Following the General Meeting on 20th April 2018, Tony Thornton decided to step down from his role as UKRPA Chairman following seven successful years in office.
With the support of a strong Executive Committee, the Association has secured many notable achievements during that time, including:
- Revamping the UKRPA strategy to focus on its core values
- Growth in membership numbers from 12 to 25
- Establishment of a quarterly members forum, to encourage roundtable discussion of best practice solutions to industry issues
- Successful delivery of three National Revenue Protection Conferences and four educational seminars
- Creation of an anonymous fraud reporting helpline, with over 15,000 reports disseminated to Suppliers and Distributors to date
- Numerous television and radio appearances (including BBC, ITV, Channel 5, Sky), working to raise public awareness of energy theft issues
- Representation of member views through responses to consultations, including Ofgem’s Tackling Electricity Theft and Tackling Gas Theft, and the Sentencing Council’s Theft Offences Guideline Consultation
At its meeting in January 2018, the UKRPA Committee reaffirmed its preference for a Chair independent of its membership. Accordingly, the Committee ratified Paul Rocke as the replacement Chair, who assumes the role with immediate effect.
Paul has worked tirelessly within the energy industry for over eight years as an employee of Gemserv. He brings invaluable knowledge and skills to the Association, drawing from his experience with central market code governance and trade associations within the electricity and gas space. He currently chairs a number of groups and has worked very closely with Tony since 2013, to deliver services to the UKRPA.
It will be business as usual for the UKRPA, with Paul being ably supported in his role by Rachel Bird (as the UKRPA Secretary). At the General Meeting, the membership elected its Committee for 2018/19. The following representatives were unanimously elected to the Committee:
- Ian Main, Scottish Power (Vice Chair)
- Mike Wilkinson, npower Meterplus (Vice Chair)
- Lynne Fallon, Centrica (Executive Committee Member)
- Karen Ainsworth, Electricity North West (Executive Committee Member)
- Claire Copplestone, SSE Metering (Executive Committee Member)