The boss of British Gas’s parent company has angered consumer groups by accepting a windfall £4.5m pay packet, including bonus payouts totalling £3.7m, despite an investigation into the treatment of vulnerable customers.
Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, was told to examine his conscience after accepting an annual bonus of £1.4m and a long-term share bonus of £2.3m on top of his £790,000 annual salary, as millions of households struggled to pay their energy bills.
The personal bonus windfall was awarded after Centrica’s profits increased threefold last year to an all-time high of £3.3bn amid rocketing energy market prices.
The company reported the record profits shortly after it emerged that debt agents working for British Gas broke into the homes of vulnerable customers to fit prepayment meters when they were unable to pay their bills.
The revelations, which were uncovered by the Times newspaper, triggered an outcry from consumer groups, which have been campaigning for vulnerable households to receive more support to help weather the cost of living crisis.
They also provoked concern from No 10 and prompted the energy regulator Ofgem to open an investigation into British Gas’s treatment of vulnerable households.
Simon Francis, the co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “The bonuses of the few in the energy industry are built on the suffering of the many who have seen energy bills reach record levels this winter, even despite government support.
“We’d urge all energy bosses to examine their conscience and donate their bonuses to charities helping to undo the damage they have caused.”
Alice Harrison, a campaigner at Global Witness, described the bonus as “a slap in the face to all those who’ve been struggling with the sky-high cost of energy”. She said it would take the average worker 150 years to earn what Chris O’Shea did on one year.
“This huge gulf between the winners and losers of the energy crisis points to everything that’s wrong with our energy system, which is hugely overdependent on fossil fuels,” Harrison added.
Centrica’s remuneration committee made no mention in its annual report of the scandal at British Gas, and defended O’Shea’s annual bonus, saying he had delivered against his objectives develop an “energy transition” plan.
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O’Shea had “successfully navigated challenging regulatory and political issues”, the committee said, while “delivering shareholder value through new investment opportunities and portfolio shaping”.
In the annual report, O’Shea said he was deeply concerned by the revelations about vulnerable British Gas customers. “We’ll get to the bottom of this and where we got it wrong, we’ll make it right,” he said.
British Gas has suspended the use of court warrants to force the installation of pre-payment meters. It has also stopped switching customers remotely to prepayment meters through smart meters after complaints about the practice.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced in his budget last week that the “prepayment premium”, whereby those using the devices pay a higher tariff for energy, would be scrapped.
