Committee Reflections

Shortly after the launch of the operational REC on 1st September this year, the REC Committees were established.

All the Committees provide a vital function in providing a forum for industry representatives to come together to address issues and innovate through change.

The REC Portal is now up and running with a dedicated Committee Management area where you can access all of the latest committee information including committee dates, papers and meeting headline reports.We have a responsibility for either chairing or overseeing the appointment of each Committee Chair. Each month we will be asking one of our appointed committee Chairs to reflect on their committee’s progress. This month our very own Elizabeth Lawlor as the Change Panel Chair provides her perspective.I have been appointed by RECCo as Chair of the REC Change Panel and preparations for our early meetings have prompted some interesting debate. What does good look like? Does a high volume of change indicate that something isn’t working within the Code, or does it tell us that we have created an open and accessible Change Process that encourages new ideas and innovation? What about the pace of change? Do we want a succession of quickly implemented changes to show progress, or is a more considered ‘batched’ approach to releases more efficient and cost effective for stakeholders to manage? What about the number of responses to consultations? Does a low level mean that parties aren’t being sufficiently engaged, or does it indicate that they have confidence the REC Code Manager is proactively delivering robust impact assessments and properly assessing change on their behalf?

As the new REC Change Process beds in we will continue to monitor activity and stakeholder feedback and challenge ourselves with questions like these.

Elizabeth Lawlor, REC Change Panel Chair

In the meantime, I thought it would be useful to set out a few of the principles on which the REC Change Process has been based and what we are trying to achieve. Through my previous roles in delivering change under other industry code arrangements, including the BSC, SPAA, DCUSA and SMICoP and as CACoP Chair, I have seen the good, and not so good, of various industry models. We have therefore tried to learn from each of these in developing and implementing the REC change process which is underpinned by these core principles:

Accessible: The REC is the first code that allows anyone, not just parties, to raise a Change Proposal. We have therefore tried to make this as straight-forward as possible so proposers only need to inform Code Managers of an issue and it’s the Code Manager’s responsibility to advise the proposer on the best way forward.

Prioritisation: Historically the Codes have adopted a ‘first come, first serve’ approach to non-urgent change, working through each change in the order it lands. The REC change process seeks to rebalance this. Each CP submitted will be assessed against the REC Prioritisation Matrix. Using this tool, the Code Manager will determine where the CP falls against a set of published criteria.

Code Manager Developed Solutions: The Code Manager will engage and consult with industry parties and subject matter experts at key stages in the process but remove the burden on parties of attending a high volume of industry working groups. The Code Manager is incentivised to deliver for industry, high quality Change Report recommendations that are capable of a decision being made via its commercial contract.

Robust Technical Design Authority: The Technical Design Authority will scrutinise service provider impact assessments (solution, timeframes, and cost) and support REC release management ensuring that changes impacting the same systems or processes are aligned as far as possible and system changes are fully tested ahead of deployment.

Post Implementation Reviews: The Performance Assurance function within the Code Manager is responsible for carrying out post implementation reviews. The scope of these reviews may cover the change itself – was the issue resolved, did the solution achieve its intended objective? Or whether the Change Process was effective and whether the Code Manager or other service providers carried out their role properly or improvements to their services could be made.

Hopefully this provides an early insight into the workings of the REC Change Panel and Change Process. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on what makes an effective change process.

Through my previous roles in delivering change under other industry code arrangements, including the BSC, SPAA, DCUSA and SMICoP and as CACoP Chair, I have seen the good, and not so good, of various industry models.

RECCo is developing its communications and would like to know how you would prefer to stay up to date with RECCo activities:

Self-serving through regular updates to the website and LinkedIn
Email Updates
The RECCo Newsletter
Stakeholder Events
All of the above

Please get in touch with elizabeth.lawlor@retailenergycode.co.uk and if you are interested in finding out more about the live changes, please visit the REC Portal.