The water industry regulator has published a document setting out its conclusions on self-supply licences, in particular the exclusions and modifications that Ofwat said it is "minded to make to the standard conditions of the Water Supply and Sewerage Licenses (WSSL) for self-supply licensees."

Self-supply licences allow a person to provide retail services to itself and associated persons, for example companies in the same group. Retail services are customer facing services such as billing, meter reading, customer enquiries and customer side water efficiency measures.

Ofwat previously consulted on itsapproach to self-supply licences in its June 2015 consultation on licensing and policy issues in relation to the opening of the non-household retail market in England in April 2017, setting out its conclusions in December.

In April 2016 Ofwat consulted on the proposed detailed changes to the WSSL standard conditions that it anticipates being applicable to self-supply licensees. The latest document sets out the regulator's conclusions following that consultation, setting out the exclusions and modifications Ofwat is minded to make to the WSSL standard conditions when granting a selfsupply licence. As these are variations to the WSSL standard conditions we will consult on the appropriate modifications each time we are considering an application for a self-supply licence.

The key changes Ofwat now intends to make to the modifications that it consulted on are:

• Ofwat will retain the provisions in the WSSL standard conditions for the conduct of the licensee around product and public liability insurance as this might still be required, for example if the retailer or associated person is providing water to the general public;

• Ofwat will retain the provisions in the WSSL standard conditions requiring information on sensitive customers as it anticipates that self-supply licensees will still need to provide this information to undertakers;

• Rather than require a premises schedule Ofwat has included a requirement on a self-supply licensee to publish a list of associated persons that will be supplied under the licence as this will better facilitate monitoring of self-supply licensees; and

• the regulator will remove the requirement for the self-supply licensee to comply with the Customer Protection Code of Practice (CPCoP) because they are not able to supply unrelated customers.

Ofwat said it will consult on the application of the modifications each time it considers amending the WSSL standard conditions for a self-supply licence.

Click here to download Self-supply licences: conclusions