Our Customer Promises - We're committed to: * Putting our safety first; * Respecting you, your time and your property; * Doing a really good job; * Being there when you need us; and * Caring for our local environment - We're only satisfied when you are.

Response

Our regulator, Ofgem, will announce at the end of this year what it will permit us to charge our domestic and our business customers in the five-year period beginning in April 2010. Ofgem’s decision will be based on their assessment of our business case for the period.

Last year we consulted stakeholders and a range of customers to gather their views about what they felt our key priorities should be in our business plan, where we ought to be investing in improving our network and how much extra (if anything) they would be prepared to pay.

The process was originally divided into two stages, but a third stage was later added at the request of Ofgem:

Stage 1

Sending out over 6,000 copies of our consultation document ‘Have Your Say’.
Posting the document on our website. It attracted 4,300 visitors.
Holding workshops in a number of locations around our region: Newcastle, Darlington, York, Leeds, Barnsley and Brigg. More than 70 stakeholders attended.
Holding additional one-to-one meetings with certain stakeholders such as Yorkshire Forward and One North East.

Stage 2

Following up with stakeholders to discuss issues raised in the first stage.
A face-to-face survey of around 1,000 domestic customers based on key costed options identified in the first stage.
An online survey, again based on key costed options, sent to 10,000 business customers.

Stage 3

A survey of businesses based in the centres of Newcastle, Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield asking them about their willingness to pay for special measures against high impact, low probability events such as terrorist attacks or severe floods. This stage finished in mid-January.

The results of these consultations – which are set out in some detail in the document at the link below – told us a lot about your concerns and priorities and helped to inform our negotiations with Ofgem.

We submitted our draft investment plans to Ofgem in August and these were updated in November. Following further consideration of the consultation process outcomes, we submitted revised investment plans in mid-February.

Overall, our updated plans support the connection of increased levels of distributed generation and make provision for improvements in customer service. However, Ofgem’s willingness to pay work and our own consultation work with our regional stakeholders and customers indicated a clear message to minimise cost increases wherever possible - circa 50% of our customers wish to pay no more to improve regardless of benefit offered. We have responded to these concerns in our updated plans by reducing the scope of our network investment plans and reviewing cost-risk that we are prepared to bear.

Ofgem is currently reviewing and analysing our plans and we are partaking in the process with regular interactions with Ofgem and responding to its questions clearly and in a timely manner. We have been meeting with Ofgem to discuss our plans and Ofgem’s approach to assessing our costs. We provided Ofgem with a further updated business plan at the end of June 2009, and Ofgem published its initial proposals in August 2009 for the next price control period beginning April 2010 (Distribution Price Control Review 5).

The timetable from here

October 2009 Meeting with the Committee of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority

December 2009 Ofgem publishes its final proposals

April 2010 Start of new five-year price control period