Our achievements in 2022-23

We have delivered a wide range of benefits for water consumers and we’ve summarised some of our key achievements for consumers across England and Wales

A year of collaboration

Over 25 workshops and events with over 500 attendees

We forged strong partnerships to tackle some of the most pressing issues affecting consumers. Whether that was our Support on Tap campaign with Water UK to bolster awareness of financial assistance; joining forces with water companies to help households reduce their water and energy use or working with Ofwat to improve support for sewer flooding victims.

Campaigning – what have we delivered

End Sewer Flooding Misery identifier. icon of flooded homeEnd Sewer Flooding Misery

  • Those at risk will always receive compensation.
  • Case management for victims.
  • Increased compensation.
  • Improved response times.
  • Improved clean up service.
  • Clarity on standards.
  • Improved website information.

Find out more in our end sewer flooding misery campaign

Don't suffer in silence campaign identifier. Icon of person with megaphoneDon’t let people suffer in silence

  • A better understanding of the reasons people do not speak up about supply issues.
  • A successful community drop-in session that will be the template for future events.
  • Creating a best practice framework for repeat victims of supply issues to be prioritised by companies.

Find out more in our don’t let people stuffer in silence campaign

Credit where it's due identifier. icon of hand giving other hand £ symbolCredit where it’s due

  • Provided a toolkit to retailers to improve the communication with their customers on their rights on credit balances.
  • Published information on our website to help business customers ‘know their rights’ on their levels of credit and their options

Find out more in our credit where it’s due campaign

Business Customers: Five Year Review of the Water Retail Market

Carried out an extensive review of the business retail market, gathering evidence, research and data from market opening in 2017

Published a Five Year Review report making recommendations on what needs to change for all businesses to benefit from the market

People and the environment

  • Launched Walking With Water to encourage people to connect with the water environment

    Booklet available at 16 visitor centres across England and Wales
    Walking with water

  • 24 episodes of the Waterfall podcast streamed across two series

    Educating people on how to save water. Over 5,000 downloads
    Waterfall podcast

  • Developed a water stress postcode finder

    Helping people understand the water resource situation in their area.
    Is there enough water where you live?

  • Go Tap

    Launched 'Go Tap' social media campaign to promote the value of tap water
    Go Tap

  • Established an awareness index to track changes to the link between personal behaviours and the impact on the environment based on future initiatives

Affordability and vulnerability

Customer complaints journey

Our efforts to fully resource our consumer relations team and other key areas of the organisation took longer than we had hoped or anticipated. This made it more challenging to consistently deliver on some of our key objectives, particularly improving the customer complaint journey.

  • 13,370 customer complaints and enquiries
  • More than £914,000 in compensation gained for consumers
  • Average score of 55% for satisfaction with service. Continued commitment to achieve 80% satisfaction with service by end of 2023
  • Agreement with the industry for CCW to introduce a one stop shop for mediation and adjudication from 1 Dec 2023
  • 100% of complaints received initial acknowledgement within 2 working days

Price Review

  • Produce guidance

    Worked with Ofwat to produce guidance on how companies should test the affordability and acceptability of business plans. The guidance will ensure that research is consistent and comparable

  • ODI rates

    Worked with Ofwat, companies and stakeholders to deliver comparable research on how ODI rates are set; with the aim of incentive payments that better reflect customers’ expectations.

  • Challenge Co-ordination Group

    Set up and successfully ran the Challenge Co-ordination Group, which provides support and cross sector comparisons to allow the Independent groups to challenge water companies.

Challenges

Our fixed headcount continues to constrain our ability to respond as effectively as we would like to surges in complaints, sparked by increased scrutiny of the sector. An example of this was the prolonged drought, which placed unprecedented pressure on CCW and its existing resources.

In common with others in the sector we have found it challenging at times to promote a balanced debate about the issues affecting consumers and the environment.