An agreement reached between ARMS Ltd and Identity Malta Agency will allow families to automatically ajdust their utility bills following the birth of a child or the death of a family member.
A memorandum of understanding signed between Identity Malta Agency and ARMS Ltd will allow for the entities to work more efficiently, saving time and effort for customers, the energy ministry said.
“Informing ARMS Ltd of a household’s composition is important as it affects utility bills’ subsidy calculation. Parents notifying the addition of a newborn within the same household can now include their utilities’ account number when filling in the declaration of birth and automatically have the correct subsidy computation charged to their utility bills. By doing so, customers will not need to visit ARMS offices to register the change in household composition, but this is done automatically.”
Once the declaration of notification is submitted—which can be done by hand or online—Identity Malta will alert ARMS Ltd and the latter will update the customer’s utility records in its system. In case the applicant opts to provide Identity Malta Agency with the utilities’ account number, the data will be transferred in strict conformity with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (Cap. 586).
In the case of the death of a person, a similar arrangement is already in place whereby ARMS Ltd automatically re-adjusts the utility bill computation to reflect the number of persons living in the same household.
Speaking after the signing, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development Miriam Dalli held that such an agreement simplifies matters for citizens, reduces bureaucracy and leads to efficiency in the services provided by government entities. “This is the kind of improvement that citizens expect from public entities, where collaboration and cooperation ultimately benefits citizens,” Minister Dalli said.
Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities Alex Muscat applauded both entities for their joint effort in taking a more customer-centric approach. He stated that over 4,000 births and over 3,500 deaths were registered last year, which means that around 8,000 families will benefit from the joint initiative. He described this initiative as a good example of public service that is focused on quality.
Anton Sevasta and Silvio Scerri signed the memorandum of understanding on behalf of Identity Malta Agency and ARMS Ltd, respectively. Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainability Miriam Dalli together with Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities Alex Muscat presided over the signing ceremony.