Market Focus January 2018 | 1

We wish all of our members a Happy New Year and a warm welcome to our January edition of Market Focus, providing a monthly update on MOSL activities. We look forward to working with you all on the continued success of the non-household retail market in 2018.

Business Plan

On Friday 5 January we published our 2018/19 Business Plan to the MOSL website.

Full publication follows the approval of the Plan by our voting members at the General Meeting on Friday 15 December.

The 2018/19 Business Plan focuses on 13 key services which MOSL will deliver to trading parties, taking into account the needs of our diverse membership, including the need to put cost efficiency at the heart of everything we do while ensuring the stability of the market.

Highlights of the initiatives which form part of the Plan include:

Working with members on data quality improvement plans

Providing an improved technical support service giving members access to better quality information and expertise

Continuing to work with our service providers to improve system stability

Implementing a revised management information solution enabling members to tailor information to suit their requirements

Using digital tools for consulting on change to facilitate engagement and reduce the overall cost of governance.

All of these initiatives and more are provided as part of the five key pillars underpinning our plans for next year: stabilisation, service, engagement, governance and innovation.

You can find our 2018/19 Business Plan and press release on the MOSL website.

Financial settlement

Ensuring wholesalers and retailers receive timely information to invoice and pay their respective customers

Market entry assurance and exit

Providing support and guidance to trading parties preparing to enter or exit the market

CMOS service management

Driving improved supplier performance to deliver a performant system and robust incident management

Market risk and planning

Monitoring and analysing areas of potential risk to market operation and the performance of trading parties

Disputes Delivering case management capability and support to relevant committees

Data management Holding and securing market data in a manner compliant with regulatory and code obligations

Market charges and payments

Determining and invoicing market operator charges payable by all active trading parties

Query handling Managing trading party queries through a multi-channel approach

Panel and market code change delivery

Providing a service to trading parties ensuring that market arrangements are open to consultation and change

Market engagement

Providing support, information and insight to trading parties. Enabling access to market forums, meetings and information

Market Incident Management Plan

Being ready to provide a business continuity service that manages operations during high impact events

Trading party compliance

Monitoring and reporting trading parties’ performance including against the market standards

Market operator compliance

Monitoring MOSL’s level of compliance against its code obligations

MOSL’s thirteen key services

MOSL BUSINESS PLAN 2018/19 04

Change proposal updates

At the Panel meeting on Tuesday 12 December, code change CPW031: ‘Extending the new connection suspension period’ was recommended to the Authority with an implementation date scheduled for 3 March 2018.

CPW023 and CPM005: ‘Market entry and re-assurance updates’, CPW025: ‘Extending TCORR functionality for inactive data items’, CPW026: ‘Removing SPID version design’ and CPW028: ‘Unpaired SPIDs’ have also been put forward for industry consultation.

Documents relating to individual change proposals can be found on the Change page of the MOSL website.

market focus

Market Focus January 2018 | 2

CMOS transactions (all interactions by trading parties e.g. switches, meter readings etc)

December total was

CMOS: January total, as of 11 January, is

from the 560,354 total, approx.

28% = trading parties

72% = 1,524,944 560,354 MOSL

Monthly market charts and Quarterly Review

Our monthly market charts were published today, Friday 12 January.

These charts provide key information about the non-household retail water market including switching rates, aggregate settlement values and more. The charts show that there have been more than 91,000 switches in the market at the end of December.

We have also published some new charts to the member-only section of our website. The new charts include geographical analysis on where switching is taking place and the number of retailers that are active in each geographical wholesaler region as well as new indicators around data quality.

The development of these new charts is in line with our commitment to provide transparent and insightful information about the market. To access the new charts, you will need to register for the website and be a member of MOSL.

We also plan to publish these new charts, together with other currently published charts, in our third MOSL Quarterly CEO Market Review on Thursday 25 January. The new charts will also be made fully available publicly on the Market Charts section of our website that same day.

Transaction Date, week commencing

Num

ber o

f Sup

ply

Poi

nts

Total Switching Water Services Sewerage Services

03 A

pril

10 A

pril

17 A

pril

24 A

pril

01 M

ay

08 M

ay

15 M

ay

22 M

ay

29 M

ay

05 Ju

ne

12 Ju

ne

19 Ju

ne

26 Ju

ne

03 Ju

ly

10 Ju

ly

17 Ju

ly

24 Ju

ly

31 Ju

ly

07 A

ugus

t

14 A

ugus

t

21 A

ugus

t

28 A

ugus

t

04 S

eptem

ber

11 S

eptem

ber

18 S

eptem

ber

25 S

eptem

ber

02 O

ctobe

r

09 O

ctobe

r

16 O

ctobe

r

23 O

ctobe

r

30 O

ctobe

r

06 N

ovem

ber

13 N

ovem

ber

20 N

ovem

ber

27 N

ovem

ber

04 D

ecem

ber

11 D

ecem

ber

18 D

ecem

ber

25 D

ecem

ber

0

20k

40k

60k

80k

100k

Cumulative Switching of Service

Deferral of CMOS Release 4.0

On Thursday 14 December 2017 we sent a communication to Contract Managers regarding the proposed deferral of CMOS Release 4.0 to May 2018.

