It has been a busy couple of months for the CEG. CEG members have been engaged in a range of activities and discussions including observing January’s Citizen’s Panel session and the Young Innovators Council in February, alongside continuing our ‘deep dive’ work into areas of agreed priority for the CEG, including social actions, the environment, innovation and customer engagement for the proposed Redcar Hydrogen Community trial. Key issues will be highlighted in our annual report for 2022-23 which we are starting to prepare.
Importantly, during this period we have welcomed the appointment to our Group of two former members of the Young Innovators Council – Yvana Ferreira and Charlotte Allan, as designated ‘youth’ experts. The Young Innovators Council has been very successful in changing the way Northern Gas Networks thinks and makes decisions. As future customers, colleagues and partners, we believe, as does NGN, that it’s crucial to give young people a voice in the decisions NGN is making now that will affect them in years to come. The energy and ideas we anticipate Yvana and Charlotte will bring to the CEG will help us deliver the role we play in providing challenge on whether NGN is delivering on its commitments to both current and future customers and stakeholders.
Both Yvana and Charlotte attended our last meeting, held in person in Leeds on 6 February. At the meeting, CEO Mark Horsley gave a business update focused on achieving high levels of customer service, safety, winter resilience, the funding of a Hydrogen Village Trial, and pay settlements in the sector.
Innovation was our main topic at the meeting, and we based our discussions around barriers to accessing funds through the Strategic Innovation Fund, which aims to help the industry find new ways of improving and innovating; the Customer Energy Village development at Low Thornley; and a review of innovation governance, partners and future projects. These are important areas of activity and we are keeping close to them to ensure that the Company is able to maximise the opportunities for the benefit of stakeholders and customers.
A key area of concern for the CEG is how NGN is supporting vulnerable customers, and we were updated on Ofgem’s review of the Fuel Poor Network Extension Scheme which has relevance and implications for the Company’s work in this area. We want to make sure that NGN is able to take maximum advantage of any opportunities that emerge from the regulator’s decisions.
We concluded the meeting by reviewing the stakeholder engagement plan, looking at upcoming stakeholder events for 2023, and the annual customer perceptions research.
We are about to review our own performance, which we do on an annual basis, to make sure that we are having impact and to work with the company to remove any barriers to achieving our goals.