THE Jersey Consumer Council is “still working” with lawyers to recover costs that Islanders incurred in last October’s gas outage which saw some without power and hot water for a fortnight.
The update comes in the consumer body’s 2023 Annual Report in which its chair described last year as “arguably one of our most challenging” since it was founded in 1995.
Backed with a government grant of £137,000, the JCC also confirmed that this funding was not increased for 2024 and had led to some “tough” decisions about how it operates.
Carl Walker, the JCC’s chair who was recently reappointed to the role for a further three years, said in 2023 that the non-profit organisation saw thousands of Islanders impacted by “a range of significant problems along with the constant struggle of double-digit inflation, making every day living unsustainable for many”.
The “largest single issue”, he added, was the fallout from the outage last October. Around 4,000 customers were left without gas for up to two weeks when a technical fault caused the supply to shut off.
In February, the JEP reported that Advocate Philip Sinel had agreed to act on behalf of nearly 250 Island Energy customers after concluding that the “insulting” compensation payment of £11.56 presented a “clear breach of contract”.
In emotional responses to a JCC survey, pensioners said it was “frightening” that those without access to social media were left “in the dark”, while families with specific needs described it as “really stressful” and “uncomfortable”.
Others called for an independent regulator or ombudsman to be involved, while one wrote: “It is hard to put a cost to the disruption faced by my family during the 13 days’ outage.”
Islands Energy Group chief executive Jo Cox defended the gas company’s “goodwill gesture” of £11.56, saying that there was “no requirement for energy companies in Jersey to have pre-agreed compensation schemes in place” and that the fault was not covered by its insurance.
In the annual report, Mr Walker explained that around 400 had now registered with the JCC to express their dissatisfaction with the amount, saying: “The council is still working with lawyers to recover the extra costs Islanders incurred as a result of the energy supply cut.”
Other issues that the JCC dealt with last year included consumers struggling to fully understand the changes which were made to the de minimis online shopping tax threshold – particularly that it had effectively been “scrapped altogether” for the majority of online shopping.
“The council continued to challenge and educate those retailers who charge VAT as well as GST, and also those who incorrectly charge ‘international’ postage fees,” Mr Walker said.
While the JCC received a £25,000 increase to its government grant in 2023, which enabled the hire of a second part-time employee, requests for further increases in 2024 were turned down, meaning some “tough decisions” had to be made, Mr Walker said.
This included moving its popular newsletter online due to the “crippling cost of postage and printing” and developing a new low-cost, in-house price-comparison website.
