Utility Bills Will Automatically Update After Birth Of A Child Or Loss Of Family Member

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A memorandum of understanding has been signed between Identity Malta and ARMS Limited which will allow families to automatically adjust utility bills following the birth of a child or the passing of a family member. Here’s what it entails.

Working efficiently

After the signing, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development Miriam Dalli said the reduced bureaucracy and increased efficiency is a natural step. “This is the kind of improvement that citizens expect from public entities, where collaboration and cooperation ultimately benefit citizens,” she said.

The process means the entities can work in a way that saves time and effort for customers, and a more accurate estimate for the utility bill’s subsidy can be calculated. When filing the birth declaration of a new child, parents can also include their utilities’ account number. This way, they won’t need to visit ARMS offices and register the change but it’s done automatically.

The declaration can be submitted online or by hand, after which Identity Malta will notify ARMS Ltd about the change. ARMS will then update the respective utility records, and should applicants 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 case of a death

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.

Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities Alex Muscat, who was also in attendance, 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. “There’s no need to fill in different forms for different agencies, which reduces bureaucracy and simplifies the service for the users.”

Mr Anton Sevasta and Mr 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.

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