Water retailer Castle Water has appointed Douglas McLaren as chief operating officer, effective from 1 June 2018. McLaren is currently UK operations director for Scottish Power Energy Retail, a subsidiary of global energy company Iberdrola.
A law graduate and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, McLaren spent nine years at PwC, both in the UK and Canada, before moving to his current position at Scottish Power.
In June last year, Castle Water revealed it had partnered with Scottish Power to provide gas and electricity, as well as water, to its customers.
On making the announcement of McLaren’s appointment, Castle Water chief executive John Reynolds, said: “I’m delighted to confirm that Douglas McLaren will join Castle Water as chief operating officer. A highly experienced operations director, he will bring further financial, regulatory, and commercial expertise to our accomplished leadership team.
“Castle Water is a customer-first company focused on performance and Douglas will play a key role in helping us grow and develop the business.”
McLaren added: “The appetite for growth, innovation and excellent customer service is clear and I am excited at the prospect of driving further success, working with John Reynolds and the wider Castle Water team.”
Castle Water has also announced it has reduced the annual wholesale charges paid by customers by £6.9 million since the water retail market opened on 1 April 2017. It said it has achieved this by “resolving historical errors” on top of saving customers £600,000 per year from discounts on bills.
Richard Fairbank, wholesale services manager at Castle Water, said: “Castle Water’s bills provide significantly more detailed information than was available in the past. This makes errors easier to spot. Once we become aware of an error, we ask the wholesaler to correct it.”
Reynolds added: “Separating retail from wholesale activities has allowed greater focus on individual items which make up bills. In turn this helps us to ensure that customers are charged fairly.”
Earlier this month, the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) warned Castle Water to address “unacceptable levels” of customer complaints.
The water watchdog said Castle Water accounted for around 44 per cent of the 1,630 complaints CCWater received about retailers operating in the non-household market in England between 1 September 2017 and the end of February 2018.