Affordability and tariffs

We want our bills to be affordable for all customers.

Debt recovery indicators, such as increasing unpaid bills and increasing bankruptcies during the year, indicate a growing strain on people’s finances.

We are committed to providing affordable services for all customers. For those who have genuine difficulties paying, we have a package of schemes and a specific tariff that sets out an affordable payment routine.

Our Assist tariff, launched three years ago and fully approved by Ofwat this year, has proved very successful. It was the first of its kind and remains the only formal water company social tariff, offering a lower tariff based on customers’ ability to pay.

A round 6,000 customers have already benefited from the tariff, making a contribution to water and sewerage services but at a rate designed to get them back on track. We have found that by engaging positively with this group of customers, reducing their bill while directing them towards practical help with their finances we have increased the amount of payment we have received.

On average we have reduced charges by 50% to customers on Assist but at the same time increased the amount of payment received from them by 30%.

Our Restart schemes, also designed to help customers who are struggling to pay, are continuing to work well. Evidence suggests that 14 out of 15 people on the schemes do not fall into arrears again.

To try and address the issue of rising bad debt, we are introducing a new debt recovery system. This will focus on better ways to discern which customers really have money problems and will improve overall debt recovery.