* Number of people on social tariffs more than doubles
* Help the Aged campaigners urge more awareness of discounts
(Adds comment from Help The Aged)
LONDON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Britain's six major gas and power suppliers tripled spending on social programmes to 157 million pounds ($258 million) in 2008/09, chiefly on discounts for vulnerable people, regulator Ofgem said.
The number of customers on social tariffs, which offer discounts to people in need including those suffering from fuel poverty, increased to one million accounts in March 2009 from 460,000 in March 2008, the energy regulator said in a report on Tuesday.
Spending on social tariffs accounted for 130 million pounds, around 83 percent of the total spent on all social programmes.
"We are particularly pleased to see the increase in the number of customers benefiting and encourage suppliers to focus on how to help vulnerable customers," Maxine Frerk, Ofgem's Director of Governance, Consumer and Social Affairs, said.
Campaign groups define fuel poverty as a need to spend more than 10 percent of household income on fuel bills and have urged more action to help greater numbers of people.
"Increasing investment in social tariffs is good news, but with an estimated 5.5 million UK households in fuel poverty, extending social tariffs to one million customers is a drop in the ocean of this deep-rooted problem," Andrew Harrop, head of policy for Help the Aged, said.
"Research shows less than half of people in the UK are aware that discounted social tariffs are offered by energy companies and around two-thirds don't know if their own supplier offers these rates or how they could apply for them," the campaign group added.
The big six utility companies committed to a three-year plan to increase spending on social programmes last year. Ofgem's report showed that each supplier met its own voluntary targets for the year to the end of March 2009.
The six jointly exceeded the target of 151 million pounds set for 2010/11.
Britain's main gas and electricity suppliers are Centrica, EDF Energy, E.ON UK, RWE, Iberdrola's Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.
Sales remain positive for all of the big six, with Germany's E.ON, parent company of E.ON UK, last week reporting adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 5.7 billion euros ($8.06 billion) for the first six months of 2009. (Reporting by Kwok W. Wan, editing by Anthony Barker)