Utilities still failing to proactively identify vulnerability

Utility companies have been urged to be more proactive in identifying customers in vulnerable circumstances in order to give them the appropriate support.

The Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS) is a not-for-profit organisation which provides a central database to help organisations identify vulnerability and treat their customers fairly and appropriately.

Helen Lord, chief executive of the VRS, was speaking following a representative survey of 2,000 people undertaken by the organisation which revealed 82% of vulnerable people had not been proactively asked by their utility provider if they are vulnerable.

Despite this, of those who had been asked, 84% said their vulnerable customer status was ultimately taken into consideration and they were treated fairly.

Of those surveyed, 11% who were vulnerable and had moved onto a prepayment meter (PPM) in the last 12 months had “low resilience and unable to cope with any kind of financial or emotional shock”, while 12% had “low knowledge, confidence or capability when it came to managing their money”.

Lord said she believed a major issue was the fact that there is a lack of data sharing within the sector and that identification of customers in vulnerable circumstances was key.

“The most important thing is to really focus on data sharing and not be afraid of it, to understand the fact that we’ve probably shared lots of financial data about everybody for decades. But we have this reluctance to share data to provide people with the support they need and to offer them the help,” she told Utility Week.

Lord said individual consumers often did not know where to access benefits or how to actually get help.

“You’re talking about individuals that are very often already in debt,” she said, adding, “It’s spiralling out of control. If you couple that with something like mental health issues, you’re really talking about people that are almost paralysed to go out and get that help. And nobody’s proactively trying to find them and to move them on and help them gain the support they need.”

For several years utilities have been working towards creating a shared priority services register (PSR) to join up the data on vulnerable customers from across several organisations, yet nervousness around GDPR and data protection has halted progress.

Lord continued: “Utilities have been talking for a long time about cross-sharing their PSRs and it hasn’t happened yet. That definitely needs to happen. The fear of data protection, the fear of data privacy, has stopped organisations moving forward into data sharing whereas it’s a challenge, but it’s easily overcome.”

She added: “There needs to be a plan…different sectors, different organisations are working in silos or isolation and trying to address it and there needs to be an overarching plan.

“It may be that that needs to be driven by government but equally, there needs to be steps forward and progress and not ‘wait to see’.”

These issues will be discussed in more detail at Utility Week Forum in London this November. For more information and to book your place, click here.