Are you 'qualified' to understand your Energy Bills?

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