SDEN PRICE PARITY & CLASS ACTION
Residents have reported higher than expected heating costs
To investigate this, a pricing model was constructed to evaluate the lifetime costs levied by SDEN. The pricing model revealed that costs were likely higher than the market by atleast £2.9million for the entire estate over the contract term.
Advisory note: SDEN is a private limited company which is wholly owned by Sutton Council and was featured in the Liberal Democrat manifesto.
Actions Taken & Timeline
2018 The first NMQ resident complains to local councillors and SDEN. Councillors state they will look into it, SDEN advised the resident to turn their heating down.
2019 More New Mill Quarter residents complain to SDEN and raise queries with local Liberal Democrat Councillors. SDEN advises residents to turn down their heating and councillors do not respond.
07/01/2020 Residents reach out to local Liberal Democrat Councillors Ben Andrew, Vincent Galligan and Hannah Zuchowska asking them to sign a collective complaint. Galligan and Zuchowska ignore emails and Andrew declines. Residents reach out to Jayne McCoy who denies her role in working towards reducing Heat Poverty and advises residents the topic is very complicated and they will not understand.
20/01/2020 A meeting was held between NMQ Residents (3/4) of the now elected Executive Committee, the MD of SDEN, a council staff member and Liberal Democrat Councillor Ben Andrews to put forward the pricing model and initial findings with suggestions as to how to ensure price parity for NMQ residents. Here the councils pricing consultant, Simon Woodward shared that pricing was not as advertised stating “pricing is incomparable to the market” & “we set a price we thought was a fair price”. For it’s standing charge, SDEN currently uses a metric of 11.2 years for boiler life, it was relayed to SDEN that the document they reference for this metric actually states 20 years, this has the real world effect of almost doubling the standing charge fee. Heating is currently charged at 6.1p/kWh, almost three times the market rate. Standing charges are in excess of £300 per annum before heating is paid for.
20/01/2020 30 residents from the estate attend a full Sutton Council meeting to hear an answer to a question put by a resident, unfortunately the council tried to terminate questions before it was heard requiring a resident to interupt proceedings. Once heard, Liberal Democrat Councillor Jayne McCoy promised to work with residents but stated that price parity was being achieved.
21/01/2020 A collective complaint was spearheaded, signed by 165 residents of NMQ representing 101 households and supplied to SDEN. No councillors or liberal democrats sign this document in support.
03/02/2020 The Residents Association was formed to provide a formal platform to tackle this issue and similar issues.
05/02/2020 A letter of support has been received from Carshalton & Wallington Labour party who also attended full council meeting.
16/02/2020 Liberal Democrat councillor Ben Andrew hand delivers a document from the Lib Dems co-signed by other local lib dem councillors stating information opposite to what was revealed at the meeting. The document is presented as “sutton focus” and is a liberal democrat publication.
20/02/2020 The deadline to respond to the collective complaint is missed.
27/02/2020 SDENs MD responds late on 27/02/2020 to the collective complaint. The outcome was not satisfactory. The MD of SDEN asserts no misrepresentation despite being in the meeting with the pricing consultant who stated to the contrary.
28/02/2020 The executive committee voted for class action against SDEN and Sutton Council.
30/02/2020 Conservative MP Elliot Colburn raises the issue of high heating bills in Parliament
05/03/2020 Solicitors and Barristers willing to work on a no win no fee basis based on strength of case were secured
6/03/20 A meeting was held between NMQ Executive Committee members and MP Elliot Colburn where he pledged support for NMQ and it’s issues with SDEN
9/03/20 The NMQ RA unamiously voted to pursue SDEN by Class Action
16/03/20 Liberal Democrat Councillor Ben Andrew meets local residents and states that the pricing being imcomparable to the market, as SDENs pricing consultant stated, is just “the opinion” of residents and not a fact.
01/04/2020 SDEN releases its first annual pricing review after several years. SDEN increases it’s standing charge to an average of over £350 per year before heating is even paid for. It claims increases are linked to CPI, however increases are nearly 4 times CPI. A price drop of c.20% for heating occurs but only affects higher users and dispropriatonately disadvantages flat owners who are the majority of the estate. SDENs revenue remains flat with these adjustments.
04/06/2020 A judge forces LBS to release the SDEN pricing model in a case brought by the information commissioner. LBS spends at least £21,000 of tax payer money defending this case. The pricing model states there are no market inputs and the pricing is based on internal rate of return solely. SDEN is advertised as based on parity to the market which is not present in their pricing model.
8/06/2020 all local councillors decline to sign second collective complaint citing that claims of misrepresentation aren’t accurate. This is despite SDEN’s own pricing consultant stating that pricing is incomparable to the market, SDEN’s own pricing model showing no relation to the market, pricing being atleast £3million over the market rate, SDENs own source documents stating differnt things to what they state they do and SDEN advertising it’s pricing as based on “parity”.
