On 12th January, we held a webinar to share our full review report of the P1 Major Switching Incident in July 2023. The event gave an overview of the incident, its impact on industry and consumers, and our recommendations for preventing a future incident.
Incident background
On the 6th of July, 2023, a Major Switching Incident was declared within the Central Switching Service (CSS), preventing successful energy supply switches and new registrations for gas and electricity. The incident impacted over 200k supply switches.
On the 8th of August, 2023, 33 days after the original incident, all switches and registrations were processed. Data verification and reconciliation activity concluded in September, at which time DCC shared their post-incident report summary. By 12th September 2023, the incident was formally closed.
Our review
Alongside the REC Code Manager, in Autumn 2023, we conducted feedback sessions with REC Parties and other impacted stakeholders. During these sessions, we collected information about the effects on these organisations and their processes, systems and customers. This has helped us put together our recommendations and action plan, which we will be delivering in the coming months.
You can read the full review document here and the executive summary here.
This review document and executive summary were reported to the November 2023 Performance Assurance Board (PAB) and the RECCo Board in December 2023. The recommendations table in the review forms our new Major Switching Incident review action plan.
Webinar highlights
Mollie De Camp and Claire Hemmens, Operation Consultants at RECCo, were joined by Anton Moden, Performance Assurance Lead at the REC Code Manager. Together, they presented an overview of the review and an action plan for the future.
Claire emphasised that the main priority of the review was to ensure that in the future, the right action is taken to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of incidents. She provided an overview of the key effects that the incident had on consumers, energy businesses, and licences/codes and then gave recommendations for future mitigation.
Anton then summarised the technical review of the incident, focusing on preventing and detecting missing messages, the technical response and industry confidence. Claire summarised how the incident was communicated, focusing on the need for the right people to be contacted with the right message at the right time.
Mollie then ended the presentation with an overview of our next steps.
Watch the recording
If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording in full below or download the presentation slides here. Please feel free to share this with colleagues if they would find it helpful.
Next steps
The team has shared the review’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations with the DCC, the REC Board, and the REC Performance Assurance Board. The recommendations form the basis of the in-flight action plan.
In the coming months, RECCo and DCC will implement focused improvements to new or existing policies, processes, or system functionality and, if necessary, complementary new or clarified code requirements. To ensure independent oversight and assurance, the Code Manager will track progress.
