The broadband comparison site accused some of the UK’s largest broadband and mobile providers of hiding cheaper deals for vulnerable customers.

This is despite the regulator Ofcom saying in April that suppliers should raise awareness of social tariffs and comes nine months after YourMoney.com first raised the issue with broadband firms.

What is a social tariff?

Social tariffs provide cheaper broadband packages for people claiming certain benefits such as universal credit or pension credit. Some providers call them ‘essential’ or ‘basic’ broadband.

Social broadband tariffs are available to an estimated 4.3 million households that receive one of a range of Government benefits. The packages offer superfast speeds from £12 a month.

Low take-up of social tariffs

According to Ofcom, only around 5% of eligible households are signed up to the discounted packages.

Ofcom carried out research in April which found that broadband providers still weren’t being upfront with millions of customers about how to find and sign up to social tariffs. The regulator said the low take-up figures demonstrate that more needs to be done to ensure those most in need are aware of the support available.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said last week that Ofcom should push telecoms suppliers to raise awareness of social tariffs and to drive consumer take-up.

‘Hidden’ tariffs

When YourMoney.com investigated social tariffs last year we found it was virtually impossible to locate details of the cut-price deals on BT, Sky and Now Broadband websites. At the other end of the scale, it was much easier to find social broadband tariffs from Virgin Media, Vodafone, G Network, and Hyperoptic.

Broadband Genie’s research resulted in similar findings. It found that BT, Sky, EE, Plusnet, Now all failed to mention social tariffs on their homepages.

Alex Tofts, broadband expert at Broadband Genie, said: “There’s no excuse at all for our current situation where some of the biggest companies keep them squirrelled far away from their homepage.

“It means that even if customers know a tariff exists, they often have to trawl through websites, past more expensive and far better-promoted deals, to reach the information they need.”

Where are details of social tariffs?

BT has a dedicated webpage for its Home Essentials broadband social tariff, but you can’t access this from BT’s broadband page. You can only see BT broadband deals when you input your postcode – inputting a South London postcode leads to a deal costing £29.99 a month and no mention of social broadband.

You can find the BT Home Essentials page via a Google search but this page doesn’t include the price (£15 a month).

Sky also fails to mention social broadband in its list of main deals which start at £25 a month. Instead, you need to either do a Google search or navigate the ‘help’ section of Sky’s website to find its social tariff which costs £20 a month.

In contrast, Vodafone has the details and price of its Essentials tariff (£12 a month) clearly displayed on its broadband page.

‘Hugely damaging’

Tofts said: “Last June, the Government brought telecom bosses together and called on them to expand these discounted deals and do more to promote them as part of its cost-of-living action plan. Yet 12 months on, the amount of action has been underwhelming.

“Providers should all be offering social tariffs and shouting about them from the rooftops — instead, some of the UK’s biggest companies are hiding these offers in the far reaches of their websites, while others do not have them at all.

“This is contributing to a lack of awareness about broadband social tariffs that is hugely damaging. Unless it is addressed, we will only see more lower-income households sliding into digital poverty, following the million customers estimated to have been disconnected last year.”

Are you eligible for a social tariff?

If you think you are eligible for a social tariff, check with your broadband provider as soon as possible to see if it has one and ask to be moved onto it.

You don’t need to wait for your current contract to expire, and if your provider doesn’t offer a social tariff, it should allow you to switch without an exit to a provider that does.