Chris O’Shea has confirmed British Gas has not asked Ofgem for permission to resume the forced installation of prepayment meters (PPMs), suggesting it is not the right time to do so.
The Centrica chief executive was speaking to Utility Week following the publication of the company’s results on Thursday (15 February) in which the energy retailer posted a profit of £751 million.
Despite the positive results, bad debt increased by 82% to £541 million, including impacts from pausing field debt collection activity, with an increase in both residential (up £158 million) and small business (up £86 million).
The pause in field debt collection is due to the fact suppliers were halted from using a warrant to install PPMs following revelations last year that the devices were forcefully installed at the homes of vulnerable British Gas customers.
During a call with journalists, O’Shea was asked what impact the pause would have on bad debt provision. In response he said “it’s almost impossible to say what would have happened had we done something different”.
Asked by Utility Week when Centrica will meet Ofgem’s requirements for restarting PPM installs, the Centrica boss said: “It’s not a question of when we meet them, it’s a question of when do we think is the right time for us to apply for a review by Ofgem to restart this.
“We’ve done a lot of work over the past year, we’ve brought all of the people who are doing this work in house, we’ve spent a lot of money in training, making sure the policies and procedures are right but as of now we haven’t asked for permission to restart and I don’t want to speculate when that may be.”
Asked why the company feels it is not the right moment to resume, O’Shea responded: “We’ve just been focusing on making sure that we are supporting our customers in every way that we can…that’s really been our focus, our focus hasn’t been on getting back out in to the field.”
The issue of forced PPM installations has been a major source of contention in the energy sector over the past year, with concerns about the way customers are treated, as well as the impact on bad debt.
Energy UK has previously stated that the level of debt owed to energy retailers stands at a record high of £3 billion.
Last month Ofgem revealed that Scottish Power, EDF and Octopus could resume installing PPMs with a warrant to recover customer debt, following the almost year-long moratorium.
Yet the regulator came under fire for allowing forced installations to resume before it published its review of the practice.