Ombudsman Services | July 2020
This note sets out our approach to complaints that potentially have been impacted by Covid-19. Our stance is reflective of the expectations set out for suppliers by Ofgem on 8 April and 16 June 2020 relating to the impact of Covid-19. For reference the Covid-19 period mentioned within the document is 23 March to 30 June 2020.
Site visits (including smart meter rollout)
We are aware that due to staff shortages and redeployment of staff, suppliers had to prioritise certain work over others during the Covid-19 period. We are of the view that, in line with Ofgem’s stance, suppliers did face an unprecedented challenge which meant that in many cases, they could not investigate all issues as they would in normal times and it was reasonable, in such circumstances, for suppliers to prioritise the most urgent jobs over others.
We would deem essential and emergency work to include situations where an engineer would need to attend a customer’s property to address safety issues with a meter or a loss of supply problem.
With this in mind, we expect that suppliers ensured that they were able to attend emergency appointments to ahead as normal, unless the visit presented a safety concern for the engineer. If a supplier was unable to attend an emergency appointment and there are no safety concerns, then we are likely to deem this to represent a shortfall in service.
If a supplier was unable to fulfil an emergency appointment due to a safety concern, we are likely to consider what follow up actions were taken by the supplier to ensure that the required work was carried out. For example, we would expect that if the supplier had established that a customer’s home was unsafe to enter, a conversation was held with the customer in a timely manner to try to find a way to make the property safe so the required work could be carried out.
If emergency work could not be carried out, then we are likely to consider whether the supplier offered appropriate support to the customer – for example, whether the supplier considered providing temporary cooking equipment to someone who was off supply.
If a customer reported issues which the supplier should have resolved before the Covid-19 period – which were then further delayed after the start of the Covid-19 period – then we may decide to take account of the full period of delay (including any delays due to the supplier prioritising work during the Covid-19 period) – when deciding on the level of the award to make. We consider this reasonable on the basis that the supplier could have avoided the delays if they had fixed the problem when it was first reported.
We anticipate that from 1 July suppliers will be working on a backlog and there may be a delay in a customer being allocated a slot for a home visit. We consider this is acceptable in the short term and delays in engineer’s visits being allocated won’t constitute a shortfall in service.
From this date and in line with Ofgem’s recent communication we would also expect a supplier to take all reasonable steps to ensure achievement of the SMICoP objectives, which include ensuring consumers know how to use and benefit from their smart metering equipment. As above, we accept that the backlog of appointments will affect the speed of the roll out in the short term.
Guaranteed Standards
When investigating a case, OS will consider when the issue occurred and what supplier expectations were at that time. For issues raised during the Covid-19 period relating to the Guaranteed Standards in which a supplier explains it is unable to meet one of the guaranteed standards due to the unavailability of resources caused by Covid-19, we will not expect that the supplier to have made a compensatory payment and will not require suppliers to make such payments in our awards. We would, however, expect suppliers to have communicated with the consumer to explain why a guaranteed standard could not be met. For example, provide prior notification and explanation if an appointment had to be cancelled. A failure to provide this would be deemed a shortfall in customer service. This mirrors the expectations set out by Ofgem for the Covid-19 period.
For issues that occur on or after 1 July, in line with Ofgem’s most recent position, we will return to considering Guaranteed Standards as we did prior to the Covid-19 period. That said, it is still possible that a supplier can demonstrate that exceptional circumstances have occurred. For example, if there is an outbreak in a localised area. If this is the case, then we would approach this as we would any potential exceptional circumstance. Again, we would still expect suppliers to communicate with their customer if work is unable to be completed as planned and failure to do this would be deemed a shortfall.