There are no plans for further action following an independent report into a mis-selling scandal.

A Financial Services Authority-commissioned report into the Scottish power cash-back incentive scheme found more could have been done by the regulator at the time, but it was unlikely it would have made a difference.

The energy company offered incentives for customers who took out extended warranties on electrical goods from 1997.

But hundreds of thousands of consumers, many of them pensioners and some living in the Isle of Man, are still waiting to receive their money.

As the Manx Independent reported last week, following the publication of the report, Lawrie Hooper (LibVannin, Ramsey) raised the issue in Tynwald and asked if any further action was expected.

Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan said: ’I believe that report covers the key areas of concern and at present there is no plan for any further action.

Between 1997 and 2001 extended warranties were offered by Scottish Power to customers buying white goods. Cashback warranties were sold on the promise that, if you didn’t claim within five years, you would get your cash deposit back.

The average cost of the cash back potentially reclaimable was £140.

But the scheme went under in 2004, three years after Scottish Power sold its retail business to Powerhouse Holdings Ltd. Thousands of people started calling in their cashback, but the warranties were never paid, meaning 625,000 customers lost out on a combined £75m.

An independent review was set up to examine the role of the former Insurance and Pensions Authority in the failure of island-authorised Powerhouse Insurance Ltd, which insured the warranty cashback liability and had been acquired by Scottish Power in 1996.

That review, by Charles Flint QC, found no evidence of mismanagement of Powerhouse Insurance’s affairs by Scottish Power, although the reserves to meet the cashback liabilities proved to be inadequate.

Mr Flint also said accusations of impropriety, made by liquidators against Powerhouse’s directors, were ’baseless’, although there were grounds for criticism of some decision-making.

Mr Hooper queried the different conclusions.

The Treasury minister said that, while the focus had been on the role of Isle of Man companies, ’at no time, as far as I am aware, despite all these reports, has any formal action being taken against Scottish Power, the company who was actually delivering these cash-back warranties’.

Mr Cannan added: ’We have now got a report from a QC who has clearly looked at the significant areas of concern and produced his conclusions from that.

’As it stands at present, I am satisfied that so far we have acted totally properly to investigate matters that started some 20 years ago and concluded some 13 years ago - a considerable time in the distance.’

He added a caveat that it did not preclude the government from ’taking any further action in the future’.