Our connections

One of our functions is to promote our services to those who may need our help. In 2020-21, we assisted customers across Queensland and delivered a variety of awareness raising initiatives and community outreach activities to build awareness of our services.

Our priorities this year have included connecting with consumers in regional areas and customers in financial difficulty, who we reach through our relationships with financial counsellors and community organisations.

We continued to foster relationships with First Nations communities through our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, with highlights including visits to Cherbourg and Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).

We also maintained connections with key peer networks, including the Australian and New Zealand Ombudsman Association (ANZOA) and the Australian and New Zealand Energy and Water Ombudsman Network (ANZEWON).

Our members – or scheme participants – also help to promote the scheme to their customers. This year, we worked with them on outreach and information sessions and launched a member portal to streamline communication with them.

Supporting regional Queensland

During 2020-21, our team members travelled to Bundaberg, Cairns, Chinchilla, Dalby, Gympie, Hervey Bay, Kuranda, Mareeba, Maryborough, Murgon, Port Douglas, Roma, Townsville and Toowoomba, connecting with community workers and providing information to help customers understand their rights and responsibilities when making a complaint about an issue within our jurisdiction.

We hosted a Bring Your Bills day in Townsville, partnering with Ergon Energy Retail, Townsville Community Law Centre, Office of Fair Trading, Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN) and Telstra.

First Nations outreach

Our First Nations outreach program aims to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people become confident and informed consumers, and ensure they are aware of their right to assistance with issues relating to their energy services, and water services for customers in South East Queensland.

During 2020-21, we continued to grow our connections with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support networks and visited community leaders from Cherbourg Regional Council and Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) to discuss energy issues facing their local communities.

Connecting online

We continue to promote our services online through our website and social media. These channels have become even more important since community outreach events were put on hold for a portion of the year in response to COVID-19.

Our social media reach has grown during 2020-21 from increased interaction with stakeholders and the community, informing Queenslanders about how we can help with their energy and water problems.

We presented as part of a series of webinars with the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) and ICAN. These focused on energy hardship and concessions and finding the best energy deals.

We attended a virtual disability expo in September and took part in the online Dickson and Bonner seniors expos.

As a free, fair and independent dispute resolution service, we’re passionate about creating equal opportunities for all, and a culture of respect and understanding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Our reconciliation journey

Our relationship with First Nations people, organisations and communities is important to the success of the work that we do.

This year we continued to deliver the commitments of our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), ensuring our work with and on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is collaborative. Our RAP working group actively tracks the progress of our Innovate RAP and monitors the implementation of actions.

Through our reconciliation journey, we are fostering professional and community partnerships to strengthen our connections with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and stakeholders across Queensland.

We have also continued to use our sphere of influence within the wider community to engage, encourage and promote partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations.

Continuing the conversation

During 2020-21, our team members celebrated NAIDOC Week and National Reconciliation Week. For National Reconciliation Week 2021, we launched our new

First Nations polo shirt and scarf, and our team members pledged their commitment to reconciliation. We also talked about reconciliation and what our RAP means to us.

We have continued to look for opportunities to develop cultural competency and capacity across the team.

We have recruited two First Nations team members this year, including a community outreach officer and a trainee in our Assessment, Investigation and Resolution team.

Our connections

We have maintained strong productive working relationships with peak and representative Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations throughout Queensland, including the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN).

By meeting to discuss common issues and working collaboratively, we gain a greater understanding of energy and water issues experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities and how we can help.

Our community outreach program has continued to strengthen and grow our networks and partnerships to provide a service with manners, respect and courtesy by observing cultural protocols.

We reviewed our procurement strategy to encourage increased use of First Nations suppliers and to ensure there are no barriers for these suppliers and providers to participate.

How many First Nations Consumers contact us?

198 cases closed for customers identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. This represents 4.2 per cent of the cases closed in 2020-21 where identification information was recorded.

Complaints---------------------------------- 159

Billing----------------------------------------- 51%

Credit----------------------------------------- 21%

By comparison, for complaints where the customer did not identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, 59 per cent were about billing and 9 per cent about credit in 2020-21.

Billing = high or disputed bills, metering faults, billing errors, rebates and concessions.

Credit = payment difficulties, hardship and disconnections.

