British Gas had paid £1.1 million to compensate customers for missed appointments.

The Big Six supplier has made the payments to domestic and micro business customers after its third-party agents missed appointments with customers or did not keep them on time and did not compensate them as required by regulator Ofgem.

Around 12,000 customers, mostly businesses, were affected.

British Gas notified Ofgem of the breach this year and has since taken action to change its customer service processes to ensure customers receive the compensation they’re entitled to in those circumstances.

The energy firm has paid £30 for initial failed appointments and £30 for not paying customers within the required 10 days, in addition to paying an extra £30.

Ofgem has therefore agreed to the redress package with British Gas and is not taking formal enforcement action.

Energy suppliers and their agents must meet minimum standards of customer service under Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards, including when they visit customers on their premises. If they don’t meet the standards, they must pay compensation.

Martin Crouch, Ofgem Senior Partner for Improving Regulation said: “British Gas did the right thing in coming forward to report this issue and has since improved its processes to make sure that when appointments are missed or not kept on time, all customers receive the compensation they’re entitled to.

“It’s crucial that suppliers keep appointments on time and make amends when things go wrong.”

A British Gas spokesperson said: “We have apologised to the affected customers, given them all compensation and an additional goodwill payment. In April this year, we introduced new system checks to ensure this can’t happen again.”

British Gas is being investigated by Ofgem over its switching terms and earlier this year agreed to pay £9.5 million for customer service failings.