Members approve MOSL business plan
On Friday, MOSL members voted to approve the market operator’s business plan for 2019/20. The plan prioritises market and bilateral engagement improvement among other aspects.
The £10.7m budget is flat on the previous year, though on a like for like basis, there is an 8% reduction from the 2018/19 budget.
There are two significant investments earmarked, on top of the business as usual spend: a £250,000 Market Improvement Fund and £600,000 for bilaterals.
The Market Improvement Fund will pay for work supplementary to that already provided for in MOSL’s wider market improvement framework. MOSL said: “These additional areas could, for example, include a review of incentive mechanisms, the way performance-related charges work, [and] whether the service level agreements in place support improvement work. This will be identified, scoped and prioritised.”
The funds for bilaterals will support the progression of work to develop a common bilaterals solution. This is work in progress. So far, MOSL has indicated the following: “The solution will be wide-ranging with respect to transactions covered. We will seek a Code change to make the approach mandatory, to maximise the benefits. At this stage we think that offering a technology solution is most likely to meet the needs of the market.”
The desire to improve the market is also evident in two less prominent elements of the plan: to improve to the navigation, search capability and usability of the highest volume CMOS functional areas; and to enable a greater pace of change. A key element here is the market operator’s proposal that Ofwat should no longer need to approve low level and mechanical changes, confining its interest only to the most material change proposals such as those that impact policy or strategy.
MOSL said it was on track to begin to deliver cost savings of £7.4m over a ten-year period, as envisaged in the Southampton relocation budget that members approved.