16 December 2011
  Ofgem have given their views on how energy suppliers tackle the issue of back-billing for microbusinesses, following recent work that has been done to standardise the practice.
The Energy Retail Association (ERA) and the Industrial and Commercial Shippers and Suppliers Group (ICOSS) have been working with consumer groups to produce their own set of ‘draft standards’ on the practice of back-billing (when an energy supplier rebills a customer following a mistake made by the supplier on the customer’s energy bill) for microbusinesses.
These new draft standards have proposed a number of changes to the current process, including reducing the time limit for back-billing to three years, which, although still quite long, is considerably shorter than the current legal period of six years.
In an open letter to the ERA and the ICOSS, Ofgem commended the constructive approach being taken on this issue, but did raise concerns and made several requests, including:
- That the time limit of the period for which energy suppliers can issue a back-bill be further reduced to one year.
- That these new draft standards should not be restricted for microbusinesses, and should also apply to non-domestic customers.
- That a supplier should voluntarily publish on their website the full details of all their non-domestic back-billing cases from the previous year, “in the interest of transparency”.
The letter also states that Ofgem will be issuing an information request to suppliers, which will help them to understand the impact of their proposed one-year time limit and consider the issue of its application, so we’ll have to wait and see what final decision is reached.
In view of the fact that most back billing is a result of utility company meter reading and system errors, it seems more than fair to improve protection for small, vulnerable businesses.
Click here to read the letter.
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