EWOV's community outreach and policy work
Information for community agency workers in Victoria, Australia     

EWOV’s community outreach work
Visits programme
Workshops for elderly and culturally and linguistically diverse consumers
Fact sheets and other publications
Submissions
Projects
Consumer awareness surveys 

EWOV’s community outreach work

EWOV’s Charter, and the Benchmarks for Industry-based Customer Dispute Resolution
Schemes (National Benchmarks), require the Ombudsman to promote awareness of the
EWOV scheme to the public.

Achieving awareness of EWOV isn't something we can do once and then forget about.
It’s an ongoing task. Our main approach is to work through Victorian community agencies.
We want to make sure that you, the community agency workers of Victoria, have a good understanding of what we do—so you can refer your clients to us, or deal directly with us
on behalf of your clients.

Each year we draw up a community liaison strategy. This sets the priorities and targets
for the year within our resources. For 2007-08, the key priority was to reach outer
metropolitan areas because our data showed lower complaint rates in some of those areas.
For 2008-09, a priority is to increase awareness among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers, partly because our analysis shows they aren't accessing our services
in proportion to their population.

EWOV has a Community Liaison Administrator (CLA) who is responsible for our community
liaison work, reporting to the Manager Public Affairs and Policy.   

Back to top

Visits programme

A major focus each year is the four to six visits made by the Ombudsman and other
members of staff to selected locations. Generally, the visit will include a community briefing. The CLA will contact and invite representatives from all the community agencies in the area.
As well, the Ombudsman will have one-on-one meetings with key agencies, especially
financial counselling and housing agencies. Often issues come up at those meetings that
provide a focus for EWOV’s community outreach work into the future. For example, our transitional housing project came out of the discussions the Ombudsman had with transitional housing managers during community visits. For more details, see the Housing issues and EWOV webpage.

The visits programme for 2008-09 will include visits to Echuca and Shepparton.
We welcome suggestions for the visits programme, either places to visit or agencies to meet with. Contact Candyce Presland, Community Liaison Administrator, via website@ewov.com.au
or 1800 500 509.

Back to top

Workshops for elderly and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers

Our casework has shown that elderly and CALD consumers are sometimes subjected to inappropriate energy marketing. Sometimes energy retailers are too quick to assume that
there has been explicit informed consent.

We've developed a workshop with supporting materials to explore these issues.
Time permitting and, if it's relevant to your clients, we'd be pleased to present it to
your agency. It's been well received each time we've presented it.

Back to top

Fact sheets and other publications

We've recently expanded our range of fact sheets. There are now fact sheets available
on EWOV’s fact sheet webpage on:

• Charges on water bills
• Transitional housing and utilities
• Payment assistance
• Disconnection (of electricity/gas) and restriction (of water) for debt
• Meters

We publish extensive information about the complaints we handle and our community
outreach and policy work. Our six-monthly Resolution newsletter contains extensive data, including the complaint trends of each energy and water company. It also has case studies.

Our Annual Report is also rich in data. It includes information about systemic issues dealt
with in the reporting year, reports about issues and activities, and details of case rates
per 1,000 residents for each Shire and Council area in Victoria.

Back to top

Submissions

A major part of EWOV’s policy work is making submissions to regulators and government authorities. We believe it's important that the insights and experiences of our case handling work are part of public debate and policy formation. Many of our submissions are to the Essential Services Commission. We've also made extensive submissions to the Ministerial
Council on Energy, as we think it’s important that the standards of consumer protection in Victoria be retained in the move towards national energy regulation.

Sometimes EWOV joins with other energy and water Ombudsman schemes to put in united Australia & New Zealand Energy and Water Ombudsman Network (ANZEWON) submissions
—as this enhances their effectiveness. We did that with the Productivity Commission’s
recent influential inquiry into Australia’s Consumer Policy Framework.

All of our submissions can be read on our website.

Back to top

Projects

Sometimes EWOV takes on, or gets involved in, specific projects where we can see a role
for us to make a difference to the utility issues being experienced by particular groups.

For example:

• Working with prisoners When people are entering prison, their utility
  arrangements are probably not front of mind, but if they don’t do something
  about them, debts might accrue. Working with Corrections Victoria and the Good Shepherd Youth and Family Services (whose idea it was), we’ve contributed to
  a process by which people entering prison are given a chance to finalise or change
  their utility accounts. Another process allows exiting prisoners to set up accounts
  so that they are connected when they leave prison. The project has focused on
  women prisoners but, in early 2008, it was extended to male prisoners entering
  Melbourne Remand Centre and Melbourne Assessment Prison. We appreciate the
  co-operation of the energy and water companies in this project.
  
  
• Office of Housing project – see the Housing issues and EWOV webpage.
  
  
• Transitional housing project – see the Housing issues and EWOV webpage.
  
  
• Koories: Know Your Rights! Project This project is co-ordinated by the
  Indigenous Consumers Unit of Consumer Affairs Victoria. It involves EWOV
  and a range of other agencies visiting Indigenous communities around Victoria.
  
  
• Youth postcard project This project has been run by the Australian and
  New Zealand Ombudsman Association (ANZOA), with the aim of boosting
  awareness of Ombudsmen by younger people. The current postcard is on
  ANZOA’s website. EWOV and other Ombudsman schemes have jointly held
  information stalls during University and TAFE orientation weeks.

Back to top 

Consumer awareness surveys

One way we road test awareness of the EWOV scheme is through annual surveys
of general consumer awareness. The key results of our recent surveys (conducted
online by an independent consultant) were as follows:

 Back to top

Last updated: 13 June 2008

Suggestions for EWOV’s community outreach and policy work: website@ewov.com.au

Feedback about this webpage: website@ewov.com.au

For enquiries and complaints, phone 1800 500 509 or see our enquiries and complaints webpages.