Following Ofgem’s policy consultation, which explains the options considered for Levelling the cost of standing charges on prepayment meters, Ofgem has confirmed RECCo as the delivery partner to support implementing the PPM Levelisation process. As such, we will host a webinar in October with Ofgem and Capgemini to explain how we plan to implement the PPM Levelisation process.
Join our webinar
Join our joint webinar with Ofgem on the 10th of October 2023 at 2:00 p.m. for an overview of how we plan to implement PPM Levelisation. During the webinar, you can expect:
An overview of PPM Levelisation;
A highlight of the key service components (functional and non-functional)
An overview of who will be impacted and how suppliers can provide their support
The timeline for delivery
An opportunity to ask questions regarding the PPM Levelisation policy and process.
Jon Dixon, Director of Strategy at RECCo, will be joined by Jonathan Windeatt, Industry, Operations and Commercial Expert (Retail Energy Policy) from Ofgem and Ursula Mullholland, Project Manager from Capgemini.
To register your interest, click here.
As we approach our second anniversary of live operations at the Retail Energy Code, we want to take a moment to reflect on the efforts to reduce UK energy theft over the past year. Primarily, we aim to reduce energy theft via the Energy Theft Tip-Off Service, which Crimestoppers operate on our behalf. The service exists for members of the public to report suspected theft of gas and electricity anonymously. Crimestoppers securely notify the tip-off to the relevant gas or electricity supplier for investigation. The public-facing brand of the ETTOS is Stay Energy Safe, developed to engage with energy customers across the country.
What does the Stay Energy Safe brand do?
The Stay Energy Safe marketing is run all year round and is overseen by Crimestoppers; this activity has several aims:
Drive reports about suspicions of energy theft to the ETTOS
Raise awareness of energy theft and the dangers of stealing energy
Deter people from tampering with their meters
Energy theft reports have increased year-on-year
Over the past year, the brand has mainly focused on two campaigns – ‘tick tock’ and ‘unknown danger.’ The Tick Tock campaign was initially launched in 2021 and focused on the idea that energy theft is a ticking time bomb. The campaign featured YouTube videos, social media, paid social, Google ads, radio advertising, and out-of-home activity. Last year, Crimestoppers reported that the number of people contacting the ETTOS increased by 21% year-on-year due to this campaign.
In January 2023, Crimestoppers launched the ‘unknown danger’ campaign, focusing on people’s current struggle with the energy crisis.
There have also been several tactical campaigns, which have included talking about the challenges posed by the Freeman of the Land, as well as messages warning people about meter scammers (those offering to tamper with a meter for a fee, with the promise of saving the bill payer money on their energy costs, whilst placing them on potential danger).
Crimestoppers’ forecast for 2023/24 suggests that more people than ever will report energy theft. They also report that since the launch of ETTOS in 2016, there has consistently been year-on-year growth in the number of reports passed on to ETTOS partners.
Looking ahead
In September and October 2023, we will undertake the next consumer research phase. The first stage involves targeting 1,500 people with an omnibus questionnaire, which will provide us with audiences and personas across the UK population and measure energy theft awareness. Once we have an understanding of the personas, their behaviours, and attitudes towards energy theft, we will use this to access a panel of 58,000 data points to identify their media preferences, daily habits, what media they consume, when they consume it and what channels they are consuming it on. This will allow us to create a targeted channel strategy for our personas and a tailored messaging matrix to drive awareness.
How can you get involved?
The partner section on the Stay Energy Safe website has recently been updated, providing stakeholders with a range of assets and social media schedules. This can be found here: Partner | Stay Energy Safe
Crimestoppers is also always looking for success stories. They can help educate the public and demonstrate how important it is to speak up and stay safe, which helps encourage people to pass on what they know.
Crimestoppers recently conducted one of its most comprehensive Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery tests to date. This is important to RECCo as Crimestoppers operate our Energy Theft Tip-Off Service, a service for members of the public to report suspected theft of gas and electricity anonymously. Approximately two weeks before the test, they notified RECCo and the Energy Theft Tip-Off of the undertaking. Within an hour of evacuating their offices, the Contact Centre was operational at their alternative standby site. We are pleased to hear they could receive calls, process online forms, and transmit critical information to the police, business partners and REC parties.
In addition, since their telephone system is cloud-based, there was no disruption to that aspect of their service. We are pleased and reassured that Crimestoppers now have a thoroughly tested and functional business continuity/disaster recovery plan, ensuring the continuity of their service provision in case of a disaster.
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 since 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 in line with DCC’s planned timeframes. This was followed by data verification and reconciliation with key REC Parties and Switching Data Service Providers (SDSP) to ensure parties, central energy enquiry, and network systems reflected the successfully processed switches on CSS.
DCC formally closed the incident on the 12th of September 2023, issuing a post-incident report summary to the REC Code Manager within the required timeframe. This was shared with the Performance Assurance Board and the wider industry via the REC Portal.
DCC’s next steps
DCC has committed to publishing a more detailed post-incident Review by the 6th of October, 2023. They will then present this to the Performance Assurance Board (PAB) on the 31st of October 2023 for their consideration. RECCo will make sure this is available to access on the REC Portal.
Our further actions
We remain 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 are reviewing the incident to address these concerns.
Our Board has commissioned a post-incident review, which commenced this month and is due to be completed by the end of October 2023. RECCo will carry out this review, with the support of our Code Manager and input from the DCC, to ensure all relevant lessons are learned. We want to ensure that a robust regulatory framework is in place to oversee any future switching incidents and prevent a repeat of this incident. Our review will cover all areas of internal processes (REC & DCC), DCC findings from their incident review, a compliance and performance analysis, and, importantly, feedback from impact market participants. Feedback will help understand the impact on the energy industry and end-users and guide recommendations, remediation, or risk mitigation.
We have shared the scope of the review along with the initial lessons learned, findings and recommendations with the industry PAB members. Once the review report is completed, we will provide them with the entire report to ensure it offers the required level of independent oversight. Importantly, RECCo will ensure the review articulates and sets in motion the required changes and improvements identified to assure industry market participants that clear and appropriate action is taken to prepare for the right response to any future incidents. This will mean appropriate sanctions are assigned to the responsible parties if there are any missed performance levels or breaches of the REC.
