CCW reiterates single social tariff call as more fall into debt despite help

(by Karma Loveday)

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) reiterated its call for a single social tariff to be introduced to end the postcode lottery of water affordability support, as it published its Water Mark report for 2025. This provides an at-a-glance view of each company’s performance across areas important to customers, drawing on customer research, complaints data and operational performance reports (see table).

The 2025 Water Mark showed water companies supported 2m customers with social tariffs in 2024-25, a rise of 22% on 2023-24. The average combined bill reduction was £190, but this varied from £120 to £314. The number of customers receiving support through the WaterSure scheme increased by 13%.

CCW said the growth in help was welcome but not enough to prevent 199,000 more households falling into arrears, with 2.85m customers in total now in water debt. It warned that this is before April’s bill rises took place, and that “more households could sink into water debt, unless a new single social tariff for England and Wales is introduced to provide consistent and better targeted financial support”.

Other key findings in Water Matters included:

• Supply interruptions increased across the industry by 58% compared to 2023-24  – rising to an average of 22 minutes 39 seconds, against the target of 5 minutes for 2024-25.

• Internal flooding of properties with sewage fell by 19%, with only one company marginally increasing. External sewer flooding incidents decreased by 5%.

• The average amount of water lost through leakage across the industry fell by 3% to 2,865 Ml/d from 2,963 Ml/d. That is the equivalent of 105 litres per property per day, compared with 109 litres per property per day in 2023-24.

• The number of customers in vulnerable circumstances receiving additional help through Priority Service Registers rose significantly to 3,941,386 households – up 27%.