WIREDGOV

A huge gap in the perception of water companies has developed in the space left by water bosses, where greater transparency and openness about delivery could have helped to shape a calmer and better-informed debate.

Customers have justly become increasingly angry, as barely a week seems to pass without a water company attracting headlines due to its poor environmental performance. It’s completely understandable that this has taken its toll on people’s trust in – and perceptions of – the entire water sector.

This was evident in May when we, as the ‘water watchdog’ (CCW), published our annual Water Matters survey of household customers’ views about water and sewerage services. It revealed that trust in water companies has reached a record low, with many measures of service satisfaction heading down a slippery slope at an ever-quickening pace.

Perceptions are important – particularly for customers – when it comes to the environment.

Our research showed that customers’ satisfaction and trust in their water company is driven not by actual performance on pollution and sewer flooding, but by the perception of what it is doing to protect the environment.

In fact, satisfaction with a water company’s environmental performance is the second largest factor in determining customers’ trust in their water company – higher than things like value for money and fairness of charges.

Since publishing Water Matters’ insights, we’ve looked more closely at the detail as to why customers are dissatisfied with their water company’s efforts to protect the environment.

One particular, if obvious, cause for concern is at the very top. 40% of customers blamed their water company for putting ‘too much pollution/sewage into the water’ – up from a quarter of people in the previous year’s survey. This was as many as the next six reasons for dissatisfaction combined!

Over half of people also felt their water company was responsible for river pollution – and this is where a gap opens up between perception and reality, which water company bosses cannot sensibly afford to ignore.

Our deeper analysis revealed that the percentage of people who thought their water company was responsible for polluting rivers did not closely reflect the actual performance of individual companies on spills from storm overflows.

Instead, what emerges is a very noticeable north-south divide. Households were much more likely to think companies in the south of England were responsible for spills, even where their performance was comparatively better. Whereas those living in the north of England were less likely to believe their supplier was responsible for pollution, even where its performance on spills was comparatively poor.

The same pattern can be seen on the issue of sewer flooding. Customers in the north were more likely to be satisfied with their water company’s efforts to reduce sewer flooding, even where this did not reflect actual performance.

Water companies who are performing better on spills but viewed as bad polluters by their customers need to ask themselves why their message is not getting through?

One thing is absolutely clear. People feel strongly about rivers being polluted and their homes being flooded with sewage. This can define how people feel about the organisations they believe are to blame.

Water company leaders cannot afford to stand idly by and allow consumer trust and satisfaction with the sector to continue to seep away. Currently there are huge investment proposals contained in Ofwat’s Price Review draft determinations, which will set water bills from April 2025 to 2030.

The industry has plans for unprecedented investment in reducing spills from storm overflows over these next five years – money that will ultimately flow directly from customers’ pockets. Customers understand the industry needs to invest considerable sums of money to deliver environmental improvements. However customers want to see a good return for their money and also – just as critically – be kept well-informed on the difference it is making.

Big numbers around investment are meaningless unless people see a big difference in performance – clean rivers and seas, high quality drinking water and less interruptions to service.

It’s time for industry leaders to step up and explain and deliver their plans, then keep communicating about progress. If companies fail to do this, the strength of people’s anger and frustration will grow while trust in the sector will continue to shrink.