• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Independent Living / Ofgem struggles to justify Equality Act failure, as meter scandal looms
Yellow and black warning sign saying danger of death keep out and figure being struck by electricity

Ofgem struggles to justify Equality Act failure, as meter scandal looms

By John Pring on 9th February 2023 Category: Independent Living

Listen

The energy regulator has struggled to explain how it can prevent disabled people being forced onto prepayment meters when it claims to have no powers to ensure power companies comply with the Equality Act.

Ofgem said last week that it was launching an “urgent investigation” into claims that British Gas was imposing “forced installations on vulnerable customers struggling to pay their bills” without exhausting other options and carrying out thorough safety checks.

The investigation follows “extremely serious allegations” in The Times about forced installations by British Gas.

Many disabled and older customers have been cut off from heat and power when they are unable to top up their prepayment meters.

This week, Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales, told magistrates courts to stop listing applications from energy companies for signed warrants that allow their contractors to force entry into customers’ homes to install prepayment meters (see separate story).

Business and energy secretary* Grant Shapps told Ofgem on Sunday that he was concerned that it was “too easily having the wool pulled over their eyes by taking at face value what energy companies are telling them”.

But only last month, Ofgem told one disabled campaigner that it had no powers to act on complaints of disability discrimination made against energy companies.

It claimed that its powers only extended to legislation such as the Electricity Act, the Competition Act, and various Energy Acts.

The regulator told Ian Jones – one of the founders of the WOW petition – in a letter: “While Ofgem ensures that we, as an Organisation, act within the Equality Act, we do not have explicit legal powers to ensure that energy supply licensees do so.”

Ofgem said that all companies must comply with the Equality Act, but that it was “not within Ofgem’s regulatory powers to hold them accountable.

“The Equality and Human Rights Commission is the appropriate regulator for Equality Act issues.”

Jones told Ofgem: “I think it is fair to say that… the companies you regulate have decided that all you care about is keeping customers on supply and that they don’t have to worry about complying with the [Equality Act].

“I have copied my MP into this correspondence in the hope she will take an interest in what appears to be an institutionally disablist regulator.”

He originally complained to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) last September about its failure to make reasonable adjustments for him after he told the company that the noise caused by a portable generator set up near his Berkshire home had been causing him considerable distress for several days.

He then complained to Ofgem when he was unhappy with SSEN’s response.

Ofgem has repeatedly refused this week to provide on-the-record answers to questions from Disability News Service about its letter to Jones, including whether it would ignore all discrimination-related aspects of its investigation into forced installation of prepayment meters.

It did provide background information that suggested it accepted that it could not enforce the Equality Act, but that the investigation would consider the issue of “vulnerability”, including “disability”, in relation to compliance with the rules.

An SSEN spokesperson claimed the company was “committed to supporting vulnerable customers and working to assist them to meet their needs”.

She said: “Mr Jones raised concerns over a temporary generator installed near to his property and SSEN offered suitable resolutions and/or aids to alleviate the situation, however Mr Jones declined to accept the proposals.

“Mr Jones is advised to seek independent legal advice and/or refer his complaint to the Energy Ombudsman.”

But correspondence seen by DNS shows that SSEN eventually put in place soundproofing measures on the generator, six days after his first complaint.

Seven days after his complaint, SSEN also offered free hotel accommodation, which Jones and his wife turned down, and the following day the generator was finally removed.

SSEN later offered a “goodwill gesture” of £125 for the “inconvenience caused” and the time taken to deal with his complaint.

He has now taken his complaint to the ombudsman.

*Following a cabinet reshuffle this week, Shapps is now secretary of state for energy security and net zero

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: equality act Grant Shapps Ofgem prepayment meters SSEN

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Related

Mind faces discrimination claims after internal probe calls for multiple improvements on equality
15th May 2025
Activist’s legal threat set to lead to more generous compensation for rail passenger assistance failures
8th May 2025
Online provider charges disabled students thousands more for same qualification in ‘blatant discrimination’
27th March 2025

Primary Sidebar

On one side, against a grey background, are the words: 'A very interesting book... a very important contribution to this whole debate' - Sir Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability. On the other side, on white against a red background, are the words: 'The Department. How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. plutobooks.com.'
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Access

Latest Stories

Kendall refuses to apologise after misleading MPs four times in 23 minutes about PIP cuts

Parliament security confiscates ‘political’ book on DWP deaths from activists before PIP cuts debate

DWP must finally act on ‘deficient’ approach to safeguarding with a duty of care, say MPs

Two terminally-ill women to complain to UN over passage of assisted dying bill through parliament

Shocked disabled campaigners vow to fight on after MSPs vote for Scottish assisted dying bill to progress

Mind faces discrimination claims after internal probe calls for multiple improvements on equality

Network Rail to spend £8 million on building an inaccessible footbridge that will last 120 years

Crowdfunder in memory of Krissi Hunt could educate coroners on links between DWP and claimant deaths

London theatre to host installation that exposes how DWP austerity measures led to countless deaths

DWP helped cause mental distress of poverty-stricken benefit claimant who took her own life, says coroner

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web