8/06/2020 A second collective complaint is served to SDEN with 242 signatories.
Site wide hot water outages occur in rapid succession - Sun 30th May, Wed 10th June, Sat 13th June, Sun 28thJune, Fri 3rd July, Sat 4th July,Monday 13th July. SDEN blames Barratt. An offer of only c.£31 compensation is made after 260 residnts complain, this is despite residents being sold on 100% resilience. Residents currently pay no money to Barratt for heating or hot water despite SDENs claim of the issue being the fault of Barratt. The compensation package is under 1/3 the standing charge for this period.
23/06/2020 Liberal Democrat Councillor Ben Andrews publishes that the Chair of the Residents Association has been making “exaggerated threats” to him but is unable to provide any evidence. Residents complain directly to the Councillor but he eventually stops responding. A series of individuals known to the councillor perpetuate this comment and similar statements. The councillor is seen stating he “might owe lots of you [individuals perpetuating comments] drinks as well” in messages passed to the Residents Association. This event and downstream issues are considered libel.
25/06/2020: An individual linked to the councillor targets a members of the executive committee under the basis of the above directing emails to associated professional bodies not linked to the estate or SDEN. This is also considered libel and understood to stem from the comments of the councillor.
28/06/2020 A collective complaint on behalf of the residents association with 257 members is served to SDEN for site wide hot water outages.
29/06/2020 A formal complaint is lodged to Stephen Gerrard, The council monitoring officer regarding breaches of code of conduct in regards to Liberal Councillor Ben Andrew’s behaviour.
02/07/2020 SDEN states it no longer recognises the authority of the the NMQ Residents Association despite it being a formally elected and constituted body in it’s collective complaint response.
13/07/2020 Conservative MP Elliot Colburn writes to every resident of NMQ outlining his full support for class action against SDEN. A formal complaint is also lodged about a local councillors behaviour to London Borough Sutton
16/07/2020 A series of errors in revised pricing are uncovered with price increases being higher than stated and issues with representation of VAT.
17/07/2020 SDEN states “that queries and complaints related to a SDEN account need to be sent.. using the email address we have recorded.” ignoring telephone complaints, collective complaints and complaints served by letter. The only way to complain is now directly from the account holder email with the address, account number and name included. This has raised concerns about accessibility. There are similar concerns with accessibility in regards to the SDEN website and their procedure on updating residents.
11/08/2020 London Borough of Sutton (LBS) run by the Liberal Democrats states that £145,231.71 has been spent so far on legal costs surrounding SDEN. £25,676.50 of which was spent specifically on defending the pricing model which does not contain market inputs from the the Information Commissioners Office. £119,555.21 was spent on costs in formative years. LBS admits that none of this money was spent on independent review of SDENs pricing model meaning that their claims of parity are completely unchecked. There are now no market inputs in the pricing model, no independent review of the claims of parity and SDENs own pricing consultant has stated that pricing is incomparable to the market. Pricing remains millions over the market rate.
12/08/2020 LBS run by the Liberal Democrats is unable to provide a feasbility study instead suppling a 5 page pre-feasibility document for a multi-million pound project financed with tax payer money.
26/08/2020 Over 8 weeks later, LBS has not acted on a complaint of breach of conduct following Liberal Democrat Councillor Ben Andrews behaviour despite multiple follow ups. The case is escalated to the Helen Bailey chief executive of the council who subsequently goes quiet. The 8 week wait time is outside of council response times and is considered considering given the fallout from the event.
31/08/2020 Conservative MP Elliot Colburn writes to residents stating that he has written to SDEN regarding these issues but so far they have chosen not to reply to him. He states that he will be raising these issues in Parliament come September.
03/09/2020 Barristers contact the class action members outlining that everyone has now been contacted and paperwork is being received. Action is expected to launch Q1 2021.
16/09/2020 LBS makes contact regarding complaint of councillor behaviour. Evidence is provided 22/09/2020
19/09/2020 SDEN is reported to the ICO for breach of GDPR over it’s sharing of special catagories data.
28/09/2020 FOI’s concerning feasibility studies and SDEN total complaints reducing over time are followed up on as they are currently 2 - 3 times over the prescribed response time respectively.
15/10/2020 Another site wide heating and hot water outage occurs despite SDEN stating this would not happen again. Outside temperatures were 7 degrees and residents are reporting internal temperatures of 10 degrees without heating.
11/11/2020 Another site wide heating and hot water outage occurs. The previous outage was blamed on building works. There are currently no building works occuring as the outage is in the evening. This makes 10 outages in 2020.