The conclusions were not wholly unexpected and give rise to some serious questions on how we treat older consumers. But in my opinion, it also begs a much bigger question around inclusion and how policies are developed.

Age UK found that 1.6 million over-65s in England are digitally included; 1.4 million are digitally excluded; and the majority, 7.9 million, are somewhere in the middle. The charity warns that continuing to ‘muddle through’ towards an increasingly digital future will leave many millions of older people excluded and disenfranchised. These stats should make us all think carefully about how we deliver the services from the energy industry – from energy bills and tariffs through to boiler servicing, are we doing enough to include all or are we ignoring an important, and increasingly vulnerable sub-group within our communities?

But then I got thinking about policies in our sector and whether they had been designed with “inclusion” in mind? Take the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, for example, it subsidises heat pumps if consumers can fund the balance of switching technology – currently around £5500. So those with limited financial means are excluded, after all there are many different types of exclusion, not just digital. We increasingly design policy for those who are technology savvy; if you are happy to engage with smart tariffs and new gadgets you get cheaper household bills. Now that’s great for those that can benefit but what about those that can’t or don’t feel confident in doing so. Is the policy response of ignoring them correct? 

And why does exclusion like this happen? Well, I suspect that those developing policies are usually individuals that are digitally and financially comfortable, they don’t understand being excluded and make little effort to accommodate them or take inclusion into account. I suspect we are all guilty at times of doing this, taking for granted what consumers can do based on our lived experiences.

Time for us to take a step back and think about what we do.