Are you 'qualified' to understand your Energy Bills?
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Released
on: July 28, 2009, 4:20 am
Author: uSwitch.com
Industry: Energy
uSwitch.com
is campaigning for household energy bills to be made simpler,
clearer and easier for consumers to understand after asking an
examining board to give an independent assessment of the state
of Britain's energy bills. The findings were shocking - 45% of
Brits may not actually be qualified enough to understand a household
energy bill.
According
to examiners, people would need at least a higher grade GCSE or
O' level in maths to be able to get to grips with a household
energy
bill. This is because of the complexity and format of the
information provided. But last year only 55% of GCSE maths students
achieved this. Based on this pass rate, almost half of the population
could be expected to struggle to understand an energy bill.
In
reality, three quarters of people (75%) find energy bills confusing
and 57% find it difficult to work out how their bill has been
calculated. Because of this consumers are being urged to take
action by:
-Joining
the 'Simpler, clearer, easier' Facebook group:www.uSwitch.com/simpler-clearer-easier
-Signing the 'Better bills' petition:http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/betterbills/
-Taking part in the uSwitch.com Energy Bill Challenge:www.uSwitch.com/bill-challenge
Ann
Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com says:"You shouldn't need to
be an 'A' grade student to be able to understand your energy bills.
As things currently stand 45% of consumers are in danger of being
excluded because of the complex way in which energy bills are
written and presented today."
Ann
Robinson continues: "Ofgem is looking to address this, but
it's vital that consumers make their voices heard too. Take the
challenge, join the 'Simpler, clearer, easier' group on Facebook
and sign our e-Petition to get energy bills made simpler, clearer
and easier for consumers to understand."
The
uSwitch.com Energy Bill Challenge:
45%
of people are not sufficiently qualified to understand a household
energy bill - are you one of them? Find out if you've got what
it takes to get to the bottom of a typical bill by taking the
uSwitch.com Energy Bill Challenge at:
www.uSwitch.com/bill-challenge
Have paper, a pen and a calculator to hand and don't forget to
visit Facebook afterwards to let us know how you got on. And just
in case you think it's too easy, here's what the Head of Mathematics
at the examining board said:
Chair
& Head of Mathematics, Edexcel:The amount of information,
lack of explanations and format of the bills make them very difficult
to process......These things would make them inaccessible for
most GCSE candidates unless considerable explanation was given."
Good luck!
For
more information visit www.uSwitch.com
or call 0800 093 06 07
For
more information please contact:
Jo Ganly, uSwitch.com on 0207 802 2915 or joganly@uswitch.com
Katie Hayward, Lansons Communications on 0207 294 3631 or katieh@lansons.com;
Linda Tyson, Lansons Communications on 0207 566 9713 or lindat@lansons.com