As the electricity provider we have a critical role to play in maintaining a reliable electricity supply to our 3.8 million customers throughout the year. We take our responsibilities within our communities seriously and have five customer promises that govern our activities. They are; putting safety first, respecting you, your time and your property, doing a really good job, being there when you need us and caring for our local environment.
Our company ethos to put our customers and their communities first is well embedded in the company and underpins our operating procedures.
We have emergency procedures that are triggered in times of high power cut situations, weather related incidents or long duration faults where people are without power for some time. As well as redeploying staff from planned works to help restore power as quickly as possible, we also use customer service vehicles to visit the heart of areas affected. These vans distribute hot drinks, microwave meals and generally check on the welfare of affected residents. In support of these procedures our ‘customer ambassadors’ will pay particular attention to customers who have registered on our Priority Services Register. These customers have registered either directly with us or through their electricity supply company to say that they are a vulnerable customer or have a higher dependency on electricity in that particular household. Working in conjunction with the call agents in the Customer Relations Centre we can issue that these high priority customers are comfortable and are being kept informed of the situation throughout the event and even after the power is restored. This also allows us to escalate support procedures such as relocating customers or generating properties should we need to. We also seek the support of organisations such as WRVS who can also assist in checking the welfare of our customers.
Our charity and sponsorship programme supports this approach and actively encourages our employees to have an active role in their local communities through the Global Days of Service programme. Employees can receive funding for their local community groups by having donations made to the value of the hours they have volunteered and committed to their community groups in the areas where they live, work and serve. We are very proud of our employees and the wider role they play in their communities.
Our partnership programme with England Athletics promotes sports activity through our local schools. As well as promoting safety around our assets our mascot, Vic Voltage, also promotes healthy living and we have a web page dedicated to this http://athletics.northernpowergrid.com/page/index.cfm. We see over 40,000 children each and every year to ensure that safety around our assets and the dangers surrounding this are fully understood by our local communities and we work closely with schools to maximise the impact of this programme.
Learn more about our work with the community through the links below: