Ofwat to refresh guidance on eligibility to switch in the business market

Ofwat is consulting until 28 February on rationalising and clarifying its eligibility guidance for the business retail market. This provides advice to trading parties on how to determine which customer premises should be in or out of the market where this might not be entire clear.

A number of housekeeping changes were proposed: merging the existing Eligibility Guidance and Supplementary Eligibility Guidance (both dating to 2016, with the latter produced to provide further clarity and examples on the former) into one document; dividing to guidance into two separate parts – Part A for England and Part B for Wales; and removing references to Water Supply Licences (WSLs) given these were discontinued in April 2017 and replaced with WSSLs.

Ofwat has also updated the scenarios set out in the Supplementary Guidance, providing ten pages of alphabetically listed situations, from allotments and animal troughs to youth hostels and zero-rated properties (for council tax or business rates).

Finally, the regulator has provided more detail on how disputes and issues are handled and resolved.