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SSE to stop auto-rollover contracts for small businesses

SSE has become the latest big 6 energy supplier to commit to stop selling default automatic rollover contracts to small businesses.

The company has today said it will end the automatic contract rollovers for small businesses in April 2014, and follows similar announcements from British Gas and Npower.

SSE will also extend its existing micro-business back-billing commitment – where it promises to not issue a back bill for a period of more than 12 months when a customer has been under-billed due to a “genuine billing error” – to cover all of its small business contracts from April 2014.

Kevin Greenhorn, director of business supply at SSE, said: “[Small businesses] are run by busy people who focus their time on their companies.

“They have enough deadlines to meet without us giving them another one, so we’re ending automatic contract rollovers.”

He added that the change to the back-billing commitment was because small businesses “shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s mistakes”.

Energy minister Michael Fallon welcomed SSE’s commitment to stop auto-rollover contracts and to extend their back-billing commitment.

He said: “Small businesses are leading the generation of ideas, the creation of new jobs and the shift towards a balanced economy.

“It’s vital that we do all we can to help them flourish, grow and keep running costs down.”

In other news, the appointment of Edinburgh City Council’s chief executive, Sue Bruce, to the board as a non-executive director, has been approved.