Recommendation 23

We examined the government’s support for customers’ and businesses’ energy bills in November 2022 and June 2023. We concluded that many vulnerable customers faced extra challenges accessing benefits designed to help people with their energy bills. We also found that the Department was not doing enough to ensure that support was reaching some of those most in need, for example the two million consumers on prepayment meters who needed to redeem vouchers to claim their payment through EBSS. We recommended that the Department identify and address any administrative issues that were preventing people from access the support available to them, and that it should set out how it would increase the redemption rate of vouchers.47 When we examined the energy bills support being provided by the Department in June 2023, we found that 76% of vouchers issued to eligible households across Great Britain to claim their £400 payment through the Energy Bills Support Scheme had been redeemed. Uptake was lower in metropolitan areas, with take-up being just 60% in London.48 We therefore asked witnesses how many customers had now redeemed their £400 energy voucher. Ofgem explained that it was using multiple approaches to reach the remaining vulnerable customers including notices through the post, publicity campaigns and having energy companies proactively contact the remaining customers to ensure they took up the support.49 Following our evidence session, Ofgem wrote to us on 14 June 2023 to notify us that the region with the highest uptake of the energy vouchers as of May 2023, was the East Midlands at a redemption rate of 80% while the lowest, London, had an uptake rate of 68%. The total rate across all regions was 76%.50