Decision to grant British Gas Trading Limited a temporary derogation from various elements of standard condition (SLC) 31A of its electricity and gas supply licences
Decision
Publication date
Company
Industry sector
Supply and Retail Market
Licence type
Electricity Supply Licence
This letter sets out the Authority’s decision to grant British Gas Trading Limited a temporary and limited derogation from Paragraph S1.1 of Schedule 1 to SLC 31A, Paragraph S1.3 of Schedule 1 to SLC 31A, Paragraph S1.10 of Schedule 1 to SLC 31A, Paragraph S3.4 of Schedule 3 to SLC 31A, SLC 31A.2(g), Paragraph S1.9 of Schedule 1 to SLC 31A, Paragraph S2.1 of schedule 2 to SLC 31A, and S2.4 of schedule 2 to SLC 31A of its gas and electricity supply licences.
The derogation will enable British Gas to conduct a trial of a new version of its bill for domestic gas and electricity customers in a specific region and for a limited time, subject to the terms of the corresponding Directions. We have redacted commercially-sensitive aspects of the decision and will publish the full decision in December 2016 after the trial has been completed.
As indicated in our 7 March 2016 open letter on improving consumer communications and the value of trials, we are committed to ensuring that consumers have the information they need to fully engage with the market to make well-informed decisions about their energy supply. We are open to considering derogations to facilitate trials on the format, placement, and wording on bills and other consumer communication tools. We consider that the results of the trials could assist our policy development as we are looking into making changes in this area as part of our implementation of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) remedies and our policy to rely more on principles in the way we regulate the retail market.