doesn't seem like "how competitive markets generally work" to me.  Letting suppliers choose if they want to pass on the attributable costs directly as standing charges or if they wish to roll them into unit costs seems much more like correct and competitive market behaviour.

Convince it is a competitive market.

It's definitely a broken market and needs overhauling but competitive?

Convince me it's broken - beyond the unusual effects from having an arbitrary government mandated cap and discount.

We had different suppliers with different tariff structures at different prices, with options for variable rates and several different lengths of fixed contract.  Some were cheaper, some were more expensive.  Some had tiered rates, some had ToU, some had no standing charges, some were more conventional.  There were options for green, greenwashed, or greenignored.  Some suppliers went bust because they tried to be too cheap.  Some were inventive, gained customers, and survived.  All signs of a decently competitive market.

Even the big ongoing argument on here for the most part isn't that the market was not competitive, it's more that some customers were unable/unwilling (choose your own emphasis) to participate and gain the benefits of the competition.

We're not talking about the structure of the wholesale market or the production/generation/retail value chain in this thread. 

Spoonie_Turtle

400ixl said:

It is unfortunate that the way that they describe it is so generic when there could be easy calculators which only need 2 pieces of information (3 if on dual supply).

You need the region and the annual number of units consumed per year. A simple calculator could then work out the standing charge x 365 and the number of units time the unit rate. This could then be broken down into yearly, monthly, weekly or daily rates if needed.

Every supplier should be forced to put this type of calculator on their home page. It could even cover for all of their different rates from a drop down if people wanted one of the other rates.

That's exactly what energy quotes already do though.

Even now, while switching is discouraged, when you find the tariffs page of a supplier you don't get anything until they know your region (from your postcode).  [Knowing different rates for different regions is no practical use either for the average consumer unless you intend moving.  Those who want to know out of interest are already engaged and understand how energy usage and billing works.]

What is a standalone calculator on your supplier's website going to do?  You'd have to put in your tariff name, your postcode, your consumption* - all of which are on your bill - and then it will give you an annual quote on the available tariff … which is also already on your bill.
*Yes, often estimated, but if people don't give meter readings then the suppliers can only go with their best guess.  Suppliers are at fault if they still use estimated readings when a customer has a communicating smart meter though.

In the days of competition, you could get multiple quotes and options from your supplier*, with them using a calculator just like the comparison sites use, but without being able to compare other suppliers.
*Full disclosure, I don't know if that was standard practice.  My only experience in dealing with the energy has been with Octopus.

At the moment yes you do have to be a bit savvy to look at and compare different suppliers.  The only area where that makes a meaningful difference is for E7, and I do think the comparison sites should still be working for those.  But on the single-rate SVT there is almost nothing in it (except Octopus; I don't include UW because the requirement for additional utilities makes it much more complicated).

busybee100

ariarnia said:

busybee100 said:

I have to keep repeating myself because people throw in an irrelevant argument or get nasty over intelligence and age. 😱

Just as I keep explaining how complicated the system is to some users, others come back and say it's not or nothings going to change or why should we change? See I do listen. 😁

There is a problem, I do agree the  Government messaging is dire. I think we need more intervention.

no. you are the one that mentioned age and confusion.

and we haven't said nothing is going to change or why should we change. we have said the change you are suggesting would hurt a lot of vulnerable people and not actually fix the problem you are talking about.  

and no one has said it's not complicated we have said the problem isn't the standing charge. anyone that gives advice on here regularly will say there is a problem that lots of people don't understand there bill. one of the people you are arguing with recently made a thread all about how to improve information and teach people how to understand there bill better. 

because the problem isnt the standing charge making things complicated. the problem is much more often that people don't understand how there usage is calculated/forecast and how there dd relates to there usage. 

You're attributing words to me that I haven't used. I said

"Many older people cannot understand their bills. The more complicated you make the system the more you ostracise them, the more they can be taken advantage of."

I explained I used older as that was my experience but since then I have used the term people as it was rightly pointed out to me younger people find it difficult as well.

Matelodave posted about age and intelligence and you descended to the lowest common denominator.

The SC and unit charge are only the beginning. 

EssexHebridean

One point that does seem to be missed here is that for whatever reason, often people simply don’t care enough to learn any more on some subjects.

