Response to Ofgem’s statutory consultation on extending data matching to facilitate a price cap for vulnerable customers

Ofgem has been developing proposals to broaden the price protection available to vulnerable consumers, which it would seek to implement in the event a broader price cap on default tariffs is not implemented by government.  As part of this process, it issued a consultation proposing improvements that would allow the majority of, but not all, eligible consumers to be identified automatically through use of benefits data.

In our submission [ 240 kb], we welcomed the move to introduce broader price protection for vulnerable consumers, but expressed concern that excluding smaller suppliers from the automatic matching process would be likely to result in some vulnerable consumers missing out.  We suggested that continuing to exempt small suppliers from some policy and environmental schemes was unsustainable.