Our Programmes
Since 2005, Crimestoppers has been hosting their annual 'Rewarding Partnerships' event to acknowledge the valuable contributions made by all partners to their charity through funding and raising awareness. This year, our CEO, Sid Cox, was invited as a guest speaker at the event. As a company, we take great pride in collaborating with Crimestoppers to combat the issue of energy theft in the UK. In fact, earlier this year, we reported that energy theft costs consumers up to £1.4bn annually.
You can read the speech Sid gave at this year’s event in full below. In this, he details the partnership with Crimestoppers, the scale of energy theft and the strategies we have planned to reduce energy theft in the future.
Read the speech in full
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you, Lord Ashcroft, for inviting me here this evening to explain how the Retail Energy Code Company (RECCo) and Crimestoppers work together to address energy theft, how our partnership operates and our strategies for combatting energy theft in the future.
Energy theft is a key priority for us at RECCo and the energy industry as a whole. It is important to be clear that Energy Theft is a crime and that it is a crime that has both financial and safety-related consequences. Financially, the bill runs into hundreds of millions of pounds every year. Our analysis and, indeed Ofgem’s figures suggest that the losses due to energy theft are broadly comparable with those of supermarket shrinkage at around 2%. However, while supermarkets are under competitive pressure to absorb these losses into their bottom lines and are therefore incentivised to tackle losses in their stores, energy theft does not directly impact energy suppliers’ bottom lines but is socialised across all bill-paying consumers, impacting everyone’s bills. More importantly, people’s lives are put at risk through the dangers of tampering with electricity and gas supplies, which can result in electrocution, fire or even gas explosions.
Together our aim, with Crimestoppers, the energy industry and all like-minded individuals, is the three-pronged approach to improve energy safety, reduce the incidence of energy theft, and relieve the consequential burden on consumers. This is all the more important while we are grappling with the cost-of-living crisis when people may be tempted to take drastic and potentially life-threatening measures to save money.
Background to RECCo and partnership with Crimestoppers
For those who have not heard of us. The Retail Energy Code Company is an independent not-for-profit company responsible for overseeing the efficient and effective management of the retail gas and electricity market. We provide and improve essential services to the industry. For instance, we govern the Central Switching System, which makes it faster and more reliable for customers to change their energy suppliers.
The seventeen centralized services that we procure and manage include the Energy Theft Tip-Off Service and Stay Energy Safe campaign. Crimestoppers run both of these services for us and enable members of the public to do the right thing and anonymously report suspected theft.
Crimestoppers plays a vital role and is a trusted voice. 24/7 365 days a year, the relatively small team at Crimestoppers has a significant impact, obtaining tips offs, whether over the phone or online, writing reports and relaying these almost instantaneously to the right Energy Supplier or Network operator so that they may investigate potential cases. Last year, Crimestoppers had over 15,800 contacts with members of the public, generating over 30 actionable reports every day.
Current partnership activities including the efficacy of the Stay Energy safe campaign and in generating leads with metrics.
As noted by Lord Ashcroft, the partnership between the energy industry and Crimestoppers predates RECCo’s establishment.
Over the last two years, awareness of the Stay Energy Safe campaign has continued to grow, and we are pleased to report that the number of reports increased by 55% over last year, with a lead conversion rate of more than 75%.
However, our work in this area has only just started as the value of energy has soared, meaning the impact continues to increase.
The scale of Energy Theft and our Theft Reduction Strategies
In December 2022, we published our Theft Estimation Methodology for the market in Great Britain. Based on wholesale prices at the time, our best estimate ranged between £800m to £1.4 billion, potentially adding up to an extra £50 per annum to consumer bills. So, even a marginal reduction in current levels could have a material benefit for consumers.
Having established the size of the prize, it is now incumbent on us all to address this challenge. It is our intention at RECCo to continue working with Crimestoppers, industry parties and wider stakeholders to deliver a truly comprehensive Theft Reduction Strategy. Informed by learnings from other sectors, the strategy will not just focus on detection but also on improving industry parties’ ability to respond effectively. Most importantly, given the inherent safety risks, we will continue to focus heavily on prevention while recognising that the outcomes of this are harder to quantify.
