The Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) is proposing to collect complaints data from new water retailers on a monthly basis, to help it identify any problems quickly in the competitive market for non-domestic supply.
The group said that, at the outset, the new market will find itself under intense scrutiny, especially from government, regulators, and consumer groups.
Therefore, it has suggested complaints data should be collected on a calendar month basis, except for unwanted contact data which should be collected annually.
The consumer group said that, at the end of April 2018, retailers should submit complaints data for the full year 2017/18, explaining any variation between the year-end total and the sum of the monthly totals.
Self-supply retailers will not be required to provide any data and, in order to avoid putting extra burden on retailers who are already busy with market preparations, CCWater has said retailers can report nil returns to CCWater by email if their customer numbers have not changed since the last submission and they have received no complaints.
A consultation is now under way to gather market responses to the proposal that CCWater should collect monthly complaints data. The consultation will run for a period of 4 weeks. The closing date for responses is 24 March 2017.