SSE Energy Services to pay £20,000 for poor RFI performance
Decision
Publication date
Company
Industry sector
Supply and Retail Market
Licence type
Electricity Supply Licence
We have recently concluded our engagement with SSE Energy Services on its compliance with Standard Licence Condition 5 “SLC 5” when providing information that Ofgem uses to assess whether suppliers are complying with the price cap. SLC 5 sets out the requirement on licensees to provide information requested by Ofgem ‘when and in the form requested’ in order for Ofgem to conduct its regulatory duties.
SSE Energy Services have admitted to failing to comply with SLC 5 by failing to provide an accurate and timely submission of the Tariff & Customer Account Request for Information (RFI), issued to all domestic suppliers every six months. Following constructive engagement, SSE Energy Services has agreed to implement appropriate mitigations to avoid similar reporting issues going forward, and has agreed to pay £20,000 to the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Fund, in recognition of its failings.
Importance of timeliness and accurate information
To perform our regulatory functions effectively, it is essential that licensees provide us with timely, complete and accurate information in response to our RFIs. Otherwise, there is a legitimate risk of consumer harm from Ofgem not being able to identify potentially non-compliant activity. As such, we consider non-compliance with SLC 5 to be a serious matter. This includes instances where requested information is submitted late without prior agreement, contains incomplete or inaccurate information, and where responses are not provided in specified formats.
Where licensees fall short of our expectations in this area, we are now prepared to take escalated action where appropriate, including where we see evidence of a pattern of poor responses to our requests. Ofgem has decided not to take formal enforcement action on this occasion, considering that SSE Energy Services has since provided the requested information in the required format and has put in place measures to ensure these or similar issues will not re-occur in future.