Data Assurance Service
Accurate and reliable data is critical to the effective operation of the non-household market and delivering good customer service.
MOSL's Data Assurance Service provides a central service to trading parties to support them in reviewing, assuring and improving the quality of their data in the central system (CMOS). The programme does not provide an 'easy fix' for trading parties, but provides a consistent and coordinated approach for them to review supply points and take action where data improvements are needed.
To support the gated approach of the programme, and to manage trading parties workloads, the programme has been split into three phases:
- Phase 1: Market Eligibility - ensuring that supply points are eligible to be in the market
- Phase 2: Address and Premises - ensuring that address and premises data is accurate to enable the supply point to be serviced effectively
- Phase 3: Customer name and Occupancy - ensuring that customer data is accurate and that the site is occupied to support improved customer service
MOSL's 2024-27 Business Plan sets out the activities that will be delivered within each phase. Further information is also provided below, including programme governance and timeline.
'MOSL Talks'
Watch the original interview recorded with former MOSL CIO, John Davies, on the scope of the programme and how it will benefit the market and its customers.
Please note, a descriptive transcript is not provided as the visuals in this video do not provide additional information.
Programme approach
In partnership with a data services provider, MOSL will deliver a central data assessment service to enable trading parties to improve and maintain the data held in CMOS. Trading parties remain the data owners and are responsible for reviewing and updating their data and supply points.
The central service uses CMOS data and matches its to a number of external datasets to identify any inconsistencies or inaccuracies with supply points. This matching provides three levels of confidence (for Phase 1) to help trading parties prioritise their reviews:
- Level one - a supply point with a high level of confidence/likelihood of being ineligible for the non-household market based on matching of CMOS data to external datasets (matching criteria). Level 1 are a priority for trading party review.
- Level two - a supply point with a medium level of confidence/likelihood of being ineligible for the non-household market based on matching of CMOS data to external datasets (matching criteria).
- Level three - a supply point with a low level of confidence/likelihood of being ineligible for the non-household market based on matching of CMOS data to external datasets (matching criteria). While there is a low confidence level, the matching criteria has still flagged the supply point as a potential deregistration.
The data provided to trading parties includes:
- Ineligible premises (residential, demolished, and duplicate)
- Unmatched supply points (i.e., address data insufficient to identify a unique premises with confidence)
- Missing Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) and Valuation Office Agency (VOA) reference data
- Full address data non-deliverable and non-addressable premises.
Programme Governance
We have adopted a gated approach to the programme, which sets out a number of ‘proof points’ to evidence the value in continuing the next phase of work.
We work collaboratively with trading parties during the detailed design over each phase, via a programme Working Group and Steering Group to agree the specific data items that are provided, the mechanism by which feedback is received and addressed and to 'pilot' the phases in advance of them being launched with the wider market. In terms of responsibilities:
MOSL - MOSL is responsible for leading the programme, coordinating the working and steering group meetings and working with the data services provider to test, run and provide the data to trading parties. We are also responsible for monitoring the service and ensuring data quality targets are being met.
Steering Group - The programme Steering Group is responsible for providing strategic input to the programme, ensuring that good governance is in place, risks and issues are understood and mitigated and that programme aims and timelines are understood and adhered to.
Working Group - The programme Working Group is responsible for reviewing and testing of the service (through 'pilots') and providing feedback to MOSL to improve the service for trading parties as the phases progress.
Further information on programme governance and group members is available here.
Programme timeline
The timeline for each of the phases can be found below. This timeline is up-to-date as of end of June 2024.
If you require this timeline in a more accessible format, please contact comms@mosl.co.uk. For further information on what is set to be delivered in 2024/25, please see the Data Assurance Service section of the 2024-27 Business Plan.
Related documents
FAQs
The assurance levels beng used to segment the data required to review as part of the Market Eligibility Assurance phase is as follows:
Level one: high probability to be ineligible due to matches against multiple external data source indicators suggesting household status.
Level two: medium probability due to lesser confident matches against multiple external data source indicators suggesting household status.
Level three: low probability due to single matches to external data source indicators suggesting household status.
As a reminder, whilst trading parties will receive all levels of data, you are only required to review your 'level one' suppy points within 12 months.
MOSL is responsible for implementing, maintaining, and monitoring the service, incentivising data quality improvement and ensuring data quality targets are being met.
As part of this, MOSL is available to providing ongoing support to trading parties.
If you have a query, please raise a query to IT Support via My MOSL.
The Data Assurance Service is a multi-phase assurance programme which will take place across a number of years. The timeline of each phase is dependent on its complexity and will be reviewed before implementation to ensure the commitment from trading parties is reasonable and achievable. The indicative timeline for 2023/24 can be found here.
The first data drop for the Market Eligibility Assurance phase of the programme will take place on 22 November 2023, with data provided to trading parties monthly following this date. The full process is outlined in the specification document, which is available in the Key Documents section.
From 22 November, trading parties will have 12 months to review and assure or de-register their 'level 1' supply points provided by MOSL. Level 1 supply points are defined as those that have the highest match against multiple external data source indicators, suggesting that it holds a household status and is therefore ineglible for the non-household market.
The first and second year of the Data Assurance Service (2023-25) is being funded through Market Operator (MO) charges to wholesalers only – this includes third party costs and MOSL research.
Cost for future years’ will be determined in collaboration with trading parties – it is important to note that this method of funding is by no means creating a precedent for other MOSL activities to be funded solely by wholesalers.
The goals for year one of the service are:
- To develop and implement an assurance service for eligibility, address, and premises (including a small-scale pilot for Customer and Occupancy management)
- For trading parties to review and cleanse high-confidence ineligible premises (expected to be circa 100,000 supply points)
- For trading parties to review and cleanse a sample of high-confidence address/premises issues across a number of use cases (expected to be circa 6,000 supply points in total)
- To assess the veracity and value of a central assessment and cleanse service for each use case, refining the business case for consideration in 2024/25 (as part of business planning)
- To develop a data quality scorecard and define data quality performance metrics that will inform a reformed Market Performance Framework (MPF).
In collaboration with a data services provider and market-led working group, MOSL will deliver a centrally supported data assurance service to enable trading parties to improve and maintain their data held in CMOS.
MOSL will be responsible for implementing, maintaining, and monitoring the service, incentivising data quality improvement and ensuring data quality targets are being met.
Trading parties will remain the data owners and will be responsible for making the appropriate changes to their data in CMOS.
Through our position at the centre of the non-household market, MOSL has a unique opportunity to drive centralised change to improve the quality of data it holds in CMOS. Accurate and reliable data is critical to an effective operation of the market.
Responding to this, as well as member feedback, MOSL committed to delivering a data cleanse plan for core market items, and issued a Request for Information (RFI) in October 2020 to seek input from trading parties on the costs and challenges of managing poor quality data. In April 2022, Project TIDE (Transformation in Data Enrichment) was established to look at how data quality could be improved. Our data services partner, Sagacity, undertook a Data Quality Assessment to investigate the extent of the issues in the market. The results of this were shared with the market, and were used as part of the consultation for a Central Data Cleanse consultation in November 2022.