British Gas has been ordered to pay a penalty fine worth £9.5 million following several complaints from its business customers relating to billing issues.
Back in 2014, British Gas launched a new computer system, having spent £40 million on its development. Following the computer system update, tens of thousands of British gas customers found that they received bills that were either inaccurate or late, Ofgem found. Around 6,000 businesses also complained about being unable to register new accounts.
The number of complaints coming in as result of the issues related to the IT system were too high for the number of members of staff British Gas had available to deal with them and a backlog was created.
British Gas Business’ managing director, Gab Barbaro, explained that the system had been implemented with the aim of centralising and improving the billing system, but that unforeseen problems had affected its functionality.
He said: “We invested in a new billing system so we could improve the service we provide to our business customers.
“At the time, this was a major undertaking – merging nearly 100 different systems into one. It didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked so we reported this to Ofgem as a priority.
“We have restored a very good quality of customer service, and more and more of our customers are going online to use the new billing system. I’d like to apologise to our business customers for any inconvenience caused when we were implementing the system.”
British Gas have, since the issues came to light, hired an extra 350 staff members in order to avoid similar problems happening in the future. The £9.5 million fine they have been ordered to pay will be distributed both among affected customers, and between charities including the Money Advice Trust.
Ofgem chief executive Dermot Nolan said: “Ofgem welcomes suppliers investing in new systems and recognises that this can be challenging. However, the £9,5 million payment also sends a strong reminder to all energy companies that they must treat consumers fairly at all times, including while new systems are put in place.”
