The Essential Services Commission has formed a partnership with key experts to develop better practice guides for energy and water utilities to support consumers who are experiencing family violence. Utility spoke with social entrepreneur and Adjunct Associate Professor, University of New South Wales School of Social Sciences, Catherine Fitzpatrick, about her role in this partnership and how utilities can help put a stop to domestic violence.
The Essential Services Commission’s (ESC) Safety by Design partnership brings together a team of independent experts in family violence and economic abuse – Thriving Communities Partnership, Flequity Ventures (Catherine Fitzpatrick), Safe and Equal, and the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety – to investigate potential risks in the systems of energy and water businesses and prevent these products and services from being weaponised against consumers experiencing family violence.
Ms Fitzpatrick has already authored two ‘Designed to Disrupt’ reports for the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety that identified key risks for product misuse in the banking and general insurance sectors. As part of this partnership, she will be creating two new reports for the energy and water sectors.
Uncovering the hidden tactics of financial abuse
Family violence and economic abuse often go hand in hand, with one in four Australian women impacted by domestic abuse, and one in six suffering from economic abuse.
Financial abuse is a subset of economic abuse where the perpetrator controls the victim by denying or restricting their access to money. This kind of abuse can have devastating effects on the victim, ultimately making it more difficult for them to escape an abusive situation.
Ms Fitzpatrick explained that financial abuse is often a hidden problem, and many victims/survivors don’t even realise that they are experiencing it.
“Financial abuse is a form of control, exploitation or sabotage that means that the victim survivor has no financial security, which limits their potential for any self-sufficiency.
“What that could look like is racking up of debts in somebody else’s name. In water or energy, if there’s an ability to open an account online and not necessarily check that the person who’s paying that bill is the person who’s actually incurring the cost, then that could be weaponised in the context of domestic and family violence.
“Financial abuse is not just a form of coercive control; it also is one reason why women might need to choose between violence or poverty,” Ms Fitzpatrick said
Financial abuse can also start or worsen with separation and the effects are long lasting for the victims, including:
- Making it harder for victims to leave or seek help
- Victims can be left with long-term debt
- Victims’ ability to gain employment can be restricted, as they are unable to access a vehicle or other essentials
- Victims’ credit scores can be impacted
- It affects physical and mental wellbeing, housing security, access to insurance and access to utilities and other essential needs
Perpetrators of financial abuse often restrict or weaponise these essential needs and services against victims, and the Safety by Design partnership is striving to put a stop to this misuse.
Ms Fitzpatrick said that the partnership is looking to uncover these tactics and investigate the ways in which perpetrators are weaponising water and energy services.
“What we do know, from what victims/survivors and people who work in financial counselling and the women’s safety sector tell us, is that any services that have a joint account or can be accessed online, are ripe for financial abuse.
“What I might imagine that we would uncover is – similar to banking and insurance – a perpetrator might refuse to pay the bill and then leave that for the victim/survivor to try to pay on their own. So, they are incurring a debt that they can’t really afford, and [perpetrators would] do that constantly as a form of coercive control.
“There has also been research that shows that 60 per cent of women who fled abuse reported one or more of the following: they couldn’t pay electricity, gas or telephone bills on time; they couldn’t heat or cool their home; they couldn’t pay their mortgage on time; and they have pawned something to get cash or gone without meals. That’s a huge proportion of women who experienced domestic and family violence who can’t pay their bills,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
Identifying and supporting at risk customers
The partnership will also investigate some of the key signs that a customer is experiencing this type of abuse and how processes can be improved to better identify and support these women.
Ms Fitzpatrick’s first piece of advice is to believe someone if they tell you they’re experiencing domestic violence.
“You need to understand that they’re only going to tell you about this because they want you to factor in their need for flexibility and safety, as they are seeking help.
“Someone also might not say the words ‘domestic and family violence’, but they may talk about having trouble paying their bills. They may say, ‘I didn’t know that there was that account in my name’ or ‘can you give me details of my account?’ Because all of those things might be being withheld.
“If you think about the courage it takes to disclose something that’s making them extremely unsafe and
that is deeply personal, then that’s why it’s really important that organisations believe them and put into place appropriate responses,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
Driving sector-wide change
To tackle this issue, the Safety by Design partnership will conduct research with victims/survivors and support workers in the women’s safety sector to gain an in-depth understanding of victims’ experience with energy and water utilities and uncover any loopholes in their services that can be weaponised. It will then look at how these products can be updated to disrupt that abuse.
“I just think it’s a great partnership because it brings together the regulator, the community sector and my experiences in business,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
“What will come out of the partnership is that I will be writing two more Designed to Disrupt papers. I’ve written two of these industry blueprints so far: one is for banking, and one is for insurance. The next two will be on water and one on energy.
“These papers will make a series of observations about the ways that products and services are being weaponised and also make recommendations – based on that lived experience and based on consultations with the industry regulators and ombudsman – on how energy and water companies can address them, and how the industry might respond collectively. It will also potentially include recommendations for how regulators could think about things differently.
“The blueprint of Designed to Disrupt is aiming to give a really practical guide to business on what they can do in response. Some of it will be complex, but some of it will be easy.
“The aim of my paper is to provide that blueprint and then the rest of the project, beyond the papers, will then help to develop toolkits and resources that should make it easier for businesses to prevent the weaponisation of their products and services and to provide greater protection to victims survivors.”
Ms Fitzpatrick said that the results from her previous work in the banking and insurance sectors could potentially inform not just the steps that utilities can take, but how Australia’s essential services as a whole could better support survivors and victims of domestic abuse.
“I think there’s a real opportunity to look across sectors and say, ‘what are the common issues?’ Our systems and processes and products and services can be enabling abuse, because they don’t necessarily have a design that protects against abuse.
“When people start thinking about how they can support customers, they obviously start with, how do they better support victims/survivors. What my papers aim to do is say, ‘well, while you’re doing that, can you also take a look at if you are inadvertently enabling abuse and close some of those loopholes’,”
“What we’ve seen in banking is that people were sending one cent payments to others with threats and abuse and intimidation in the payment description. After speaking to the eSafety Commissioner, banks have now put blocks in to stop bad or inappropriate language in real time.”
Ms Fitzpatrick said that artificial intelligence is also used to run over the transactions and detect patterns. From there, several banks will write to people who send the inappropriate messages to inform them that the messages have been seen and that there could be repercussions, including account closures or suspension.
“What we found is that 90 per cent of customers who receive those letters, stop sending abuse through bank accounts.”
Ms Fitzpatrick says that she hopes her paper will help energy and water utilities gain a better understanding of the ways in which their products and services are being misused and weaponised in the context of domestic and family violence.
“I’d like the project to be able to shine a light on where the opportunities are for businesses, for the industry more broadly and for regulators to take further steps to both provide greater protection for victims/survivors.
Ms Fitzpatrick said she also hopes her papers send a strong signal that everyone has a role to play in preventing domestic and financial abuse, and that everyone should take it seriously.
“We want to change this terrible crisis in Australia and make it safer for women. It’s quite extraordinary when a business takes action to say, this is what acceptable customer behaviour is and this is what is not tolerated. It can change human behaviour. I believe that putting financial abuse in the spotlight, talking about the weaponisation of products and sending that very strong signal from business, is likely to drive a cultural change.”
Featured image: Bricolage/shutterstock.com
