On 20 December 2020, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) issued a direction to DCC to produce a SEC Variation Testing Approach Document (SVTAD) for the Enduring Change of Supplier (ECoS) Arrangements.
DCC issued a draft ECoS SVTAD for consultation on 14 April 2021, which closed on 14 May 2021. DCC is grateful for the responses received on the ECoS SVTAD consultation.
In total, four organisations responded to the draft ECoS SVTAD all of which broadly supported the proposals. Attached is a DCC consultation conclusion document that was submitted to the Secretary of State with the ECoS SVTAD. The consultation conclusion document addresses the comments made by respondents.
Further to the conclusion of the consultation, DCC has added a clause that allows the DCC to amend the SVTAD for ECoS Arrangements without industry consultation or approval, where those changes are minor or inconsequential for SEC Parties. Based on learnings from other DCC Programmes, this should avoid unnecessary consultation overhead and potentially delays in implementation. DCC has also added a clause that provides for DCC to revise the ECoS TAD in accordance with any request to do so set out in the aforementioned BEIS direction.
The DCC consultation also sought views, on behalf of the Secretary of State, on the SVTAD designation date, which would bring it into legal effect. DCC’s consultation proposed a designation date of 11 June 2021 (or, if necessary, as soon as reasonably practicable within one month thereafter).
BEIS published the final version of the SVTAD for ECoS Arrangements on 23 June 2021. BEIS is, however, consulting on a revised date for designation to formally incorporate the document into the SEC (28 July 2021, or as soon as reasonably practicable within one month thereafter). This will reduce the administrative burden on SECAS that is associated with creating a new version of the SEC each time a change to the document is made.
The BEIS consultation can be found here.