Planned Achievements
Licensing, Monitoring and Customer Protection Division
Following the Western Australia Government's signing of the National Water Agreement this year, the performance of the water industry in Western Australia will in the future be benchmarked against other water service providers in Australia. This will include the Water Corporation for towns having more than 10,000 connections, the City of Kalgoorlie for wastewater services, and Aqwest and Busselton for water services. The Authority will have responsibility for receiving the data and ensuring the data is audited. A National Report comparing performance by water service providers around Australia will be produced annually by the National Water Commission.
There are currently well in excess of 60 licensees in the Western Australian water, electricity and gas industries that are licensed by the Authority ranging from small local government wastewater service providers to large stateowned electricity corporations. In the interests of best practice regulation, the Authority is keen to establish and support opportunities for regulatory managers within licensed entities to come together, share information, hear from key experts and participate in activities to foster improvements in compliance and efficiency. To this end, the Authority plans to host a series of forums for regulatory managers in 2007.
The Economic Regulation Authority Consumer Consultative Committee is keen to work with the Energy Ombudsman and the Department of Consumer and Employment Protection in 2007 to host a oneday roundtable style workshop for industry and other key stakeholders to examine contemporary consumer issues relevant to the electricity, gas and water industries. It is hoped that this event will attract high profile industry leaders and professionals from other jurisdictions able to share their practical ideas and experience in areas such as internal dispute resolution mechanisms, consumer consultation and product innovation.
With the introduction of electricity licensing, the Authority has developed a more efficient format for licences. An important achievement for the future will be to extend the more efficient licensing format to other licences including gas and water. Ultimately, it is proposed that the Authority will establish a single application form and set of guidelines for all three utility industries subject to licensing. Whilst there may still be a need to have some separation between the respective industries of gas, water and electricity, the development of consolidated guidelines will be of great assistance to prospective applicants.
In the development of these consolidated guidelines, a review of customer charters is also proposed. Whilst standard form contracts are required to be approved for gas and electricity, there is currently no standard form contract for the water industry. There is, however, a requirement for the Authority to approve customer charters in the water industry via a licence requirement, and there is also a statutory requirement for gas and electricity licensees to have a customer charter.
It is anticipated that in 2006–07, the Authority will receive approximately 10 new licence applications from across the three utility areas of gas, water and electricity; notwithstanding that existing operators within the electricity industry will be licensed by 1 July 2006.
The Code of Conduct for the Supply of Electricity to Small Use Customers will have been in operation for 18 months by the end of the 200607 financial year. Under the legislation, the Authority is required to establish a consultative committee to undertake a review of this code, which is scheduled to be achieved within this timeframe.
Given the increased complexity and variability between the legislative frameworks for the licensing of gas, water and electricity, there is a need for a manual on internal control procedures to deal with licensing, monitoring and customer protection matters. The development of this manual will begin in the 2006–07 financial year.
A review of overall performance reporting of licensees is also planned in order to streamline the reporting process for licensees and to make the collection and analysis of data by the Authority more efficient.