Customer awareness of minimum service standards for water firms is "very low" watchdog finds

There is very low public awareness that water companies must comply with minimum legal service standards, and customers want to see changes to these standards.

Those were among the findings from CCW research on customer attitudes towards the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS). The watchdog also found customers want:

increases in payments for service failure "future-proofed" by, for example, by automatically linking them to inflation;

more individualised support for people in vulnerable circumstances; and

additional standards which focus on water quality and the wider environment.

The research was the starting point of CCW’s work to modernise the GSS, based on customers’ views. The current standards and payments have changed little since they were introduced more than 20 years ago.

In mid July, CCW plans to issue a call for evidence that will ask water companies to submit their ideas on how the current standards could be improved. It will use this feedback and the research of customers’ views to put forward a set of proposed reforms for improving GSS.