Making water and energy services safer for family violence survivors

We work to ensure that vulnerable customers retain power over key aspects of their own lives, including their electricity and water supply.

In 2018–19, we continued our three-year journey to help put safeguards in place for energy and water customers affected by family violence.

Our work in this area stems from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which highlighted how perpetrators of family violence can use utility bills as a form of punishment and control.

Water sector forging a new path

Our pioneering work with the Victorian water sector required family violence policies and training to be fully implemented across Victorian water businesses from 1 July 2018.

We worked with family violence specialists to learn about the latest developments and partnered with water businesses to identify principles for effective family violence policies and processes for the sector.

A paper we released in October 2018, Providing Family Violence Support, looked at five strategies energy businesses could adopt to ensure they are providing the right kind of support at the point it is needed.

The family violence discussion paper looked at creating an open and constructive dialogue between energy retailers, family violence experts and the commission.

Cementing change in the energy sector

We worked extensively with the energy sector to develop family violence policies and processes that build on the experiences of the water sector.

From 1 January 2020, energy retailers will be required to provide family violence assistance to their customers. They will need to have a family violence policy, and meet minimum standards on training, account security, customer service, debt management practices, external support services and practices around documenting evidence of family violence.

From 1 January 2019, we also introduced the payment difficulties framework to better support electricity and gas customers (including those experiencing family violence) who are facing difficulties paying their bills.

Measuring our success in 2019–20

Goal	Objective	What outputs do we intend to produce?		What outcomes do we intend to achieve?
Goal 1	Improve the quality, timeliness and impact of our enforcement response.	Engage skilled staff to support enforcement capability by December 2019. Complete investigations training by August 2019. Review existing compliance processes by September 2019. Review the compliance and enforcement committee by February 2020.		Complaints to Energy and Water Ombudsman of Victoria relating to priority areas reduce. Consumers feel protected and trust the regulator to enforce rules. Energy companies work in the best interests of consumer and uphold their rights.
Goal 2	Create new customer entitlements in our energy codes.	Implement recommendation 4 (fairer contracts) by publishing our draft decision, consulting with stakeholders on our proposal, and publishing our final decision. Implement life support entitlements by publishing our draft decision, consulting with stakeholders on our proposal, and publishing our final decision.		Consumers engage more confidently in energy market to find the best deal. Protections for consumers are strengthened.
Goal 2	Update our Electricity Distribution Code.	Publish an issues paper on our approach to the review of the Electricity Distribution Code by July 2019. Update the code’s technical standards by publishing our draft decision, consulting with stakeholders on our proposal, and publishing our final decision. Update the code’s customer entitlements elements by publishing our draft decision, consulting with stakeholders on our proposal, and publishing our final decision.		Customers have easier access to new energy technologies and innovative service models. Customers have higher engagement with energy market. Energy companies can operate more effectively with updated distribution code.
Goal 3	Regularly report on the performance of the energy market.	Publish our Victorian energy market update: September 2019 and the Victorian Energy Market Report. Update the Compliance and Performance Reporting Guideline. Complete our competitiveness review by publishing our draft decision, consulting with stakeholders on our proposal, and publishing our final decision.	Improved industry performance, better customer decisions, and informed government policy. Consumers have easy access to performance information about their retailer and distributor, empowering them to make more informed choices about their electricity and gas provider. The energy industry designs processes and programs to ensure they can comply with key regulatory focus areas.

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Read more about what we're doing to support those experiencing family violence here.

Annual Report 2018-19