Consumer Duty

The Consumer Duty consists of a series of rules that apply to some FCA-regulated firms. These are aimed at improving standards of care to deliver good outcomes for all customers. 

The rules are to: 

1. Act in good faith towards customers.
2. Avoid causing foreseeable harm to customers.
3. Enable and support customers to pursue their financial objectives.

Good outcomes are those that, for all types of customers, including those who need extra support: 

1. Deliver products and services that meet their needs.
2. Offer reasonable price and value for the benefits.
3. Provide clear and targeted communications that they understand.
4. Support them at every stage of their journey with us.

We provide products and services that meet customers’ needs and represent good value to those customers. We’ll only offer products and services to you if we believe they’re relevant to you. For instance: 

• Our loan products are delivered on behalf of our funders, principally the Scottish Government. They’ve been designed to meet the needs of specific customer types, including those who need extra support. The products’ terms and conditions and eligibility criteria have been designed accordingly.

• If a product isn’t suitable for you, we’ll reach out to let you know.

• We won’t advise you to take a specific product. But we’ll provide you with the information you need to make an informed choice according to your own financial objectives.

• In certain areas, we provide free, expert, impartial advice on energy efficiency and energy saving technologies. This is offered by advisors trained to ask you targeted questions that ensure you are given advice suited to your circumstances.

We’re committed to providing clear, targeted communications in a way that’s easy to understand. The information we give you at every stage of our dealings with you will be: 

• Accurate, honest and complete 
• Clear and in plain language 
• Fair in its content and presentation 

We’re committed to supporting you at every stage of your journey with us. From the outset: 

• You can find information about free and impartial advice on saving energy on our website. You can also find details of the availability of grants and loan schemes. 
• We make it easy for customers to contact us through free phone numbers, email addresses, via post, through the messaging service in our application portal.

Where we offer advice services:

• Our trained advisors can provide information about the various schemes on offer.
• Our service delivery team will support you through the process of applying for a loan or grant.
• All documentation is designed to be easy to understand and complete. Our team of advisors are on hand to help you on the phone with any questions.
• We’ll be courteous and will always act promptly to help you.

Meeting the requirements of the Consumer Duty isn’t a tick-box exercise for us. We’re committed to continually improving how we deliver our service to you. We do this by: 

• Regularly conducting customer surveys and reviewing the feedback we get. This is so we can make improvements that meet our aims to provide a world class service.
• Monitoring calls to our service delivery and advice service teams. We also provide specific feedback to our staff on how they can improve.
• Listening to staff feedback about their frontline customer journey experience and gathering their suggestions for improving processes and procedures.
• Supporting an open and transparent quality management system to monitor and review the way we do things. This is to make sure that our products are clear, thorough, fit for purpose and transparent.

Sometimes, rarely, things can go wrong even if we don’t mean them to. In that case: 

• We’re committed to resolving issues without fuss.
• We have dedicated support to help guide you through any issues and can liaise with relevant third parties to assist in finding a resolution.
• Where applicable, conducting customer surveys and reviewing the feedback we get so that we can implement improvements to our service.
• Our website sets out our complaints process including details of how to make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

If you’d like a printed copy of this statement, please get in touch.

Call us on 0808 108 9414. We’re based in the UK and are open from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. Calls are free from a landline and most mobile networks. Alternatively, there are other ways to contact us.