British Gas boosts call centre staff as bills rise

Supplier hires 500 more workers to handle inquiries from households worried by energy costs

BRITISH Gas is hiring hundreds of new customer service workers as it scrambles to deal with a surge in calls from households struggling with higher bills.

Centrica, the energy supplier’s parent company, said it was adding 500 more customer service roles after experiencing “phenomenal” demand from people trying to get through to its teams. The FTSE 250 giant said its customers were “very concerned about rising energy costs and we want to help them as much as we can”.

Centrica added that higher inflation was already beginning to impact demand for its services.

It added: “We expect those headwinds to continue to, at least partially, offset underlying operational progress for the duration of this period of higher inflation.”

It comes as Britain faces the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with households experiencing a £700 jump in their annual energy bills after the price cap was increased last month. Further hikes are expected in autumn when the cap is reviewed again, with Scottishpower last week suggesting annual bills could soar by a further £1,000 to almost £3,000.

Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottishpower, warned that such a rise “will hit incredibly hard and immediately”. He added: “We will also see a massive increase in debt levels for direct debit customers, and a massive increase in people being pushed from direct debits to prepayment meters so that companies can recover the debt.”

The pressure to keep up with bills comes as families also face higher prices in supermarkets and at the pump, with the latest figures from the British Retail Consortium showing households have now started cutting back on shopping for the first time since the start of 2021.

Centrica said it was also investing more into its energy support fund to help its customers pay off bills with grants of up to £750.

However, it warned: “Significant uncertainties remain over the balance of the year, including the impacts of weather, commodity prices movements, asset performance and the potential for increased bad debt charges given the current inflationary pressures in the UK.”

Despite this, Centrica said its fullyear earnings were expected to come in at the top of analyst forecasts after a “strong operational performance”. The company’s shares surged nearly 4pc to close at 74.8p.

Centrica said the results had been buoyed by its nuclear and gas production assets in the UK, and after it secured increased volumes of gas and renewable energy through its energy trading business. It said it would be providing more details on its finances at its interim results in July, when all eyes will be on whether it resumes dividend payments. They were suspended in 2020.

Centrica’s higher forecast is expected to fuel scrutiny of energy companies amid growing calls for a windfall tax. Last week, oil and gas giants BP and Shell reported soaring first-quarter profits, following the rise in oil prices, exacerbated by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Separately, Shell will today unveil plans to install 100,000 electric car charging points in forecourts across the UK by 2030, with a tenth of those able to give vehicles an 80pc charge within 30 minutes. If it hits its target, 90pc of drivers will be less than 10 minutes’ drive from one of these rapid chargers.