CEO Welcome

Welcome to the September edition of Inside RECCo

Sid Cox

Chief Executive

Officer

On 1st September, we celebrated the first anniversary of the Retail Energy Code (REC) and our operation as the simplified and consolidated governing body for industry covering all retail energy issues for gas and electricity.

It’s been quite a journey given the challenging and unprecedented circumstances which everyone associated with the retail energy market has experienced.I thought I’d use this opportunity to look back at the past 12 months and importantly, what is still to come as we deliver against our Forward Work Plan for 2022/2023. REC go-live provided a solid foundation to build upon to meet our mission of facilitating efficiency and effectiveness in the retail energy market and to deliver positive consumer outcomes. As part of delivering against our mission, this past year we have:

Worked closely with the REC Code Manager to deliver and evolve the REC arrangements, including 60 REC Change Proposals progressed, 50 REC Committee meetings held to discuss, challenge and assess industry issues and change, 540 Operation Account Manager (OAM) meetings to provide support to REC Parties, over 130 market entry and qualification applications being processed and a performance assurance operating plan being designed and delivered to help mitigate retail risks to improve standards across the market for consumers;

Published our first three-year Strategy and Forward Workplan, which set out how we intend to work with industry to build a retail energy market fit for the future;

Made excellent progress against this year’s plan, including progressing on track our commitments to support the Market Wide Half Hourly (MHHS) programme, implementing Ofgem’s Market Stabilisation Charge (MSC) under the REC and developing and consulting on the consolidation of the REC Metering Code of Practice schedules;

Successfully implemented REC Version 3.0 which gave effect to the new faster and more reliable switching arrangements whilst designing, building and testing the necessary changes to REC Services such as the Electricity Enquiry Service (EES) and Gas Enquiry Service (GES) to support the new arrangements; and

Developed the expert capability and capacity of the RECCo team so we can act as an ‘intelligent client’ to our stakeholders. This is important if we are to improve services, propose efficiencies where they are needed and build independent industry insight and knowledge to share with our stakeholders to help improve market performance, REC services, and deliver positive consumer outcomes.

There are significant short term challenges that face the retail energy market and whilst we await further government and Ofgem interventions to provide necessary support to consumers and businesses, we are focused on what we can do at RECCo.Together with industry we must continue to tackle known issues like energy theft which pose a serious safety risk to the general public. A recent survey by RECCo’s energy theft Service Provider, Crimestoppers, has shown that 50% of the UK population aren’t aware of energy crime whilst 28% of people know what energy theft is but don’t know the signs to spot it. With this in mind, RECCo is developing a robust Theft Reduction Strategy which we intend to consult on at the end of the year. A major part of developing this strategy involves collaborating with industry experts so we can collectively focus on the right priority areas. RECCo will be holding an all-day Industry Energy Theft event in November, focused on bringing people from industry together to create joined up solutions and approaches that can address theft, and associated problems such as safety, vulnerability and fuel poverty.A further time-critical and significant part of our three-year forward work plan is our data and digitalisation strategy which will play a key role in the drive to net zero. We have an ambitious set of workstreams as part of developing the programme of work including understanding the existing consumer consent landscape and ways RECCo can help facilitate the move to a safe and secure open first approach to data within the retail energy sector. We look forward to sharing more information with stakeholders shortly as work progresses in this area.There is much to look forward to as we enter our second year of operation and we do so with confidence and optimism, knowing that whatever the challenges the retail energy market presents, together we will address them working in partnership with industry and our valued service providers.

There are significant short term challenges that face the retail energy market and whilst we await further government and Ofgem interventions to provide necessary support to consumers and businesses, we are focused on what we can do at RECCo.

As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can better engage with you as our stakeholders, please email the team at communications@retailenergycode.co.uk.