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Energy complaints to be dealt with more quickly and Energy Ombudsman to get new powers under Government plans

Senior Energy & Utilities Analyst

19 June 2025

If you have a complaint about your energy firm, it may be resolved more quickly in future, as the Government has announced a raft of proposals to strengthen consumer protections in the energy market. The planned changes include giving the Energy Ombudsman new powers to force firms to comply with its decisions – but it's still very early days. Here's what we know so far.

The Government says its proposals will make compensation "fairer, quicker and easier" – though any changes are still some way off, as more details are to be published "later this year" and will then likely need to be consulted on.

Energy Ombudsman to be strengthened

Currently, if you have a problem with your energy firm, you need to complain to it first. Then, if it hasn't been resolved within eight weeks, you can escalate it to the Energy Ombudsman.

However, as MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis pointed out in evidence he gave to Parliament earlier this year, the Energy Ombudsman doesn't have legal powers to force firms to comply with its rulings – which can leave you stuck if your supplier doesn't do as it's told.

Today (Thursday 19 June), the Government announced that it would look to:

Strengthen the Energy Ombudsman's powers to ensure suppliers follow its final decisions. We don't yet know exactly what this will involve, though the Government said there may be additional automatic compensation where suppliers fail to comply.
Cut the waiting time before you can escalate your complaint to the Ombudsman from eight to four weeks. So you can get a resolution more quickly.
Make escalation to the Ombudsman automatic. The Government said this would help to address the current situation where "consumers often do not access the compensation they are entitled to due to time pressures or fatigue with a complex system".

Automatic compensation for more kinds of problems

The Government also said it would work with Ofgem to look at expanding the current automatic compensation rules to cover issues such as excessively long call waiting times, unexpectedly high bills when suppliers fail to adjust direct debits and suppliers not responding to complaints.

It added that it will look at increasing the amount of compensation consumers are paid from the current £40 – though a new amount is yet to be confirmed.

Under the current rules, you should get £40 in automatic compensation for delayed switches, late final bills and credit refunds, and if you're switched to another supplier by mistake.