UKHospitality: If you don’t ask…

Chief executive Kate Nicholls on UKHospitality’s #FiveAsksForOfgem energy campaign...

While contract caterers aren’t always the direct bill payers when it comes to energy, for those of you in rented premises, those sky-high prices are no doubt being passed on by your landlords. It’s in your own interests, then, to help get those energy costs down.

So, if you’re reading Contract Caterer on publication day – 4^th September – you’ve two whole days left to help us urge the regulator, Ofgem, to implement the recommendations from its recent energy market review immediately. And, if you happen to be reading slightly later, you can still write to the regulator outlining why action is so necessary.

With energy costs remaining the single most destructive inflationary pressure facing our industry, we’re calling on the hospitality sector to back UKHospitality’s #FiveAsksForOfgem, which call on the regulator to enact meaningful change in the energy market by:

• Encouraging suppliers to resolve the issues many businesses are facing with high energy contracts, including direct and immediate communication to suppliers from Ofgem
• Offering greater transparency to customers, delivering more timely responses to complaints and driving better practice in setting deemed rates
• Delivering wider access to the energy ombudsman
• Putting measures in place to prevent blacklisting of entire sectors, particularly hospitality
• Improving regulation of energy brokers, including extending protections to more businesses

The Ofgem review was crystal clear that many of the issues facing businesses lie at the door of the energy suppliers. Whether it’s refusing to renegotiate contracts, demanding enormous deposits or simply refusing to supply the sector, it’s clear that some energy suppliers are mistreating hospitality.

Among several important recommendations in the review is the strong encouragement that suppliers renegotiate contracts with hospitality businesses. And together we can demonstrate the strength of feeling across the sector, which is why UKHospitality would love to see every hospitality business and every person working for those businesses lend their support to our #FiveAsksForOfgem and respond to the consultation. Your voice is essential, your opinions vital.

Indeed, we’ve proved already that our thoughts can have an effect: UKHospitality’s response to Ofgem’s non-domestic energy market review took our feedback very seriously, singling out our industry as the worst affected sector.
Now, Ofgem needs to hear from you about why implementing the changes recommended in its review must happen quickly, delivering for your business in the short- and the long-term.
This is why we’re asking the sector to respond to the energy review consultation to support our key asks and our calls for urgent action by the 6^th. And we’ve made it as simple as possible to do so via ukhospitality.eaction.org.uk/FiveAsksForOfgem.
It’ll only take a few minutes of your time, but those are precious minutes in the fight to change how energy suppliers operate and treat their hospitality customers. So do please visit the link and send a message to Ofgem – loud and clear.

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