Scottish and Southern Energy has agreed with the UK Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to provide additional support for vulnerable electricity and gas customers in the period up to March 2011.
The UK government has reportedly stated that given the substantial commitment that an agreement of this kind represents, it will not expect companies to do more on social assistance, over the 2008-11 period.
Under the agreement, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) will operate existing and new schemes with a total value of around GBP16 million in the first phase, up to March 31, 2009. These schemes will reportedly be designed to assist those vulnerable to fuel poverty.
These schemes will feature a variety of approaches such as social tariffs, charitable donations, bespoke services for vulnerable customers, work with advocate organizations and community-based programs.
Ian Marchant, SSE's CEO, said: "The single biggest contribution which energy suppliers can make to preventing fuel poverty is to keep prices as low as possible for as long as possible. For this reason, SSE will maintain its long-established responsible pricing policy: we will seek to be the last, or one of the last, of the major suppliers to increase prices if we have to and the first, or one of the first, to cut prices if we can."