Miliband price pledge prompted spike in complaints

There was a spike in the number of complaints made to the energy companies and the Ombudsman service in the wake of Ed Miliband’s speech and promised price freeze in September.

Speaking at an Ombudsman round table event in London today, chief ombudsman Lewis Shand Smith said “there was certainly a spike in our enquiry department where the phones are answered [following Miliband’s speech]” and he added the number of complaints increased throughout 2013.

Shand Smith said: “We’ve actually seen the increase over the whole of the last calendar year, it started to rise at the start of the year and it’s constantly gone upwards.”

The number of complaints made in December 2013 was 1,805, which was an increase of 106 per cent from the 872 complaints that were made in December 2012.

Neil Clitheroe, Scottish Power’s chief executive of retail and generation, agreed there had been a spike in the number of complaints due to “the heightened awareness over the last 4 months” as a result of speeches, increased media coverage, and the changes to the green levies.

He added: “It possibly started at a certain point and the price changes that occurred at that point exaggerated that effect.”

Clitheroe said the increased complaints the energy companies have received has led to problems at their customer service centres because they have not got enough staff to deal with the influx of calls.

“Energy is funny at the moment, there are real peaks and troughs and it’s very hard to manage the cycle,” he said, before admitting that as a sector, the energy companies need to improve their customer service.

He added if the suppliers can control the volume of complaints by solving the basic problems, such as billing and payments, preventing complaints being made, “it creates the space to deliver good solutions to difficult issues”.

This has led to a number of complaints passing the 8 week mark without being resolved, at which point they can then be passed onto the Ombudsman – which is due to publish a report into consumer complaints on Sunday – although only 5 per cent of complaints are.