Audit Issue Action Plans Checklist

Who is this guide for?

If you are a BSC Party or Party Agent that has received an Audit Issue with either a Mediumor Higherrating, you will be asked to submit an Error and Failure Resolution (EFR) plan.

This guide will help you prepare your EFR plan.

What is EFR?
EFR is a Performance Assurance Technique which helps ensure that, where Settlement Risks are detected, adequate plans are put in place to address them. For more information please refer to our Error and Failure Resolution (EFR)guidance

Key timescales

You need to send your EFR plans in and amend them as set out below (all are also contained within BSCP538: Error and Failure Resolution).

Action / Timescale / Who?
1 / ELEXON informs you which of your Audit Issues require an EFR action plan to be submitted within 20 Working Days. / The notification will be sent by ELEXON once the Auditor has confirmed the ratings for each audit issue it has identified. / ELEXON - The EFR team will usually send the email to you and copy your OSM in the correspondence.
2 / Upon receiving the notification, you should send ELEXON a plan to address the error or failure. / 20WD / Audited organisation
3 / ELEXON then reviews the plan and either; baselines the plan if we are satisfied with it or; provide comments on the plan explaining where changes or further considerations are needed.
If ELEXON returns comments, the updated plan is required within 10WD (in accordance with BSCP538. / 20WD / ELEXON – Your OSM will be the main point of contact regarding this
4 / You should update the plan to address ELEXON comments. / 10WD / Audited organisation
5 / Step 3 and 4 have to be completed again until a plan is baselined. / See steps 3 and 4
6 / Once the plan is in place, ELEXON will monitor your milestones. You need to provide us an update on the milestones in your plan. / Within 5WDof the milestone / Audited organisation

Your OSM will be responsible for maintaining contact with you and you should send all the required documentation to them. However, your Operational Support Manager (OSM) can refer you to the EFR analyst and then to the Performance Assurance Board (PAB)if:

You significantly exceed the timescales;
You did not provide enough comment or updates on iterations that are taking place or the comments provided by ELEXON have not been accepted or addressed.

The PABmonitors audit issues in EFR. ELEXON may provide monthly updates on your progress towards resolving these issues to the committee.

What is PAB?
The Performance Assurance Board is a BSC Panel sub-committee responsible for providing assurance that all participants in the BSC arrangements are suitably qualified and that the relevant standards are maintained. The committee is made up of industry experts.

What you need to do
This section outlines some of the steps that you should do following the Audit. This list is not exhaustive but the steps outlined would help you to cooperate with ELEXON more successfully and solve the Issue as efficiently as possible.
Read the Audit issue(s) carefully and consider its impact on your business and processes.
Look up the relevant BSCP or BSC reference to provide some context. More information is available on the BSC Website.
Start considering what you need to do to rectify the issue. Who should be involved? How much resources you will need? Make sure you can update ELEXON regularly on the progress and what would be the ways to show improvements.
If you have any concerns with the auditor’s assessment, please discuss this with your OSM, preferably prior to submitting an action plan. If the concerns are raised later, it will prolong the process of baselining the plan.
Once you draw up an action plan, please review it against the checklists below to ensure all the essential requirements of an audit plan have been covered. If you believe there is a discrepancy, please amend the plan or discuss this with your OSM.
Please make sure you explain all the acronyms you use in the plan. Even if you believe that the acronyms are commonly used.
Your OSM will send you any comments on the gaps or concerns that were identified in the plan during the ELEXON review, if any. Please ensure you address the gaps in the next action plan and all the questions in the check list below could be answered ‘yes’ and the plan is baselined.

Checklists for organisations to internally review EFR action plans for Audit Issues

General requirements

All of the points on this checklist should be completed. If they are not, please contact your OSM so that they can discuss this with the EFR analyst. If the action plan relates to backlogs, software changes or process failure the checklists (below) for each of the relevant issue types should also be completed.

Action Plan Requirement / In Plan? Y/N
1 / The plan submitted has been revised for this audit period (not an old plan which has been resent)
2 / For audit issues that have existed for more than one year (and were covered in previous audit(s)), please specify what failed in the previous plan and introduce another way of addressing it this year.
3 / The plan should have regular (at least bi-monthly) timescales to provide ELEXON with reassurance that the issue is being adequatelyaddressed and working (even if this is a milestone confirming no re-occurrence of the problem for that reporting period)
4 / In cases where the auditor has found an issue from a sample, you should check the rest of the portfolio (either by checking each instance or by further sample checks) to determine the extent of the issue across the portfolio and any issues found are corrected.
5 / After reading the issue found by the auditor, the plan clearly describes a means of addressing the defect and a Forecast Issue Closure date of when your organisation anticipates the full resolution of this issue
6 / The plan provides the details of a senior manager or director within the organisation that is responsible for supporting the plan. This person should have reviewed the plan.

Plans which have software changes as a solution Yes/No

Please complete this checklist for all plans which specify a software change as all or part of the solution to the issue.

Action Plan Requirement / In Plan? Y/N
1 / Does the plan make it clear how the proposed software change will address the audit issue once implemented?
Regular Milestones should be in place to demonstrate that this interim manual approach is working.
2 / Does the plan also address what will be done to improve processes manually until the software is deployed?
3 / Does the plan make it clear when the software will be deployed and have a clear milestone for deployment?
4 / Does the plan make it clear that this deployment is a priority for the organisation’s IT team?
Regular milestones to confirm the plan for implementation is still on target should be in place.
5 / Following deployment, does the plan have regular milestones to receive reports demonstrating that the software fix is in and is working?

Plans in response to missed actions or timescales Yes/No

Please complete this checklist for all plans which specify a missed action or timescale is the cause or part of the cause of the issue.

Action Plan Requirement / In Plan? Y/N
1 / Does the action plan contain a clear statement of how your processes will change to ensure missed process steps or timescales will be captured going forward?
2 / Does the action plan detail how any previous errors (identified by the auditor) will be addressed if necessary?
3 / Does the action plan detail how your staff will be informed/trained on the changes to the process?
4 / Does the action plan detail how the management will monitor to ensure the new process will be adhered to and provide ELEXON regularly with a copy of the management reports to show ELEXON that it is working in line with the BSC and any exceptions have been recorded and robustly dealt with?

Plans in response to backlogs Yes/No

Please complete this checklist for all plans which specify a backlog is the cause or part of the cause of the issue.

Action Plan Requirement / In Plan? Y/N
1 / Does the plan provide a clear analysis of the root causes that are leading to a backlog being built up within systems?
This should be accompanied by milestones with mitigating actions against each root cause identified (with evidence that the root cause is being addressed).
2 / Does the plan provide clear backlog numbers which match to the audit issue?
It is often helpful if these are categorised so that the “working” of the backlogs can be discussed in more detail if necessary.
3 / Does the plan provide a monthly plan of backlog reduction to reduce the numbers of the backlog within either compliant spectrum or to a match number in the backlog that would be considered a “lower” or “closed” issue by the auditor.
4 / Does the plan detail the resource assigned to tackling the backlog and detail how much of the backlog would be expected to be tackled by one full time member of staff per day or per week? Does this resource projection match with the monthly plan of backlog reduction and is it ambitious enough?

Need more information?

Please speak to yourOperational Support Manageror Anna Millar (EFR Analyst) and they will be able to guide you through this process.

For further information please contact the BSC Service Deskat or call 0870 010 6950.

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7 August2017Version2.0