I suspect that probably still the majority of people out there would not, if asked, be able to give an accurate monthly estimate of what they spend on groceries. You’d ask them, they’d umm and ahh a bit, and then come up with a figure roughly 4 x what their weekly “main shop” costs them. In fact their real spend is going to be substantially higher than that in many cases once top-up shops, takeaways, that quick ready meal grabbed at the petrol station on the way home from a long day at work etc are added in. In many cases, those same people probably couldn’t tell you how much energy they use in a year - because they just don’t care enough. When they want to see if they can save money, they don’t look into the fine detail, they go to a supplier website, type in the details, that website estimates what a property of that type will likely be using for them, and delivers them a monthly cost - and that is all they are interested in - the headline figure. And before anyone decides to twist my words and claim I’m saying people are too stupid to work out what they are using, or similar, please not that I absolutely have not - in many cases these are perfectly intelligent people - who just don’t care. 

I remember when it was far from unusual to have standing charges “front loaded” onto unit rates with the first X units in a day being charged at a higher level - it was the absolute opposite of being a simple system - what we have now is far easier to understand, but again, someone first has to be interested / engaged enough to want to bother to understand it.

Those of us who choose to spend time on here offering advice and help to those people who DON’T understand in the first place, but do want to learn, are an exception in terms of “people in general” - most folk simply don’t care whether their savings are in the absolute best bank account, how much energy they use so long as the monthly DD sum is affordable to them, or indeed precisely how much their grocery spend is per month/year - and however much you want to, you cannot force those people to get that level of interest - they have to want to learn. 

ariarnia

busybee100 said:

ariarnia said:

busybee100 said:

I have to keep repeating myself because people throw in an irrelevant argument or get nasty over intelligence and age. 😱

Just as I keep explaining how complicated the system is to some users, others come back and say it's not or nothings going to change or why should we change? See I do listen. 😁

There is a problem, I do agree the  Government messaging is dire. I think we need more intervention.

no. you are the one that mentioned age and confusion.

and we haven't said nothing is going to change or why should we change. we have said the change you are suggesting would hurt a lot of vulnerable people and not actually fix the problem you are talking about.  

and no one has said it's not complicated we have said the problem isn't the standing charge. anyone that gives advice on here regularly will say there is a problem that lots of people don't understand there bill. one of the people you are arguing with recently made a thread all about how to improve information and teach people how to understand there bill better. 

because the problem isnt the standing charge making things complicated. the problem is much more often that people don't understand how there usage is calculated/forecast and how there dd relates to there usage. 

You're attributing words to me that I haven't used. I said

"Many older people cannot understand their bills. The more complicated you make the system the more you ostracise them, the more they can be taken advantage of."

I explained I used older as that was my experience but since then I have used the term people as it was rightly pointed out to me younger people find it difficult as well.

Matelodave posted about age and intelligence and you descended to the lowest common denominator.

The SC and unit charge are only the beginning. 

i think matelodave was being angry at you suggesting older people can't understand things. that you were suggesting that old people are stupid. you have clarified your experience but you still seem to think a lot of people are incapable and still havent really explained why you think that is the case. if its based on the people you know then that could just be the people you know. most people i know have no problem with understanding. the ones i know who 'don't understand' just aren't that interested. 

as for my comment. do you understand what lowest common denominator means? it means the simplest or smallest thing that works for everyone in a group. that's exactly what you are asking for. 

1 in a group of 10 people doesn't understand something so instead of helping that one person you want to change things for all 10 in a way that probably wouldn't even change anything for the better for that 1. 

if what you were suggesting would actually help that one person i'd be more likely to support it. but the problem is understanding the bill. the fact there is a standing charge added is no more complicated than that there is vat added. removing it will not help people who cannot currently understand there bill understand there bill. it's really that simple. 

BikingBud

ariarnia said:

wild666 said:

ariarnia said:

QrizB said:

pochase said:

That is the reason that they should be removed in April.
If you check the Auxilione forecasts they remove them also in April.

I'm sure Ofgem said we'd be paying for last year's failures for two years, not one. So don't go expecting a big reduction in standing charges in April 2023, no matter what Auxilione might forecast.

now they also might have to cover the cost of the cap as well? it/the governemnt hasn't decided yet i dont think how thats going to be paid for. 

