Today the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) publishes its consultation paper entitled “Guidelines for developing Licensee Consumer Complaints Handling Procedures – ECS 23/2011”.

URCA is seeking views from members of the public, licensees and interested parties in relation to the introduction of a minimum set of criteria to be included by Licensees in developing Complaints Procedures. Such criteria aim to provide practical guidance for the step by step handling of a complaint by the Licensees and should also inform the consumer of the level of response to be expected from such Licensees when resolving their complaints. In this consultation, URCA is focused on establishing certain high level standards for complaints handling to ensure that consumers are able to easily know how to make a complaint and that consumers can be confident that their service provider will have in place the appropriate processes to receive and resolve complaints in a transparent and timely manner.

Copies of the consultation document can be downloaded by clicking on the PDF document under the Publications Tab.