We maintain strong links with the Australian dispute resolution community as a member of the Australian and New Zealand Ombudsman Association (ANZOA) and the Australian and New Zealand Energy and Water Ombudsman Network (ANZEWON). We are also actively involved in cross-sector collaboration through the Thriving Communities Partnership.

ANZOA

Committed to high standards of independence, impartiality and effectiveness, ANZOA members observe the six benchmarks for industry-based customer dispute resolution: accessibility, independence, fairness, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness.

In addition to regular informal contact with other Ombudsman offices, the Ombudsman attended six ANZOA meetings throughout the year, including four ANZOA executive meetings.

Our team members are actively involved in ANZOA’s eight interest groups,including:

• complaints management
• corporate
• data and analytics
• indigenous engagement
• people and development
• public relations and communications (facilitated by EWOQ)
• systemic issues and policy influence
• vulnerable consumers.

EWOQ led an initiative to produce ANZOA member services maps for each Australian state and territory and for New Zealand. The maps provide consumers, financial counsellors and community organisations with an overview of the Ombudsman services in their region as well as relevant national services. The services maps have been very well received by consumers and consumer support services such as the financial counsellor network across Australia.

ANZEWON

ANZEWON is a network of energy and water ombudsmen and utilities complaints commissioners from across Australia and New Zealand. They work together to explore and address industry and policy developments that affect Australian and New Zealand consumers.

The network supports collaboration and learning to avoid duplication of effort which ensures members can progress projects with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

The Ombudsman attended four ANZEWON meetings throughout the year. The February 2021 meeting was also attended by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) and the Australian Energy Regulator (AER).

Thriving Communities Partnership

The Thriving Communities Partnership is a cross-sector collaboration with the goal that everybody has fair access to the modern essential services they need to thrive in contemporary Australia, including utilities, financial services, telecommunications and transport.

Our Ombudsman Jane Pires is currently the Chair of the Queensland chapter, which has focused on a disaster planning and recovery collaborative research project and developing solutions based on this research over the past 12 months. This has helped us connect with different community organisations and to understand more ways we can assist when a community has been involved in a natural disaster.

We contribute to relevant policy and legislative reviews undertaken by government, regulators, not-for-profit organisations and other bodies. We draw on our insights and experiences with customers and suppliers to make submissions on a variety of issues relevant to energy and water consumers.

Australian Energy Market Commission

• maintaining life support registration when a customer switches providers
• bill contents and billing requirements
• review of the metering regulatory framework.

Australian Energy Regulator

• compliance and enforcement priorities for 2021-22
• key research questions that will assist in the development of the Better Bills Guideline.

We also made submissions to:

• Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the consumer data right proposed for the energy sector
• Energy Security Board on the proposed data strategy for the energy sector
• Department of Premier and Cabinet and Federal Treasury on the review of statutory bodies, including EWOQ’s scheme
• Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Council on changes to the Civil Penalty provisions under the National Energy Laws.

During 2020-21, we welcomed eight new scheme participants, bringing the total membership of EWOQ to 55 scheme participants.

EWOQ is predominantly funded by scheme participants through participation fees and user-pays fees.

Scheme participants pay an annual participation fee in July (or part-fee if they become a scheme participant during the financial year).

In October, EWOQ hosted a webinar series called Supporting energy consumers financially impacted by COVID-19, which brought scheme participants AGL, Alinta Energy, Energex, Energy Australia, Ergon Energy Retail, Origin Energy and Red Energy together with financial counsellors and community organisations.

The webinars – one focused on South East Queensland and the other for regional Queensland – provided members with the opportunity to discuss their approach to customer support during the COVID-19 pandemic with financial counsellors and community organisations.

Member feedback

In March, we conducted our annual scheme participant satisfaction survey. Survey questions were divided into four sections: dispute resolution benchmarks, interaction with EWOQ, dispute resolution processes, and satisfaction with EWOQ as a scheme.

All our dispute resolution benchmark satisfaction scores – rating our accessibility, fairness, accountability, efficiency, effectiveness, and independence – ranged between 85 and 90 per cent.

The satisfaction with our dispute resolution processes rated between 84 and 89 per cent. Overall satisfaction with our scheme was 85 per cent (up from 77 per cent in 2019).

Member portal launch

In May 2021, we launched our member portal to streamline communication with our members. The portal allows scheme participants to update their own team’s contact details and view static reports about their cases.

Development of the portal continues, with further reporting and communications functions planned in the future.