The purpose of the Switching Rules is to establish a set of gas switching and registry arrangements that will enable consumers to choose, and alternate, efficiently and satisfactorily between competing retailers. The Rules provide for:

• the appointment of a Registry Operator. More information on the Registry Operator can be found in Current Arrangements;
• the establishment, population and operation of the registry;
• the management of information held by the registry;
• a process for switching consumers between retailers;
• audits of registry participants; and
• a process for dealing with retailer insolvency

The Switching Rules were amended, as part of the Registry Amendments Project, to incorporate additional metering fields into the Registry and to refine the switching process and improve other Registry processes. At the same time, provisions were added to the Switching Rules to ensure the integrity of registry data in the event of a retailer insolvency. Details of the latter arrangements can be found on the Retailer Insolvency page.

The amendments to the Switching Rules took effect on 14 September 2015 following an implementation project and industry-wide data cleansing programme. Further background can be found in Registry Amendments Project and the Registry Amendments Implementation page.