A group of energy retailers are close to completing their new code of practice for door-to-door electricity sales.

Energy Assured Limited is a working group set up to develop and manage the code.

The code was first authorised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2011, and is aimed at creating better standards for face-to-face energy sales.

As well as a new code of practice the Energy Assured scheme will provide training and accreditation of sales agents, regulate the conduct of face-to-face sales agents and monitor energy retailers in their dealings with consumers.

The code will apply when energy products are sold through house visits and, in the proposed new version of the code, in other face-to-face settings such as at kiosks at shopping centres.

It contains a number of changes to the responsibilities and penalties for energy companies, and the salespeople representing them.

“The [Energy Assured] scheme provides a framework for training sales agents and provides for sanctions, including deregistration, for sales agents who do not comply with the standards set by the code,” ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said.

“[It] has made a positive impact in educating sales agents about their obligations... and in removing rogue sales agents from the industry.”

The Energy Assured body had proposed to replace yearly audits of compliance with the code with “periodic compliance checks”, but the ACCC is not in favour.

The Commission has given a nod of support to strengthening the penalties for energy retailers with systemic breaches of the code, it is looking lower the threshold for what constitutes a systemic breach.

The ACCC has given its support, in draft, to the latest version of the updated code of practice. The regulator believes responsibility needed to be increased and shifted toward energy retailers themselves, beyond disciplining individual sales agents.

“The ACCC is concerned that the scheme, as it is currently operating, does not focus sufficiently on the accountability of energy retailers for the behaviour of sales agents employed by them. This has the potential to limit the extent to which the scheme achieves its aim of improving standards in face-to-face energy sales,” Ms Rickard said.

There will soon be new rules for salespeople who compare contracts available from a range of energy retailers.

These changes would require comparators, when engaged in face-to-face sales, to:

  • disclose whether the commission they will receive for the energy contract they recommend to the consumer is greater than the commission they would receive for products against which the recommended product has been compared
  • disclose to the customer all retailers offering services in their area and highlight those which the comparator has used as a point of comparison in recommending a particular contract
  • upon a request to do so by the consumer, disclose underlying assumptions on which the comparison or recommendation is made

The ACCC has given its support to most of the proposed changes, and now says it now look to adopt similar disclosure rules for telephone and internet-based comparisons.

More information about the authorisation process is available on the public register.