Media portrayal of energy issues - what would be better (and work)?

[Deleted User]

We all remember the nonsense coverage of every cap decision, particularly the most recent one, where a relatively arbitrary mathematical number (the 'typical household') gets presented as "the cap" - followed by many people quite understandably assuming that it is just that and being confused when their bill is higher.

A similar thought came to me today reading an interesting article about the StepChange debt charity on the BBC - where one of the callers whose story they were telling included describing the fact that "Her energy supplier is going to increase her gas and electricity bills from £150 to £350 a month.". despite her not using the heating because she's worried about the cost.  This would sound to many people like the supplier was just deciding to charge more - rather than this actually being a direct debit figure covering an estimated usage and which, if not all used, would build up credit and not be 'lost' (unlike a mobile phone company increasing their bill for example).

Whilst for the caller themselves, the cash flow might well be the pressing concern (particularly as in that case there were mortgage arrears and credit card debt), and that should not be ignored - the inference was that the bill has just gone up, rather than the underlying price, missing the opportunity to potentially lead to a conversation about usage or efficiency, the importance of accurate meter readings etc, which we know here can make a huge difference.

We have all seen the posts here, where a worried new forumite comes on thinking their bill has gone up but when they realise it is their direct debit and not their bill, and how to understand and influence the actual bill, they feel like they have more control over the cost and less fear over the rounded monthly number.  Or the headlines of pensioners sitting in the dark because they don't dare turn on an LED bulb costing pennies a month.

My question is - given the necessary need for brevity, and the headline writer's desire for snappy and emotive language, how can these things (and the others that frequently get brought up here) be explained in a way that doesn't nudge people towards incorrect conclusions and potentially unnecessary worry?

Farway

I'm not sure if you can, sometimes people just can't or won't see facts. Just think how many threads there have been on these forums where one poster insist black is white, or it's some rip off etc etc

molerat

I doubt there is any way you could, it is a simple fact that many people do not understand.  It has been suggested rather than the typical usage total cap price the unit & SC price is used so 34p per kWh and 45p per day which again is an average and not understood as witnessed by many posts on here.  I notice that the energy support factsheet from 8 Sept updated 21 Oct has had the typical usage by property type table removed which could have been used to formulate a price guide by property type but again that would only be representative of some users. The only way to get somewhere close would be for suppliers to provide a personal capped price quotation on bills / web account but with different suppliers that would take some form of cooperation in getting usage figures for both fuels and presenting that information as a total cost.  But again that assumes the usage data held for the property is accurate.

I do though think the press reporting has been horrendous and scare mongering, I thought the BBC Breakfast article this morning was particularly so.

We tick many of the boxes for those articles - pensioner household, house larger than our need, at home most of the time so fairly high consumption (but not much different from the now removed .gov table) - and although not happy with the current and forecast energy cost, which i have worked out based on personal use, we are nowhere near the point of shutting down the heating, downsizing or choosing eating or heating.  I am a bit of a people observer and after watching supermarket tills and the crowds spending in costa del Blackpool recently I do wonder about these press articles.  It does though give many interested organisations a good mouth piece in their quest for more funding.

ariarnia

we saw with covid you can communicate simple messages to everyone but not complex ones. groups of people is like explaining science things to children. like saying the sun has gone down and will come back in the morning not this part of the earth has rotated away. complex explanations that cover individual situations really need to be one on one or for the person to be interested and willing enough to do there own research. i havent watched much of the reporting on tv but i think the bbc website has been quite good with some of there cost of living articles and when they do a tax calculator after the budgets that lets you enter some of your own information for the story to be tweaked for you a bit. thats more of a middle ground between totally bespoke and totally general information and more possible in the digital age. 

RobM99

My guess is that "typical" is someything easy to compare to My 'typical' mileage is 80 a week. But one gig in Luton and that's 120 in one day - which shows how meaningless "typical" can be.

chris_n

You may be able to get somewhere with electricity as it is relatively simple, units used on meter are kWh and units on the bill are kWh. 
Gas, forget it!

[Deleted User]

My thoughts on this.....

There are two main causes of confusion:

1. The £2500 (or whatever) "cap" which isn't a cap at all and really just an example of what annual costs might look like for a consumer somehere in the middle of the wide spectrum of different usage levels. I think the best thing to do is to scrap this presentation altogether. Future announcements could be "average prices are going up/down by x%" or "the average unti rate is y p/kWh". Maybe a few examples could be given. I don't see this as being particularly difficult to achieve - it just needs agreeing and doing.

