Open Water has published the latest version of the documents that will govern the competitive retail market for non-household water and sewerage customers when it opens in 2017.

The documents represent a “substantially complete” set of the codes, processes and agreements required to underpin the expansion of retail competition in England.

Published in the form of Appendices, the documents include:

• An overview of the Wholesale–Retail Code, the Wholesale Contract and the Market Arrangements Code
• The wholesale-retail code;
• The wholesale contract; and
• The market arrangements code.

Open Water said it has refined, supplemented and improved the documents by continued to work with companies and other stakeholders since MAP3 was first published, commenting:

“ As before, the level of positive engagement by companies and key stakeholders has been second to none and the scope and depth of the documents are testament to that industry-wide input and effort.”

This included a week-long review of the material published in MAP3; a review of aspects of the operational terms, specifically the part dealing with unplanned activities; and a review of proposals for the calculation of settlement. Ofwat also held a stakeholder workshop on payment and credit cover arrangements.

Open Water said the material set out in the appendices, together with a further update on the initial data upload requirements that will be published within a week, provided a stable basis which was crucial to supporting companies in their preparations. It would also provide potential suppliers of Market Operator systems with a firm basis on which to prepare their final bids.

The overview says that all participants in the market will need to work together to make the market function effectively. All wholesalers and retailers will be required to comply with the market arrangements code which supports the multi-lateral arrangements needed to enable customers to exercise their choice of retailer. 

The main areas of change are:

• Payment and credit cover
• Settlement calculations
• Meter read and submission
• Reporting
• Data catalogue
• Operational terms 

Open Water now intends to publish a further document at the end of July to provide stakeholders with an update on the programme, similar in format to the document for stakeholders published with MAP2. This will set out the key messages for company CEOs and their Boards, along with the supporting materials.

Next steps

The documents that make up the MAP Pre-Vendor Recommendations are in substantially complete form. The recommendations in this Pre-Vendor iteration are made prior to the award of contract to the successful vendor responsible for providing the systems that will support the market.

Open Water will publish a further iteration of the MAP at the end of September, the Post-Vendor MAP Recommendations, to take account of any agreed impact of the vendor’s design on these codes and processes.

However, Open Water is flagging up the fact that further changes may also be required as a result of:

• the issue by Defra of the draft exit regulations, charging guidance and CMA appeal regulations;
• the issue by Ofwat of charging rules, eligibility guidance, licensing and appointment documents, an interim supplier code, and its statutory consultation on the wholesale-retail code.

Provision has been made for further consultation and engagement with market participants in relation to any changes. A workshop has been provisionally booked for 10 and 11 September to review and discuss the anticipated drafting changes in advance of the end September Post-Vendor Recommendations of the MAP.

Open Water said any further changes to the documents would also be considered by the newly-established Interim Codes Panel – and will publish further details about the panel and its work in due course.  Any queries about the documents should be sent to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Click here to access the Appendices