Ofgem Case Study | LCT International
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Ofgem Case Study

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"The whole package โ€“ from registering for the course, which was easy, to the warm reception I received from LCT staff on arrival at the training centre and the courtesy shown to me throughout the training, to the delivery of the course by two fantastic consultants."

LCT inspires Ofgem's Assistant Operations Manager to consider a future career in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as part of her Personal Development Plan (PDP).

Ofgem, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, is the government regulator for gas and electricity markets in Great Britain. It has two primary divisions:

  • Ofgem ‘orange’ (est. 2000) โ€“ responsible for protecting the interests of consumers.
  • Ofgem ‘E-serve’ (est. 2009) โ€“ the delivery arm of Ofgem responsible for the administration and implementation of governmental policies.

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Ofgem โ€˜E-serveโ€™ was established with the remit to administer environmental schemes and consumer and social programmes on behalf of the government. Such initiatives serve to encourage energy efficiency and the uptake of renewable energy amongst consumers, as well as obligating larger energy firms to support fuel poor customers in the UK.

Renewable Electricity Schemes

Renewable Heat Schemes

Energy Efficiency and Social Programmes

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Renewables Obligation (RO)

Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (Domestic RHI)

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Energy Companies Obligation (ECO)

Feed-in Tariff (FIT)

Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (Non-Domestic RHI)

Warm Home Discount ( WHD)

Climate Change Levy (CCL)

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Government Electricity Rebate (GER)

Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO)

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Offtaker of Last Resort (OLR)

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Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) / Scottish Renewable Obligation (SRO)

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Ultimately, these schemes exist to help ensure that government policy targets are met and to future-proof the energy needs of the UK.

Ofgem has approximately 750 employees spread across 3 offices in London, Glasgow, and Cardiff.

The Delegate

Ofgem โ€˜E-serveโ€™ take training and development of staff very seriously. An annual training budget is allocated to each person and this is tied in not only with professional development, but also personal development. Employees undertake a Personal Development Plan (PDP) and are encouraged to share goals and aspirations with their lineย managers. Having already undertaken various professional training courses this year, including Agile Project Management, Effective Policy Delivery, First Line Management, and Effective Operational Delivery, it was agreed that the assistant Operations Manager could take a course in one of her interests โ€“ Corporate Social Responsibility โ€“ as part of her ongoing personal development.

Having been interested in CSR for quite some time, the assistant Operations Manager wanted to learn more in order to assess it as a potential future career choice:

"My overall objective was to obtain a really sound overview to find out whether it's an area that is worth pursuing in the future."

The Course

In order to achieve this objective, the assistant Operations Manager required an introductory course that would consider the fundamentals of CSR in a logical, structured, and stimulating way.

With this in mind, she opted to take LCTโ€™s โ€˜Corporate Social Responsibility โ€“ Level 1โ€™ course for four main reasons:

  1. The outline directly suited her needs.
  2. The course date was suitable.
  3. The price was competitive and within budget.
  4. The course was scalable, making it possible to gain a solid foundation of the subject through Level 1 and return later to build on these skills by taking the Level 2 course.
"The course looked fantastic. After doing my due diligence and researching other relevant courses, I decided that this one was the best for my needs."

The learning objectives were as follows:

  • To understand what Corporate Social Responsibility is and why it is important in the public and private sectors.
  • To assess how organisational behaviour is impacted by CSR.
  • To examine best practice in CSR.
  • To learn how to make a business case for CSR.
  • To develop skills to initiate orย improve CSR programmes withinย organisations.
  • To discover the legal dutiesย company directors must observeย concerning CSR.
  • To examine examples of good and bad business behaviour across different industrial sectors.
  • To explore how business ethics, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance areย converging.
  • To develop and implement a CSR action plan.

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Two consultants โ€“ each with different training styles โ€“ were appointed to facilitate the course over the five day duration. For the participant, this gave added dynamism to the training:

"The first thing I really liked was having two different trainers. It was a real benefit to have two different personalities, styles, perspectives, and expertise."

In addition, the consultants used a wide array of practical training techniques to aid the learning process. These included discussions, presentations, real world examples, case studies, role plays, and the use of video clips and radio recordings. All these ensured that learning was active rather than passive:

"The training pushed me outside of the normal routine of just sitting there in the classroom and absorbing information."

Crucially, it was also highly relevant, with activities being based on real-world examples rather than abstract theory:

"Learning was broken up with lots of activities which I really, really liked. There was a real world dynamic to the training and I learned a lot."

The Result

Following the intensive week-long training, the participant felt that she had achieved her objective of obtaining a comprehensive overview of Corporate Social Responsibility. Throughout the programme, amongst other things, she had learned what CSR is, why it matters, the link with corporate governance, codes of practice within the discipline, environmental and community responsibility, making the business case, how to embed a culture of CSR into an organisation, and creating and implementing a CSR plan – with due emphasis on reporting.

"This course has opened my eyes to the growing importance of CSR and has energised me to look at my career and plan my next move.

As for the training:

"I thought it was excellent... some of the best training I've ever been on!"

Asked what differentiated this course from others, she commented that it was the overall experience:

"The whole package โ€“ from registering for the course, which was easy, to the warm reception I received from LCT staff on arrival at the training centre and the courtesy shown to me throughout the training, to the delivery of the course by two fantastic consultants."

Asked for some final words, she commented:

"The experience at LCT has been brilliant, really brilliant."

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