Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP)

At British Gas, we believe that every customer who wants or needs a working smart meter should have one.

To make sure you get consistent level of service we follow requirements set by Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, as a minimum. These requirements are called Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP), and they’re designed to protect you and help everything run smoothly. And if we ever fall short of these standards, you might be entitled to compensation.

If you’d like a smart meter or if your smart meter isn’t working as it should, simply get in touch with us so we can put things right and make sure you're looked after.

Appointments

We may need to visit your property, this could be because you've asked us to install new meters, or there may be an issue with your gas or electricity supply. In some cases, we’re legally required to access your property as part of our responsibilities as your energy supplier.

Here’s what you can expect from us:

From February 2026, if you’re requesting an appointment to replace your traditional meter, we’ll offer you one within 30 working days of your request.

Your appointment will be scheduled on a working day, with a time slot no longer than four hours.

We’ll stick to the agreed date and time, and if we need to reschedule or cancel, we’ll give you at least one working day’s notice.

Our engineers will arrive prepared

They’ll have the right training, tools, and kit to install your smart meter and resolve most issues. If the job requires additional work, specialist equipment, or a different skill set that we weren’t aware of at the point of booking we’ll arrange a follow-up appointment within six weeks.

We commit to:

Arriving with an understanding of the work required to the best of our knowledge.

Equipping our engineers with everything they need to complete the job safely and effectively.

Keeping to the scheduled appointment or letting you know with more than one working day’s notice if anything changes.

Problems with your meter

Your meter should work as it’s meant to, reliably and within expected limits. If you think something’s not quite right, just get in touch with us.

We’ll assess the issue and from February 2026 we’ll let you know our plan on how to fix it within 5 working days. This includes your in-home displays, too.


If you’re prepayment meter has stopped working, we’ll act within 3 hours on a working day, 4 hours on a non-working day, or first thing the next working day if you contact us overnight.

No matter your meter type, we’ll always:

  • Check what’s going on
  • Take action within the right timeframe
  • Keep you updated

From Spring 2026, we’ll also keep an eye on your smart meter’s connection. If it stops sending readings and is something we can sort ourselves, we’ll do it within 60 working days. If we need help from a third party, we’ll make sure it’s fixed within 80 working days. We’ll do our best to complete any work that’s needed to fix your smart meters connection within these timeframes.

We might need to check your meter now and then. If so, we’ll arrange a time that suits you - just make sure we can get to it.

If you’re switched by mistake

If you think your energy supply’s been switched to another supplier by mistake, get in touch with us, and we’ll look into it for you and get it sorted.

Here’s what we’ll do:

  • We’ll contact the other supplier and let you know within 20 working days if the switch happened without a valid contract.
  • If you’ve already spoken to the other supplier, we’ll work with them to agree on the outcome. They should get back to you within 20 working days.
  • If you were wrongly switched away from us, we’ll re-register your supply within 21 working days from when we get confirmation.
  • If we accidentally took over your supply, we’ll return you to your previous supplier.

If we don’t meet any of these timescales, or accidentally take over your supply, we’ll pay you £40.

Just so you know

This doesn’t apply if:

  • Your previous supplier stopped trading and Ofgem asked us to take over.
  • We’ve met all the industry rules but didn’t get the co-operation we needed from the other supplier.
  • We returned you to your old supplier as a goodwill gesture.

Reconnecting your supply

If your gas or electricity was disconnected because of unpaid charges and these have now been paid, we’ll get you back on supply as quickly as possible - usually within 24 hours.

If you make your payment outside of working hours, we’ll aim to reconnect your energy the next working day.

And if it takes longer than 24 hours, we’ll pay you £40.

Switching suppliers made simple

We’re here to make your switch smooth and stress-free. You can choose your switch date, and we’ll make sure everything’s wrapped up on our side.

Switch within 5 working days from your agreed contract date, during your cool-off period. Or make a switch within 5 working days of the end of your cool-off period (14 days).

If we don’t switch you within 5 working days of your preferred date, or on a future switch date, and the delays down to us, you’ll get £40.

Closing your account

Thinking of leaving us? We’ll be sad to see you go, but we’ll make things as easy as possible. You’ll receive your final bill within 6 weeks of your supply ending, whether you’re switching to another supplier or moving home.

If we owe you any money, we’ll refund it within 10 working days of sending your final bill, as long as we’ve got everything we need from you. If it takes longer than 6 weeks to get your final bill or 10 weeks for your refund, you’ll receive £40.

Electricity Distribution Networks and Gas Network Transporters

Electricity Distribution Networks and Gas Network Transporters are separate to your energy supplier. They’re responsible for the infrastructure (like towers and cables) that gets gas and electricity to your home. 

If they cause a fault or an issue, they might be required to pay you compensation. Sometimes, we’ll be asked to make that payment on their behalf. 

If we receive a compensation payment for you from a Gas Transporter or Electricity Distributor due to their failure to meet one of their guidelines, we’ll pass this on to you within 10 working days. If you don’t receive the payment within 10 working days, we’ll add an extra £40 to make up for the delay.

If we don’t meet these standards, we’ll make it up to you

If we don’t meet any of these standards, we’ll pay you compensation to say sorry. We’ll give you £40, unless it was because of something out of our control, or there’s a genuine dispute between us as to whether you should receive compensation.

We’ll only make one £40 payment for our ongoing failure to meet an individual standard of performance.

If we don’t pay your compensation within 10 workings days, we’ll give you another £40 (also within 10 working days).

We'll aim to make payment to your energy account, or back to your prepayment meter - depending on your meter type. Any compensation payment, that we make for failing to meet a standard of performance, does not prejudice you from any other remedy that may be available to you as a result of the act or omissions that constituted the standard of performance failure.


What are our ‘working hours’?

Working hours are between 8am and 8pm on a working day and between 9am and 5pm on any other day. Our working days are Monday to Friday (and doesn’t include bank holidays).

There are a few times when these payments don’t apply:

We’re committed to doing the right thing, and that includes makng sure GSOP payments are paid where we failed. However, there are a few situations where you might not qualify:

  • If your appointment isn’t to upgrade your old meter with a smart one, we might not always be able to book it within 30 days, but we’ll do our best to find a time that works for you.
  • If you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, please and you haven’t given us at least one working day’s notice.
  • If you’ve turned down a smart meter or the services that come with it.
  • If we can’t access your meter or carry out the work needed to keep it connected, for example, because an engineer appointment hasn’t been arranged.
  • If you report a fault with your meter and you are unable to give us all the details we need to be able to investigate the problem.
  • Once we’ve assessed the problem with your meter, you need to give us an appropriate amount of time to attempt to fix the issue.
  • You’ll need to follow any troubleshooting steps we give you to help us investigate any issues with your meter.
  • You may need to agree to extra equipment or allow us to use things like your electricity or broadband to keep your meters connected.

We’ll always do our best to make things easy and clear, and we’ll let you know what’s needed every step of the way.