The government set the £2500 average usage limit in October so the government should pay the suppliers costs that the £2500 limit imposed on them. If they increase taxes to get the money back then so be it.

the government will pay for it either way but the government doesn't have any money. the only money the governetm has is from the tax payer. the government can put up different taxes. one of the taxes are the levys in the standing charge (the ones that currently pay for green policies or the ones that pay for the network infrastructure. or vat). because the standing charge is a tax. so the government could put up income tax. or corporation tax (which would probably increase customer bills) or tell ofgem to include it in the standing charge. or increase vat or sin taxes and include the debt in the cost of all the other government debt paid for out of the tax pot. we don't know yet. the government has to find a lot of money over the next few years and if people are used to paying a higher rate of standing charge (and most don't know when it's 'supposed' to go back down) keeping it high to cover the additional costs would be tempting i think. 

The Government never pays, the taxpayer always pays and the consumer always pays so why not stop all the pretence about competition and nationalise the industry?

Comparison with phones or shopping are false as there are many choices that consumers can make, including do without, whereas the provision of utilities is essential to life. Why not use tax to cover the infra that is required to provide every household with the necessary connections and then regionalised distribution and  billing for the actual consumption?

BikingBud

Deleted_User said:

BikingBud said:

Deleted_User said:

It's especially pointless when you insist on ignoring anything anyone says and misunderstanding the situation by comparing incomparable concepts.  There are hundreds of examples of pass-through direct costs, or of requiring a fixed cost to access a service or function beyond membership fees.  You are choosing to ignore all of these with your quite bizarre insistence that only one way of business is permissible despite any evidence to the contrary.

The original topic was "campaign to ban standing charges".  Banning a legitimate way of pricing doesn't seem like "how competitive markets generally work" to me.  Letting suppliers choose if they want to pass on the attributable costs directly as standing charges or if they wish to roll them into unit costs seems much more like correct and competitive market behaviour.

Convince it is a competitive market.

It's definitely a broken market and needs overhauling but competitive?

Convince me it's broken - beyond the unusual effects from having an arbitrary government mandated cap and discount.

We had different suppliers with different tariff structures at different prices, with options for variable rates and several different lengths of fixed contract.  Some were cheaper, some were more expensive.  Some had tiered rates, some had ToU, some had no standing charges, some were more conventional.  There were options for green, greenwashed, or greenignored.  Some suppliers went bust because they tried to be too cheap.  Some were inventive, gained customers, and survived.  All signs of a decently competitive market.

Even the big ongoing argument on here for the most part isn't that the market was not competitive, it's more that some customers were unable/unwilling (choose your own emphasis) to participate and gain the benefits of the competition.

We're not talking about the structure of the wholesale market or the production/generation/retail value chain in this thread. 

In that I am forced to cover the cost of those apparently competitive but ultimately unsustainable business models where cowboy outfits have run off with the consumers money🤦‍♂️

ariarnia

BikingBud said:

ariarnia said:

wild666 said:

ariarnia said:

QrizB said:

pochase said:

That is the reason that they should be removed in April.
If you check the Auxilione forecasts they remove them also in April.

I'm sure Ofgem said we'd be paying for last year's failures for two years, not one. So don't go expecting a big reduction in standing charges in April 2023, no matter what Auxilione might forecast.

now they also might have to cover the cost of the cap as well? it/the governemnt hasn't decided yet i dont think how thats going to be paid for. 

The government set the £2500 average usage limit in October so the government should pay the suppliers costs that the £2500 limit imposed on them. If they increase taxes to get the money back then so be it.

the government will pay for it either way but the government doesn't have any money. the only money the governetm has is from the tax payer. the government can put up different taxes. one of the taxes are the levys in the standing charge (the ones that currently pay for green policies or the ones that pay for the network infrastructure. or vat). because the standing charge is a tax. so the government could put up income tax. or corporation tax (which would probably increase customer bills) or tell ofgem to include it in the standing charge. or increase vat or sin taxes and include the debt in the cost of all the other government debt paid for out of the tax pot. we don't know yet. the government has to find a lot of money over the next few years and if people are used to paying a higher rate of standing charge (and most don't know when it's 'supposed' to go back down) keeping it high to cover the additional costs would be tempting i think. 

The Government never pays, the taxpayer always pays and the consumer always pays so why not stop all the pretence about competition and nationalise the industry?

