An update on July’s Central Switching Service (CSS) incident
DCC notified industry parties, including RECCo, on the 6th of July 2023 that a major incident with the Central Switching Service (CSS) was impacting supply switch messages and new registration messages for gas and electricity supply customers. DCC has updated CSS with the required information and sent the missing switch messages and new registration messages to market participants. This activity was completed by the 8th of August, 2023, in line with DCC’s planned timeframe.
DCC has now commenced a data reconciliation phase to confirm that all the required CSS updates have been made and that all messages have been successfully sent to and processed by market participants. During this phase, we will require DCC to continue regular dialogue with market participants through the established SOIF sessions and any required bilateral meetings. This is to ensure that any consequential impacts to industry arrangements have been identified and to confirm that full reconciliation of the incident has been achieved.
Following the closure of the incident, the DCC is required to conduct a post-incident review and deliver a report on its findings to the REC Performance Assurance Board, in line with the obligation set out in REC Schedule 26 (Switching Service Management), clause 2.16.
We are very aware of the frustrations felt by many market participants concerning this incident, including its duration and DCC’s approach to communication with the wider industry. We have therefore also commenced a supplementary independent and comprehensive review to ensure that all the relevant lessons are learned to prevent a repeat of this incident, that any changes and improvements are implemented, and that the appropriate actions and sanctions are allocated to the appropriate parties. Whilst the REC PAB is empowered to deal with operational issues, serious regulatory breaches by the Parties, including the DCC, are matters for Ofgem to regulate. We have, therefore, written to Ofgem to advise them of the scope of our review and committed to sharing the outputs with them alongside industry parties.
We expect to present the review's preliminary findings to the REC Performance Assurance Board in September. We will publish those findings to market participants as soon as possible after that. If you have any questions or would like to contribute to the review, please contact claire.hemmens@retailenergycode.co.uk.
Regular daily updates will be available via the REC Portal until the incident has been fully resolved.
You can contact DCC via the switching portal here.