Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
A truly joined-up priority services register for water and energy companies is to finally become a reality in the first quarter of 2024 as retailers start sharing their data on vulnerable customers, Utility Week understands.
In a milestone moment for the sector, energy suppliers will switch from a process of explicitly asking customers for consent to share their data to one in which the substantial public interest clause is used to comply with data protection laws. This will allow energy suppliers, who tend to have the richest data on customers, to share these details with water companies and energy networks. The latter two sectors began sharing their PSR data in March after resolving issues over a lack of standardisation in recording the data.
Steve Crabb, the former director of consumer vulnerability at Centrica and now chair of Energy UK’s Vulnerability Commitment, has been advising the sector on sharing PSR data.
He said suppliers were now well advanced with plans to share their data and while an exact “go live” date was difficult to confirm, it is expected between 31 December and 31 March.
“The suppliers I’ve spoken to are really positive about moving to using Substantial Public Interest as the basis for capturing and sharing customer data, with all the changes in customer communications, privacy notices etc that requires. The vast majority of energy suppliers will be ready to make the change by the end of this year at really short notice, which speaks volumes about the willingness to do data sharing within the utility sector,” he said.
The news comes following government proposals to create a multi-sector shared PSR covering water, energy and telecoms.
Despite progress being made within energy and water, Crabb warned that the same level of data collection does not exist within some telecoms companies.
He added: “In the conversations I’ve had with telecoms and financial services companies, they don’t have the same history of collecting customer data in order to safeguard them in emergencies and sometimes talking to some companies in telecoms, there is a nervousness about collecting sensitive customer data that you don’t tend to find in water and energy.
“Culturally, that’s not to say that they care any less about vulnerable customers, it’s just that there is a different attitude.”
Janine Shackleton, policy manager at the consumer water watchdog CCW, agreed that telecoms firms have not been on the same journey as utilities when it comes to protecting vulnerable customers in the event of a loss of supply.
However, she said it was “absolutely essential” there was a multi-utility response to these kind of incidents, given climate change is likely to make them more frequent.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.