Consumer Advocacy

Citizens Advice (England and Wales) (https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/help/if-you-need-more-help-about-a-consumer-issue-energy/) and Consumer Scotland using Direct Advice Scotland (https://energyadvice.scot/) are the consumer advocate and advice providers from 1st April 2025, alongside the role of the Energy Ombudsman for dispute resolution for residential and microbusinesses.

This statutory consumer advocacy and support role is designed to provide heat network customers free and impartial advice to help resolve issues with their heat supplier, like customers with an electricity or gas supply.

Energy Ombudsman Registration

Domestic customers and microbusinesses can also now escalate complaints raised after 1st April 2025 to the Energy Ombudsman, which heat network suppliers are being urged to register with in preparation for compulsory registration.

Whilst there is a cost relating to membership and for each case they handle, customers must exhaust the heat suppliers’ complaints process before escalating to the Energy Ombudsman.

There is more information about the Energy Ombudsman, which is urging heat network suppliers to also join their scheme, here - https://www.energyombudsman.org/news/heat-network-suppliers-urged-to-register-with-energy-ombudsman.

Energy Ombudsman Scope of Disputes

The Energy Ombudsman manages common disputes, such as those relating to billing and payments, customer service, loss of supply as well as maintenance and other delays. They cannot support with disputes relating to switching suppliers, where it relates to standing charges or capital replacement fund charges, as well as billing and payments relating to the energy performance and certificates and charges within the final bill.

Energy Ombudsman Alternatives

Tenants or leaseholders of a social landlord, can get support from other dispute resolution services, including the Housing Ombudsman (https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk), the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (https://www.ombudsman.wales), LEASE (https://www.lease-advice.org) and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (https://www.spso.org.uk), which you will likely already be registered with, should this potentially apply.

What Action Heat Network Supplier Should Take?

Ensuring you are ‘regulatory ready’, we would encourage you to register with the Energy Ombudsman but as part of preparing for this, we would strongly encourage you to:

  • Review your heat supply agreements, as the Energy Ombudsman will base decisions on these and if they do not exist, look at putting these in place to avoid decisions based on the Energy Ombudsman’s market expectations.
  • Review and update your complaints process and include organisations such as mySycous, who act on your behalf to ensure it is robust to avoid escalations as far as possible.
  • Review your agreements across your supply chain, ensuring they meet the objective of active and expected heat network regulations, including on topics such as maintenance performance and efficiency.
  • Review and update your communications with your heat network customers, recognising the role of the Energy Ombudsman and the consumer advocacy services.
  • Get prepared for further regulation, which we can help you with, just Get in Touch with our team.

Further Regulation Compliance

We are also expecting the consultation on the Heat Network Technical Assurance Scheme (HNTAS) to be released shortly, which will require minimum levels of performance and reliability for heat networks. This will apply for new and existing heat networks, with a transitional period for existing heat networks.

You can read more about some of the changes that are planned with the regulation of heat networks overing the coming months and years - https://sycous.com/resource/blogs/statutory-regulation-of-heat-networks, with the active enforcement role of Ofgem planned for January 2026.

We are happy to support you in ensuring you are ‘regulatory ready’, in the same way we are ensuring our systems and processes are ready to support your readiness. If you feel we can help you further, please do not hesitate to speak with your Account Manager or contact clientmanagement@sycous.com and we will be happy to support you.