Most recently, it has been announced that SSE will provide £12m of support to its most vulnerable customers, helping them with their energy bills and thus supporting customers most in need, not only of maintaining SSE’s services, but also of being able to manage their own finances at the same time. Of those eligible for the support, SSE will be personally identifying those most in need of this line of support and, as a result, those customers will then receive credits to their account automatically, keeping the process simple and targeted towards those of the greatest need.

Specifically, the £12m fund is redirected money left for up to seven years by former customers who have moved, cancelled direct debits and failed to provide forwarding addresses and will see SSE utilise these funds in a responsible, socially recognisable manner. And, although SSE has actually worked tirelessly to locate the customers in question over the course of a number of years to process their refund, including using search agencies and checking against new customer accounts as well as through media and marketing campaigns, limited to no success has been achieved in contacting those remaining and, as such SSE is now in a position to utilise these funds for the benefit of others.

SSE’s Director of Domestic Retail Stephen Forbes noted: “We know that some customers, for a variety of reasons, may have difficulty with their bills which is why we are providing debt assistance to tens of thousands of customers this year alone… We want to do more and we hope that this additional funding will make a difference for customers by freeing them up from energy debt and helping them start afresh.”

SSE has already started the process of advising customers of the payments, aiming to continue to do so over the course of the next few months, but will also allow former customers to claim back credit fit they come forward and request as such. Regardless, utilisation of this £12m, in one manner or another, is nigh.