Introduction

Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner Bruce Adamson’s letter to the regulator Ofgem, urging it to ban energy companies from all compulsory installations of pre-payment meters, a practice that leaves struggling families at severe risk of energy disconnection.  

The Commissioner expressed his grave concern that energy companies are still not effectively identifying vulnerable individuals to provide them, and any dependent children with the support that they desperately need.  

The Commissioner points to the increased risks to children’s right to life, health and development by the energy companies’ decisions and lack of effective identification, calling on Ofgem to urgently “take a more active regulatory approach, rather than a watching brief”.