Under the Electricity Act 1992 (Act) and Government Policy Statement on Electricity Governance (GPS), the Commission is responsible for approving a consumer complaints system.   Any person, including potential consumers and owners and occupiers of land, whether or not they have a consumer contract, is to have access to a complaints resolution system for resolving complaints about electricity distributors and retailers. Once a complaints system has been approved, membership of such a system is compulsory for all distributors (including Transpower) and retailers.

In developing the process for approving a scheme, consultation with industry and consumer groups has been undertaken in December 2006 and March 2008 and these are set out below.

This outcome of this work is the Request for Applications and Submissions Analysis released on 8 September 2008.

March 2008 Consultation

On 28 March 2008, a consultation document was released by the Electricity Commission and Gas Industry Company inviting submissions on the consultation document "Approval of a Joint Electricity and Gas Complaints Resolution Scheme”. The Electricity Commission and Gas Industry Co have agreed that they will act jointly to approve a single complaints resolution scheme. The reason for this is that a single dual-fuel scheme provides benefits such as ease of access, consistency of outcomes and efficiencies of scale. In addition, many of the same companies are involved in both sectors and many customers buy electricity and gas from the same retailer.

• Approval of a Joint Electricity and Gas Complaints Resolution Scheme - March 2008
• Submissions - approval of a Joint Electricity and Gas Complaints Resolution Scheme - March 2008
  

A number of issues were raised in this consultation which resulted in further investigation by the EC and the GIC. This resulted in a relatively substantial change to the previously published process and timetable as follows:

• Timeline for approval of a complaints resolution scheme - 26 June 2008 pdf [110 KB]

December 2006 Consultation

• Approval method for consumer complaints resolution schemes
• Submissions - approval method for consumer complaints resolution schemes December 2006
  

During the analysis of the submissions, it soon became clear that other questions could not be considered without first coming to a conclusion on Question 4: “Should the Commission approve more than one scheme?”  

Accordingly, the Electricity Commission has agreed that it intends to approve only one consumer complaints resolution scheme because:

• The majority of consumers were clear they wanted only one scheme (access, ease of use, consistency, less confusion, gatekeepers can be kept informed, very happy with current scheme);

• Consumers signalled that they could not see how the benefits of multiple schemes could possibly outweigh the benefits of one;

• The participants’ concerns with having only one scheme were mostly focussed on concerns with the Electricity and Gas Complaints Commission (EGCC) (rather than one scheme per se). The EGCC has member companies on its Board and therefore these concerns can be resolved by them;

• Although initial indications are that some regional schemes would be based on mediation (on the grounds it would be less expensive and resolution may be quicker), the Ministry of Consumer Affairs considers that any scheme must have a very strong emphasis on legal rights.

• There is nothing stopping retailers having their own internal mediation schemes (in fact this is to be encouraged) to reduce the number of complaints that make it to the ‘one scheme’; and

• The Commission can refine the achievement standards to ensure that the ‘one scheme’ has some controls on it.  These include the development of approval criteria that will address participants’ concerns regarding having a monopoly provider (i.e. scale and inefficiencies).