Trust in water companies falls as water bills increase

The majority of households aren’t satisfied with their water company's environmental approach amid April price hikes, research from Ofwat, the water services regulation authority finds.

 Lynn Parker, senior director for casework, enforcement, and customers at Ofwat, said: “This study underscores a concerning trend of declining satisfaction and eroding trust among customers of water companies, especially when it comes to their environmental performance. This breakdown in public confidence is of the companies’ own making, reflecting their own shortfalls in performance.”

Key findings from the study:

• Only 58% of customers are satisfied with the quality of their water supplier, which is a drop from 65% in 2021
• Only 23% of customers trust their water supplier to look after the environment
• Only 21% of customers believe their suppliers acts in the best interest of the environment
• 50% of billpayers said they struggled regularly with household bills
• 65% of billpayers with a health condition, long-term illness or disability struggle with their bills

 Ofwat is now allowed to give water companies fines worth up to 10% of their turnover which is intended to punish suppliers that provide poor customer service or do not comply with new licence conditions when it comes to wastage.

 As part of this, water bosses were banned from getting bonuses if a company had committed serious criminal breaches.

Following the hikes in price and dissatisfaction, Jenny Suggate, director of policy, research and campaigns at the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), has called for more support to struggling families to come from water firms. She said: “Customers’ diminishing trust in water companies is not going to be reversed until people begin to see and feel a marked improvement in both the service they receive and the state of the environment.

 “The rise in people contacting their water company with concerns over their bill underlines why the industry must not turn its back on the commitment it made five years ago to end water poverty by 2030.”