A COUNCIL-BACKED energy company has confirmed it works with six outsourced telesales contact centres in South Africa that have 90 staff allocated to its campaigns.

But Scottish firm Together Energy says it only has one of its own members of staff based in South Africa, with the other 129 located in Clydebank.

Warrington Borough Council is putting £18 million into the company, as well as providing a £4 million loan to it.

Together Energy finished bottom of the Which? energy provider table and has received many complaints from users.

It said it is looking to recruit around 25 members of staff in Warrington and that it recently attended a careers fair in the town to help achieve this aim.

But concerns have been raised from customers following adverts online for vacancies in a South Africa call centre for work on a Together Energy campaign.

However, the issue has sparked a response from the company.

A spokesman said: “We do not have any sites in South Africa.

“We had a customer service function in South Africa to help us with the Supplier of Last Resort volumes which has now been closed and the function moved back to Clydebank.

“We work with six outsourced telesales contact centres in South Africa who have around 90 staff allocated to campaigns for Together Energy including a small sales verification team.

“These companies also sell for many other UK energy suppliers including most of the ‘big six’ energy companies.

“The adverts are for these companies trying to recruit people to work on our campaign.

“They are not our adverts or our employees.

“Our one full-time employee in South Africa manages these relationships and the necessary compliance for these centres.”

The firm says it is not directly recruiting for any field sales agents in Clydebank or any telesales agents in South Africa.

There was also an advertisement online for a national fields associate role in Clydebank to sell Together Energy products.

The spokesman added: “We also work in the UK with two outsourced field sales companies, who sell our tariffs and again recruit for people to sell Together Energy products.

“They are not employed by us and the job referred to is for one of these companies not us.”