Utility Week

Customers UTILITY WEEK | 14TH - 20TH FEBRUARY 2020 | 29 Tor Water last week exited the water retail market and entered into liquidation. The Devon-based retailer, which has 149 supply points, said it was "not viable" to con- tinue despite having arranged a refinancing package. Chief executive Jiro Wilson told Utility Week the system was weighted against small compa- nies ever making a profit. WATER Tor takes a swipe at Ofwat as it exits 'toxic' water retail market In a letter seen by Utility Week, Wilson described the market as "toxic" for unassoci- ated retailers (those that do not have a wholesaler parent company) and said Ofwat had "overseen an appalling mess". He said there appeared to be "a degree of culpability across a range of issues", while also acknowledging there are "points of excellence and understand- ing" within Ofwat. Wilson expressed his disap- pointment at liquidating the company, but said it was the right thing to do. "I have respon- sibility to shareholders to not keep pumping money into the business," he said. Wilson said market codes were unclear and that more should be done to assist new entrants and smaller companies. This week Scot Water: bills must rise to fund resilience A 'moderate' increase in customer bills is needed to fund the fight against climate change Scottish Water has said it expects customers to see a "moderate" rise in bills as it funds efforts to reduce emissions and make water supplies more resilient in the face of climate change. From 2021, Scottish Water will follow a new regulatory approach that involves longer investment periods. The system is intended to allow the company to plan and prioritise investment through a "rigorous, dynamic and rolling process". As part of its 25-year strategic plan, it said it would invest in assets and build more resilience into water supplies, as well as work towards net carbon neutrality by 2040. The company said the improvements would mean "moderate above-inflation increases in charges" to customers. However, it added that it would employ greater efficiency and borrow from the government to limit increases. The plan, called Our Future Together, focuses on three overarching goals: service excellence; going beyond net zero emissions; and providing value for customers while maintaining financial sustainability. Scottish Water will deliver an agenda of "radical action, transformative change and additional invest- ment" during 2020 to meet the challenges ahead, it said. Over the next year it would formulate a delivery plan for the 2021-27 period as the first part of a strategic plan – including major goals and milestones, updated annually. The plan acknowledges the "serious, uncertain and costly challenges" the water cycle faces because of the extremes of flooding and drought brought on by global warming. RW WATER 'Customers want investment not cuts' Long-term investment is more important to customers than short-term bill cuts. That was the message from Wessex Water to Ofwat as it accepted the terms of its final determination for PR19, while stressing that its customers want to see more investment in infrastructure. A spokesperson for the company said: "While the board has accepted the determination, customers want more investment in infrastructure to future-proof services – for example to deal with climate change. "We believe long-term invest- ment is needed, not short-term bill cuts," Wessex said about the 2020-25 business plan. The company is the third to publicly accept the regulator's determination for the coming investment period, but the first to stress that bill cuts are not a prime concern for customers. ENERGY CA ratings will include new metrics Citizens Advice will take into account email and social media response times when calculating its star ratings table for energy retailers going forward. It will also remove failed sup- pliers from the star rating and adjust the rankings accordingly, a recently published decision document has revealed. The consumer charity has decided not to include in its customer service metrics telephone ring-backs and calls that are dropped before an agent is reached. It will continue to investigate the use of webchat, but this will not be included for now. The email metric will be mandatory, meaning suppliers will be scored zero for this component if they do not offer it. Furthermore, performance will be measured against a response time of two working days. The changes come ažer a major customer service consultation in which respondents broadly agreed that email and social media should be included. The social media metric will be measured from responses to private messages sent on Facebook and Twitter, but only in instances where it makes up 5 per cent or more of the overall contacts for a supplier. While webchat was recognised as growing in importance, the charity noted issues around accurately measuring its performance. As a result, Citizens Advice said it was not looking to include the metric at this stage and was instead looking at ways of introducing it in the near future. "The inclusion of webchat is likely to be based on a similar principle to social media, requir- ing overall supplier contacts to meet a minimum threshold," its decision paper said. Scottish Water: long-term strategic plan He said the billing system was weighted against smaller com- panies, because water had to be paid for in advance even though it could only be billed for once it had been used. Georgina Mills, director, busi- ness retail market, at Ofwat said: "While it is difficult to see a com- pany fail, companies entering and exiting a market is a feature of a competitive market."

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