Extending potential areas of partnership with Crimestoppers
Part of our Plan for the future is to significantly deepen and improve awareness of the Tip Off service and Stay Energy Safe campaign and to plug into the broader Crimestoppers rewarding partnership’s network. Our work with Crimestoppers has shown that energy theft does not always happen in isolation and may be linked to other criminal activities such as drug cultivation and people trafficking.
Call to action and possible future collaboration with police
Consequently, we are also calling for possible future collaboration and increased focus with the police. It is our intention to further explore the potential of harnessing new theft data analytics, as well as assessing the feasibility of a dedicated energy theft investigation service, possibly modelled on the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, to help target organised crime groups. Such collaboration would also help combat the false advice shared on social media from those individuals offering what appears to be a legitimate service to vulnerable customers but which is a scam, placing their lives in danger.
Final thank you
We hope you will all join us in our mission with Crimestoppers in developing a more rewarding partnership. Together, we can help to make our communities safer, more sustainable, and better value for every bill paying one of us. Thank you.
Find out more
You can find out more about Crimestoppers and their Rewarding Partnerships event here, and read about our Energy Theft Reduction programme in full here.
Our Senior Strategy Manager, Suchitra Hammond, has published a paper considering the changes that could be made to the Retail Energy Code and REC Services to improve the Priority Services Register (PSR) and deliver better consumer outcomes. In her paper, Suchitra proposes that the REC governed enquiry services, which cover all grid connected households in Great Britain, could be used to facilitate more effective sharing of data and move the industry closer towards the ‘tell me once’ principle.
Why does the Priority Services Register need improvement?
Energy Suppliers and distribution network companies are responsible for protecting customers in vulnerable situations. Ofgem defines vulnerable consumers as people of pensionable age, people with disabilities, and those who are chronically ill or have children under five. Energy companies must provide certain services free of charge to these groups and have developed a Priority Services Register (PSR) to meet these obligations.
Historically, the approach to developing the register has been inconsistent, with individual parties establishing processes and procedures to meet PSR obligations as they saw fit. Ofgem’s review in 2016 led to introducing a ‘revised needs code’ so that vulnerability was consistently categorised and data quality improved. However, there are still constraints to data sharing that prevent the PSR from being accessible on a broader basis. This limits its use and means that the needs of some vulnerable consumers aren’t being met.
What is the solution?
In her paper, Suchitra considers the current situation and then outlines three key areas that must be addressed. These areas would be developed and evaluated as part of a new project and inform a subsequent consultation. She also outlines the next steps in delivering that project, including planning an industry workshop to assess the options. You can read the paper fully by clicking the PDF below.
We’d encourage you to submit feedback to RECCo_Strategy@retailenergycode.co.uk
At the end of last year, we successfully concluded a project to consolidate the four metering codes of practice into a single document and to appoint a single service provider to deliver the scheme audits. RECCo is committed to a programme of continuous improvement and is keen to seek feedback from impacted stakeholders through this first year of live operation. We anticipate that there will be future changes and updates to the CoMCoP and learnings from the audit process that we will gather, assess, evaluate and plan to implement ahead of the next scheme year. We highly value your input and experience in this process.
We invite you to provide us with your valuable feedback on both the CoMCoP document and the audit scheme now and over the coming few months. Your insights and suggestions are instrumental in shaping the future direction of these initiatives. Together, we can ensure that the CoMCoP remains a robust framework that promotes transparency, consistency, and compliance with retail metering arrangements.
Get in touch
Please feel free to reach out to us with any comments, questions, or concerns you may have at info@retailenergycode.co.uk.
We are excited about this new chapter and the positive impact it will have on the industry as a whole. Thank you for your continued support and engagement in our shared mission to create a more efficient and customer-centric energy landscape.