2. The confusion between the monthly direct debit amount and the actual bill / cost of what is being used. I'd resolve this by  requiring energy companies to give everyone with a credit meter a monthly bill or estimate, making it clear whether that is an actual bill based on a reading (and whether that is from a smart meter or the customer) or an estimate. These should be made to look obviously different so every customer knows whether they are looking at a "Bill" or "Estimate". As far as paying the bill is concerned, customers should be given the option to pay it in full there and then (using whatever payment mechanism they choose from the options the supplier offers) or opening a completely separate "budget account" to allow them to spread the cost of paying the bill. People with a budget account should get a monthly statement, completely separate from the bill, which shows how much has been added to the budget account that period (from the estimate or bill) and how much has been paid off (i.e. the direct debit amount).  Ideally (but not essentially) the budget accounts would be offered by financial instituions and subject to all the same mechanisms, protections and controls as other financial services. Estimates for monthly use should be based on an Ofgem agreed methodology that all suplliers shoud use, with a standard mechanism across all suppliers for dealing with anyone who doesn't think their estimate is appropriate.

None of this strikes me as being particularly controversial or difficult to achieve, most of what I'm suggesting here is improved communication not a fundamental change to the way things are done.

molerat

ariarnia said:

we saw with covid you can communicate simple messages to everyone but not complex ones.

I disagree. During covid simple clear "instructions" were given.  When it came to "messages" which took any form of understanding it was a complete disaster even at the simplest level.

Miser1964

It would help if the certification training given to installers included boiler sizing and efficiency in addition to gas safety.

Trades performing annual servicing could help home-owners save money instead of just sticking a probe into the flue gases.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] said:

2. The confusion between the monthly direct debit amount and the actual bill / cost of what is being used. I'd resolve this by  requiring energy companies to give everyone with a credit meter a monthly bill or estimate, making it clear whether that is an actual bill based on a reading (and whether that is from a smart meter or the customer) or an estimate. These should be made to look obviously different so every customer knows whether they are looking at a "Bill" or "Estimate". As far as paying the bill is concerned, customers should be given the option to pay it in full there and then (using whatever payment mechanism they choose from the options the supplier offers) or opening a completely separate "budget account" to allow them to spread the cost of paying the bill. People with a budget account should get a monthly statement, completely separate from the bill, which shows how much has been added to the budget account that period (from the estimate or bill) and how much has been paid off (i.e. the direct debit amount).  Ideally (but not essentially) the budget accounts would be offered by financial instituions and subject to all the same mechanisms, protections and controls as other financial services. 

So basically having dedicated energy savings accounts that you top-up (your DD).  You could have your energy savings account with anyone you wanted, and wouldn't need to change it when you change energy supplier.

Suppliers are responsible for giving you an actual bill that you could choose to pay from your energy savings account, or by card etc.

I'd like to say that suppliers only bill based on actual readings, and that if they didn't have readings they could send you only an ever-increasing estimate of the likely bill (that they can produce when there is an actual reading).  I'd worry then though that the bill could become so large for customers that don't give regular readings (and whose smart meters can't report) it could cause debt problems for them when a bill finally comes.  Get smart meters everywhere, and communicating their readings correctly, would solve that entirely.

The question would be how to determine what is a sensible amount for a top-up and getting people to actually top up that account - perhaps an 'independent third party' using an approved method (although if it's a regulated method, anyone should be able to do it and get the same results) - and how to deal with cases where that system isn't working (no meter readings etc) before getting to large unpaid debts to chase.  Or do you think that people would just use the top-up function automatically to avoid big winter bills (like christmas savings schemes in a supermarket)?

The more I think about it, the more I like this idea - although I could already do this with a bank account and don't (but maybe that's because I can let the supplier do it for me at the moment).

ariarnia

molerat said:

ariarnia said:

we saw with covid you can communicate simple messages to everyone but not complex ones.

I disagree. During covid simple clear "instructions" were given.  When it came to "messages" which took any form of understanding it was a complete disaster even at the simplest level.

i think you are agreeing with me. i think we are just using different words? i'm saying simple things yes. anything more complicated that means thinking no. so 'do this' is fine but 'do this unless this' is a problem