On 19 June 2020 we committed to create a one-off $2m Lockdown Relief Fund to help support RSPs whose customers experienced hardship during the Covid-19 lockdown and requested your feedback on this by Thursday 2 July.

As a result of that feedback, we’ve decided to simplify the way in which we distribute that $2m and do this by market share to any RSP that notifies us that they wish to benefit from the Lockdown Relief Fund before 31 August 2020.  

What are the details

Feedback themes

Thank you to those of you who took the time to provide feedback on our proposal, industry themes can be summarised as follows;   

• The amount of assistance offered should be tied to actual bad debt incurred by the industry over a longer period (i.e. not just lockdown), but
• Supports Chorus’ leadership in providing support to the industry (so other wholesalers will follow), and
• Make the claim mechanism simple, and
• Allocating relief by market share seems fair.

After considering all feedback received, we have simplified the claim mechanism and the way the fund is distributed. 

Revised framework

RSPs can claim their allotment of the $2m Lockdown Relief Fund provided they sign a “claim form” by 31 August 2020 acknowledging;

1. Chorus is providing the fund to relieve RSPs who supported customers and kept them connected through hardship incurred during the Covid-19 lockdown period (25 March 2020 to 8 June 2020),
2. The $2m will be allocated to claimant RSPs by market share. Market share will be calculated as follows:

The sum of a Chorus Access Line Fees on ADSL, VDSL & BS2 NGA Connections incurred by the claimant RSP in the month of June 2020 (less any connections signed up as by the claimant RSP part of the Covid-19 MOE Support Package)  divided by the sum of all Chorus Access Line Fees on all ADSL, VDSL & BS2 NGA Connections incurred in the month of June 2020 (less any such connections signed up as part of the Covid-19 MOE Support Package) 

1. RSPs will receive their allocation via a one-off account credit in September 2020,
2. It is Chorus’ intention to distribute any unclaimed portion of the $2m, i.e. should an RSP choose not to claim, to at least one charity (nominated charity(ies) to be determined by Chorus once the scale of donation is known).

Please note: RSPs are NOT required to provide a list of affected customers and Chorus will NOT be auditing how RSPs choose to use their allotment.

Next steps

If you would like to make a claim on our Lockdown Recovery Fund please sign and return a PDF copy of the Lockdown Recovery Fund claim form before 5:00pm Monday 31 August 2020 to RecoveryFundFeedback@chorus.co.nz 

Contact

For any queries please contact Hamish Buchanan or  Hannah Croft  at first instance.