#WeAreCitizensAdvice – a day in the life of the Energy Team
This #WeAreCitizensAdvice week (Sep 1-7, 2025) we’re taking the chance to shout loud and proud about the difference we make for our communities across Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
We support people face-to-face, by phone, and online, and we use evidence from our clients’ experiences to influence policy and improve services locally and nationally. Last year, every £10 donated to Citizens Advice Hull & East Riding created an incredible £114 of financial outcomes for our clients.
As well as our general advice services serving Hull and the East Riding, our staff and volunteers work across a range of specialist teams and projects. Here we shine a light on the work of our amazing Northern Powergrid Energy Team with a day in the life, courtesy of adviser Daisy…
Our Energy Team is funded by Northern Powergrid to ensure that clients across Hull and East Riding can access free, impartial and trusted advice and support. We can help clients save money on their bills, make sure they’re not missing out on benefits they’re entitled to and find support for them if they’re in debt.
We work out of all four of our offices – Hull, Goole, Bridlington and Beverley – offering face-to-face appointments, including BSL (British Sign Language) appointments in Beverley.
We also attend weekly outreaches in Hull at The Well and Freedom Centre, as well as any other events or occasional outreaches that pop up.
Today I am working out of the Goole office with an energy support assistant who takes all the inbound calls and makes the outbound calls to clients who have asked for help.
9am
First thing we do every morning is to check our energy email inbox for any urgent referrals. We have assigned days where one person tackles the urgent referrals and as I log on I can see we have an urgent referral as someone has no electricity – we deem this an urgent case.
9.30am
I call the client and go through their urgent assessment and find that their Universal Credit payment is much less than usual so they cannot top up their meter. I immediately issue a fuel voucher after checking the client’s ID. We continue chatting and I ask as many questions as I can. I find out the client has some debt on their prepayment meter and every time they top up, the meter is eating a substantial chunk. I ask if I can call the energy company to try to reduce this.
I also check the client’s health conditions and realise they have some mental health needs as well as diabetes that needs medication to be refrigerated. This is important as every single energy company is part of the Priority Services Register (PSR). This means anyone who has a priority need such as children under five, anyone over pension age and anyone with a mental or physical health condition can be listed on this register. The register has lots of benefits including making sure you are aware of planned power cuts, welfare checks when they are not planned, hot meals/drinks provision, alternative accommodation and more.
I call the energy company and add the client to the PSR. I then am able to move the debt to the back of the meter and arrange the lowest repayment option which is £3 a week instead of £1 a day that the client was paying back.
I refer the client to colleagues within Citizens Advice to help find out what has happened with their Universal Credit payment and what they need to do next. I also issue the client with a food parcel which can be collected in Hull city centre. The food parcel is worth £30 per person.
11am
We have taken another two urgent calls today and these have been assigned across the team.
I note that the energy company has an energy trust fund we can apply for. The client will need to provide proof of benefits and income dated within the last three months, any disability benefits, any payslips or P60, and three months’ bank statements. We will make the application together. We always have options!
11.30am
As I am in Goole today, I have a face-to-face appointment booked with a client who does not speak English. For this appointment I will need to call our interpreter line for some assistance. The client has brought in six months’ worth of bills. Their payments don’t seem to be anywhere near enough to cover their usage. I take a look through their bills and can see they have been estimated and are not based on actual readings. Luckily, the client has arrived with meter readings taken that morning. With the help of the interpreter, we call the energy company and I explain my findings and we submit the meter readings. This re calculates the bill and puts the client into credit of £350!
12.30pm
We have a quick lunch break and have a quick Teams catch-up to see how everyone’s day is going. The Well is very busy today and another staff member is on the way to support. Five fuel vouchers so far!
1pm
I have a follow-up call with a client regarding a back billing investigation we requested. This will be our fifth call to the energy company. It’s a very long process and can take up to 12 weeks so there’s a lot of trust in us from the client. Back billing is when the energy company asks for debt more than a year old and didn’t ask for it at the time. Usually this is a case of rebilling, or new meter readings etc. Sadly, we have not been successful this time and back billing does not apply to the account. We complete an income and expenditure form to set up an affordable repayment plan. I note that the energy company has an energy trust fund we can apply for. The client will need to provide proof of benefits and income dated within the last three months, any disability benefits, any payslips or P60, and three months’ bank statements. We will make the application together. We always have options!
Inbetween these calls and cases we have to write up the cases so we have record of what has been done. This can take some time.
3pm
The Well is now closed and the team are exhausted – 10 fuel vouchers, three debt referrals, six food vouchers issued, three benefit checks and one fire alarm!
3.30pm
My last call of the day is to a client requesting help with damp and mould. They also would like advice about getting a new boiler. We run two projects here at Citizens Advice – our fuel poverty project and our low-carbon tech project. Our low-carbon tech or ‘LCT’ project focuses on ways to reduce energy costs by using renewable energy such as heat pumps. We also advise on how to make your home more energy efficient. I check all our schemes and the client is eligible for a heat pump.
4pm
The energy support line is now closed and we have taken five inbound calls and made five outbound. A very busy day on the phone lines. But a good day!