CMOS 4.0 was originally due into the production environment on Saturday 3 March 2018. However, in order to accommodate additional functionality, MOSL proposed a deferral to the end of April. While trading parties were in general in agreement with this proposed new date, one trading party requested a further delay to May, so as to avoid clashes with other business activity in March and April. This was further welcomed by two other trading parties.

Having received no objections from trading parties, we sent a further communication confirming the new deployment date for the weekend of 18/19 May 2018.

MOSL will work with the Panel to consider the implications of the CMOS 4.0 deferral on change proposals scheduled for implementation in this release.

Digital Strategy Committee

In early December, the Digital Strategy Committee (DSC) commissioned a questionnaire to review data relating to bilaterals to gauge its impact on the industry.

This included time, resources and efficiency metrics. At December’s meeting, held on Monday 18 December, the Committee worked through the feedback to understand the full scale of the issue and has established a small working group to further identify the key ‘pain points’ and their possible solutions.

The DSC also reviewed the revised Market Performance Committee (MPC) reporting framework, which will take over the current market performance reporting from April. A technical review has been commissioned to support members to become more comfortable with the revised reporting framework.

The DSC also agreed an approach to data quality improvement by addressing the highest volume impacting data issues. An implementation plan is due to be agreed at the next DSC meeting.

market focus

Market Focus January 2018 | 3

Diary dates

In case you missed it here’s some key dates taking place in MOSL

JAN - FEB

17 January Utility Week Water Customer Conference (MOSL’s Market Performance Director, Steve Arthur, speaking)

25 January MOSL monthly industry call

25 January MOSL’s CEO Quarterly Market Review published

30 January Panel meeting

8 February User Forum

9 February Monthly market charts and Market Focus published

13 February Operations and Release Working Group (ORWG)

13 February Trade Effluent Issues Committee (TEIC)

January User Forum

This month’s User Forum took place on Thursday 11 January at CGI’s new offices, 20 Fenchurch Street, London.

As well as the customary systems and release updates and market design development updates, Nigel Sisman, Independent Chair of the Market Performance Committee (MPC), presented an update on the market performance standards (MPS). Jesse Wright, Market Reform Manager at United Utilities, also raised the proposed changes to the operational

performance standards (OPS) for members’ feedback.

Our Finance Director, Steve Lyon, also discussed the interim findings of the PWC market audit.

Recordings of the morning presentations and actions from the meeting will be published on Tuesday 16 January on the MOSL website.

News in brief

Steve Arthur speaking at Utility Week Water Customer Conference

On Wednesday 17 January, our Director of Market Performance, Steve Arthur, will be presenting at the conference held in Birmingham.

He will be joining a panel discussion looking at the retail market 10 months on and speaking on the theme ‘Access for all – the importance of market information in enabling informed choices for customers’. We look forward to seeing you there.

Trade Effluent Issues Committee (TEIC)

The TEIC held a meeting at MOSL’s offices on Tuesday 9 January. The TEIC is currently looking at a change proposal for a new temporary consents form, and a second to simplify the existing application for trade effluent services (G02).

We are now seeking trading parties’ views on other areas where training could improve knowledge or use of CMOS.

Market Performance Committee (MPC) updates

The MPC has concluded its review of the market performance standards (MPS) and operational performance standards (OPS).

On behalf of the Panel, it has developed two code change proposals, CPW030 – ‘Market Performance Framework for 2018/19’ and CPM008: ‘Redistribution of Market Performance Standards Charges’, which the Committee will be consulting on between Monday 8 to Friday 19 of January.

We would like to encourage our members to respond to this consultation directly via our website’s online consultation form.

New entrant to the market

Congratulations to Aquaflow Utilities Limited, which has become the latest player to be granted a water and sewerage licence by Ofwat with a view to entering the retail water market.

We look forward to their full accession to the market and working with them in the coming months.

market focus

Feedback

We welcome your comments and suggestions on the content of the monthly Market Focus update.

Please email the MOSL

communications inbox with any comments.