Amount awarded: £1,849,851
Led by: Northumbrian Water
Partners: Accenture PLC, Affinity Water, Anglian Water, BU-UK, Cadent Gas Ltd, Consumer Council for Water, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, ICOSA Water Ltd, Microsoft PLC, Northern Gas Networks, Ordnance Survey, Southern Water, Thames Water, UK Power Networks Ltd, United Utilities, Virgin MediaO2, Wessex Water, Yorkshire Water
Support-for-All will be a national, secure, cross-sector platform sharing Priority Services Register (PSR) and other vulnerability data between water, energy, telecommunication and support organisations, ensuring a better experience for vulnerable customers. Supporting a ‘tell-us-once’ approach and utilitising enhanced matching, customers will receive consistent and accurate support across their utility services.
“The success of our “Support For All” pilot proved that by energy and water working together, thousands of additional customers can get the help they need. We’re extremely proud further funding has been granted, ensuring customers in vulnerable circumstances benefit from energy and water support across the whole of England.” – Mark Wilkinson, Head of Income, Northumbrian Water
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This initiative builds on the Breakthrough 2 funded project, Support for All.
The project launch meeting was held in September and with almost 30 participants from the 18 partners working together it showed just how enthusiastic the industry is to work together on behalf of their customers with vulnerable circumstances. With a Governance structure in place and positive licence discussions with Ordnance Survey ongoing the project is off to a great start. Multiple workshops have taken place with the Avanade (Technical Supplier) Solution Architect, and selected utility partners. Enhancements to the pilot system were explored to ensure all partners can provide the best customer service possible. Both major and incremental changes were also worked through to understand how we can make sure that customers have access to, and control of the service they would like to receive. Privacy work is already underway, with an independent Data Protection expert appointed to guide the utilities through the necessary safeguards required for such sensitive data, with tight data agreements controlling how information will be shared and processed. These include a Data Processing Agreement, a Data Sharing Protocol, and an overarching Data Privacy Impact Assessment. Data Protection Officers from all the utility partners are working to ensure an agreed approach.
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