Comparison with phones or shopping are false as there are many choices that consumers can make, including do without, whereas the provision of utilities is essential to life. Why not use tax to cover the infra that is required to provide every household with the necessary connections and then regionalised distribution and  billing for the actual consumption?

if you want to talk about the pros and cons of nationalising utilities then i'm sure someone will be along shortly but as someone already said 'prove there's no competition'.

over the last 10 years we have regularly shopped around and fixed. we have always found a deal thats less than the standard variable rate and that has saved us money given our annual usage paterns. lots of choice to go for a lower standing charge and higher unit rate to suit us as a low use family. or for other people to go with a tariff that means they can charge their cars or storage heaters cheaply overnight. or time of use tariffs. or solar feed in tariffs. or 0 standing charge tariffs. a whole marketplace of diffent options from different providers.  

if you were talking about water and lack of competition i'd understand but if thats not what you would call consumer choice and competition then i'm not sure what is?  

(and while lots of shopping isn't essential there's also lots that is. food. clothing. phone and internet are often essential for getting and staying in work. especially with the pandemic. roads and cars/fuel is essential. )

[Deleted User]

BikingBud said:

ariarnia said:

wild666 said:

ariarnia said:

QrizB said:

pochase said:

That is the reason that they should be removed in April.
If you check the Auxilione forecasts they remove them also in April.

I'm sure Ofgem said we'd be paying for last year's failures for two years, not one. So don't go expecting a big reduction in standing charges in April 2023, no matter what Auxilione might forecast.

now they also might have to cover the cost of the cap as well? it/the governemnt hasn't decided yet i dont think how thats going to be paid for. 

The government set the £2500 average usage limit in October so the government should pay the suppliers costs that the £2500 limit imposed on them. If they increase taxes to get the money back then so be it.

the government will pay for it either way but the government doesn't have any money. the only money the governetm has is from the tax payer. the government can put up different taxes. one of the taxes are the levys in the standing charge (the ones that currently pay for green policies or the ones that pay for the network infrastructure. or vat). because the standing charge is a tax. so the government could put up income tax. or corporation tax (which would probably increase customer bills) or tell ofgem to include it in the standing charge. or increase vat or sin taxes and include the debt in the cost of all the other government debt paid for out of the tax pot. we don't know yet. the government has to find a lot of money over the next few years and if people are used to paying a higher rate of standing charge (and most don't know when it's 'supposed' to go back down) keeping it high to cover the additional costs would be tempting i think. 

The Government never pays, the taxpayer always pays and the consumer always pays so why not stop all the pretence about competition and nationalise the industry?

Comparison with phones or shopping are false as there are many choices that consumers can make, including do without, whereas the provision of utilities is essential to life. Why not use tax to cover the infra that is required to provide every household with the necessary connections and then regionalised distribution and  billing for the actual consumption?

If you want to argue for nationalisation, for part or all of the industry, go for it (probably in another thread to avoid confusion) but that wasn't the discussion here. 

BikingBud said:

Deleted_User said:

BikingBud said:

Deleted_User said:

It's especially pointless when you insist on ignoring anything anyone says and misunderstanding the situation by comparing incomparable concepts.  There are hundreds of examples of pass-through direct costs, or of requiring a fixed cost to access a service or function beyond membership fees.  You are choosing to ignore all of these with your quite bizarre insistence that only one way of business is permissible despite any evidence to the contrary.

The original topic was "campaign to ban standing charges".  Banning a legitimate way of pricing doesn't seem like "how competitive markets generally work" to me.  Letting suppliers choose if they want to pass on the attributable costs directly as standing charges or if they wish to roll them into unit costs seems much more like correct and competitive market behaviour.

Convince it is a competitive market.

It's definitely a broken market and needs overhauling but competitive?

Convince me it's broken - beyond the unusual effects from having an arbitrary government mandated cap and discount.

We had different suppliers with different tariff structures at different prices, with options for variable rates and several different lengths of fixed contract.  Some were cheaper, some were more expensive.  Some had tiered rates, some had ToU, some had no standing charges, some were more conventional.  There were options for green, greenwashed, or greenignored.  Some suppliers went bust because they tried to be too cheap.  Some were inventive, gained customers, and survived.  All signs of a decently competitive market.

Even the big ongoing argument on here for the most part isn't that the market was not competitive, it's more that some customers were unable/unwilling (choose your own emphasis) to participate and gain the benefits of the competition.

We're not talking about the structure of the wholesale market or the production/generation/retail value chain in this thread. 

In that I am forced to cover the cost of those apparently competitive but ultimately unsustainable business models where cowboy outfits have run off with the consumers money🤦‍♂️

Yep.  That's how competition works in a regulated essential industry - see bank bailouts for another example.  Or would you prefer that all the households who were customers of those suppliers just lose all their money, or all the people with deposits in those banks?  That's a point you could argue if you liked, but again not the discussion we were having on this thread.