Utility Week

SPREADING THE BENEFITS THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS Robin Hood Energy has nine white label partners – most of them council-owned – whereby Robin Hood is the licensed supply partner and its tariffs are sold by its partners under their own branding. They include White Rose Energy in Leeds, Ram Energy in Derby, Angelic Energy in London, Great North Energy in Doncaster, Ci zen Energy in Southampton and Leccy in Liverpool. Around half of its customers come from these partnering arrangements. "This was always part of our growth strategy to expand the ethos of Robin Hood Energy by tackling fuel poverty and helping vulnerable customers on a na onal scale. We partner with other local authori es who have this shared and common goal," says Scholes. She says it allows local authori es to create a local brand to tackle fuel poverty and help vulnerable customers while minimising the risk to them. "It also means bespoke local tariffs can be set to a ract local customers. Local authori es are paid a commission for each customer who signs up, so this commission can be ploughed back into the region for good causes." are very slow and they're not very commercial or driven in that way, this proves that's not the case." No ngham City Council provided a £20 million loan to set up Robin Hood Energy and it is s ll 100 per cent owned by the local authority, but staff were transferred under the TUPE regula ons into a separate company about a year ago. That came about to provide more flexibility on recruitment in what is a specialist sector. "We got to a certain point where suddenly the job descrip on for head trader didn't fit any of the council's job descrip ons and it became a very natural par ng of ways. But we do have councillors who sit on the board." The staff of 12 has now grown to 250, and customers from zero to 220, 000-meter supply points, and it has garnered interest from Labour poli cians more widely who want to see not-for- profit publicly owned energy companies set up in every region. It's also brought benefits to councils around the country by offering its services in white label arrangements (see box, right). Certainly, the results of rapid growth are apparent when visi ng Robin Hood Energy's offices in the city centre, where it occupies three floors of what might be a 1970s-type block, well past its best. Desks are packed in ghtly and Scholes herself occupies a no-frills office squeezed in the corner. "You know I'm not sat here as a very wealthy chief execu ve, ge ng a very nice bonus. It's completely different," she says. Indeed, the down to earth Scholes gets the bus to work from a village a few miles away. Originally from Northumberland, the family moved down with the mines in 1970s, "My dad was a miner, so we've always been in energy," she quips. Despite keeping overheads down, Scholes is the first to admit that Robin Hood Energy is not the cheapest. "We're not at the top, we're not the cheapest. We've always been in around about the top 10-15 per cent price-wise for a 12-month fixed credit tariff. Our sell is very much on trust and social values." Scholes says that as part of these social values it has a strong focus on vulnerable customers, linking with chari es and other organisa ons to reach out to them. Introducing payment programmes to suit different needs and helping those who might be in difficulty are key strands. "It can be hard to reach vulnerable customers, but I've always strongly believed that if anybody can get through to that market, other than the big six, it is probably going to be a local authority, where you've s ll got that trust, and you've s ll got that rela onship with somebody who lives in that community." Scholes says her team ac vely encourages customers off higher prices and only 20 per cent of its customer base is on standard variable tariffs. In another move to lend a helping hand, it has launched more affordable boiler cover. Some might say that without profit as an incen ve, inefficiencies creep in and costs aren't kept as ght as they might be. Scholes is having none of it. "Not at all. It's almost like having your own personal purse. You are constantly keeping an eye on money, because actually at the end of the day you know that's affec ng the customer's price and what they can afford to pay for energy. So every single thing that we do to save money means the customer ul mately is ge ng a be er deal, and that's what drives us every single day. If there's a cheaper way of doing something, we will absolutely do it. "Everything is stripped down to the bare minimum in terms of cost. We've not ploughed money into masses of technology. If you go onto our website it's s ll fairly basic." But in an acknowledgment that it needs to move with the mes, the company is soon to launch a smart phone app to allow customers to pay their bills on the phone. Warm and friendly, Scholes makes light of the challenges of the past three years. "I've certainly got a lot greyer, but I think it helps having both levels of experience," she says, referring to the decade she spent from 1987 to 1997 at East Midlands Electricity where her roles spanned the highly technical to more customer facing as the electricity and gas markets became deregulated. Prior to that she worked both in the private and public sectors in con nuedoverleaf I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H UTILITY WEEK | 1ST - 7TH FEBRUARY 2019 | 27

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