We procure and manage services that are key to the operation of the retail energy market. These currently include the REC Code Manager, Electricity Enquiry Service, Gas Enquiry Service, Green Deal Central Charge Database, Central Switching Service, and the Energy-Theft Tip-Off Service.
"We will facilitate the efficient and effective running of the retail energy market, including its systems and processes. We’ll do this through promoting innovation, competition and delivering positive consumer outcomes."
“Our focus now is the imminent consolidation of the Retail Energy Codes and the mobilisation of our services for go-live on 1st September 2021. We are working closely with our three Code Manager service providers to develop the two digital foundations of our service: the Portal which will be the gateway to all enhanced REC services and the EMAR (digital version of the Retail Energy Code). Together, we will provide one seamless Retail Energy Code service which involves deploying new enhanced digital systems, processes, and organisation. Our three workstreams REC Development, Transition and Mobilisation are making good progress and are on track. Consistent with any implementation of this size and complexity and recognising the non-contingent nature of our plan for delivery on 1st September, we are de-risking implementation with a view to providing all key REC services with a good fit-for-purpose user experience on go-live with planned enhancements introduced shortly afterwards. Our three main workstreams REC Development, Transition and Mobilisation remain on track. Here is our update on our key programme workstreams and activities. For more information or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve our communication with you, please contact us at info@retailenergycode.co.uk”
Sid Cox, CEO RECCo
REC Development
The development of REC v2.0 remains on track for a Change Request to be raised in June to be decided upon on or before 2 July in facilitation of the Retail Code Consolidation date of 1 September. Red-lined text capturing consultation responses and other revisions has been shared with Ofgem for comment and will go through a further legal review before being appended to the change request. This text is being uploaded into the EMAR and will as far as practicable address the large number of low materiality tweaks to texts that are being identified through Logical Analysis. To fully digitalise and link relevant text we are addressing unintended inconsistencies in the use of defined terms, such as the use of a hyphen or pluralisation, which the system may otherwise not recognise as being the same term. This work also remains on track.
REC Transition
RECCo continues to progress work to ensure that contracts for services such as ECOES, GDCC and metering assurance currently delivered to industry under existing governance arrangements such as SPAA, MRA, SMICoP are transitioned for Retail Code Consolidation go live.
The Transition project is progressing well. All inflight issues for processes that will transition from the existing codes to the REC had been documented and the approach agreed/subject to detailed planning. In particular, a project is underway to contact all ECOES and GDCC non-Party REC users to secure their continued access to these services. Contracts for services required under the REC for 01 Sept 2021 continue to be developed and negotiated. Agreement in principle had been reached with most code bodies for them to continue to provide access to legacy information on their websites after 01 Sept 2021 for a limited period time with the final position across all codes to be confirmed in July.
REC Mobilisation
The Code Manager Mobilisation Programme is now closing out the technology builds of the REC Portal and the EMAR which will deliver the ‘Digital First’ REC experience. During the month of June, the programme moves into an extensive testing regime. Functional and non-functional testing phases will be undertaken on the Portal and EMAR. Business Process Testing (BPT) has commenced to evidence that the internal business processes for the services to operate smoothly in support of industry. Early in July, we will plan to start User Acceptance testing (UAT) where industry parties will be given the opportunity to test engagement with the service. Shortly after UAT, we will enter the final phase of preparedness for launch with the training of industry users.
Industry parties who would be interested in conducting UAT should reach out to enquiries@recmanager.co.uk
Consumer Programme
In line with RECCo’s strategic objectives, we are committed to improving consumer outcomes and promoting trust in the energy market. To specifically address this, we will be developing a wider Consumer Strategy later this year. We are delighted to welcome Helen Charlton (our new Non-Executive Director) with independent expertise in consumer advocacy to the team and we look forward to lever her experience, oversight, and guidance across a number of consumer facing sectors as we seek to progress this important agenda in retail energy. For more information about our current consumer activities – the Consumer Journey Forum and Supplier/Price Comparison Website Forum.
RECCo Corporate Organisation
With most services being outsourced, the RECCo corporate organisation will be fit-for-purpose and will be established over time with an identified core team in place for 1st September. The process of recruitment has commenced with initial appointments likely to be made in early July.
Stakeholder Engagement
Engagement with stakeholders is a critical part of our work programme and we welcome interaction and feedback. When we issued our first edition of our newsletter ‘Inside RECCo’ last month, we asked readers to indicate their preferred frequency. Most respondents requested that our updates be published monthly so the next edition will be published soon.
Financial Management
RECCo is currently undergoing the statutory audit of its financial statements for year ended 31 March 2021. Audit fieldwork commenced in May 2021. The auditors will present their audit report to the Finance and Audit Committee in mid-June and the 2021 Financial statements will be presented to the Board soon after. RECCo will then, in accordance with the time limits set out in the Companies Act, convene an Annual General meeting of the shareholders to approve the financial statements.
RECCo continues to manage it financial and other resources prudently. The operational costs for April and May are in line with budget expectations for those months.
