Access to justice for energy consumers: joining the gaps with the support of the Ombuds

Our Just Energy project (2017-2021) is located at the crossroads between academia and practice. To engage with the real world and to hopefully build an impact, we have looked at the situation in five European jurisdictions: the UK, France, Italy, Bulgaria and Catalonia. We chose those jurisdictions because of their different legal, social, geographical and economic backgrounds.

We found, however, that they have much in common regarding the accessibility of justice for vulnerable people. In our recent webinar, we presented some of our ESRC justenergy projects’ findings:

• It is difficult for vulnerable consumers to access formal sources of help;
• ADR could be strengthened to play a bigger access to justice role;
• Local actors (community, third sector) are well placed to help vulnerable people;
• Joining up formal and informal actors is key to addressing access to justice gaps.

Our empirical project has a socio-legal focus and seeks to understand where the…