Sutherland told Utility Week that he was leaving the market opening in good shape – but acknowledged that he would have preferred to stay to finish the job. He said: “Does anyone want to abandon a project that’s not finished? The answer to that is obviously no. Is this the best time for a transition to MOSL? In my view, definitively not. I would have waited until … the end of September. That’s not Ofwat’s view and it’s their decision.”
WICS’ formal role in the market opening will end this month, as Ofwat transfers responsibility for market opening from Open Water Markets Limited (OWML) to Market Operator Services Limited (MOSL) at the end of May. Because of public sector technicalities, WICS is not able to work formally with MOSL, a private sector body. Sutherland has written to the board of OWML and Defra to formally mark the end of WICS’ role.
WICS has been heavily involved in the market opening to date and at the end of last year, was set to be appointed Ofwat’s delivery partner for the project. This was vetoed by the WICS board when it was not able to reach agreement with Ofwat over details including the work plan, budget and final responsibility for the project.
Sutherland said: “Ofwat wanted us to take full responsibility for the opening of the market. In reality, we couldn’t, simply because we were not charged with doing everything. We have explored options as to how the existing framework could have been continued through OWML, but that’s not been something Ofwat wants to do. When Ofwat says it wants to transition and give responsibility to MOSL, we have made it clear that’s not something that given its constitution at this stage we could involve ourselves with.”
Ofwat is expected to publish details of the roles and responsibilities for market opening shortly. MAP3 will be published on May 11. Sutherland said some details would not be ready in time for the document, but “it’s looking in pretty good shape.” He added that following publication, WICS’ MAP 3 team would return to working on the Scottish market, bringing to bear their findings from the English programme.
He said: “We leave it behind in good shape. Is there a bit of me that says it would be nice to be there when the bunting gets raised and the ribbon gets cut? Of course there’s a selfish part of anyone who would say, having worked as hard as the team has worked on this, that would be good. But we’ve got an awful lot to do ourselves, it’s now clear there’s a lot of changes we would like to make in Scotland.”