Services-Framework-High Court Enforcement and Bailiff Services

Description

United Utilities Water Limited (UUW) are looking to award agreements to 2 High Court Enforcement suppliers to deliver high performing recoveries management. Suppliers will be expected to fully utilise the powers of recovery granted under the 2007 Courts and Tribunals Act to maximise the level of collections for UUW to recover outstanding charges from a segment of its household customer base, whilst at the same time ensuring that UUW’s CMEx performance is not adversely affected. The scope of the delivery of this service will include but is not limited to the following areas; • Collections • Compliance • Vulnerability training and awareness • System integration • Reporting • Complaints handling • Invoicing and payment processing • Customer payment method and self-service options • Data and segmentation • Continual innovation Lot 1: A key part of UUW’s strategy is to recover outstanding charges from household customers via the use of High Court Enforcement Officers and the powers that they have. The supplier will be expected to follow Regulatory classifications and guidelines to fully utilise the powers of recovery granted under the 2007 Courts and Tribunals Act, to maximise the level of collections for UUW whilst at the same time ensuring that UUW’s CMEx performance is not adversely affected. Extensive segmentation within UUW's debt manager system ensures that only customers with certain attributes are progressed down this route. This segmentation takes into account the customer’s credit score, behavioural score, home ownership and employment status. Only UUW customers who are deemed to have the ability to pay and are wilfully avoiding payment are progressed down this route. As such, UUW do not expect to see vulnerable customers, particularly financially vulnerable customers going through this strategy. However, if vulnerable customers are placed through this strategy, we do expect them to be treated in a way which provides the required level of protection. All agents must be trained to the highest standards and ensure that they identify any potential vulnerability and claims of vulnerability and where required refer the customer/debtor to a prescribed support group or the third sector.