Portsmouth leads on performance as more lag behind

(by Karma Loveday)

After a couple of years of there being no performance leaders in the sector according to Ofwat, Portsmouth Water alone managed to outpace the rest and climb to ‘leading’ status in the Water company performance (WCPR) report for 2024/25.

Eleven companies made the ‘average’ category, with Anglian Water joining last year’s average cohort after pulling itself out of ‘lagging behind’ last year.

Five – up from last year’s three – were considered to be lagging behind. The category’s long term residents – Southern Water (five years) and Welsh Water (four years) remained, and were joined by Thames and Yorkshire who were promoted to average last year but have not managed to consolidate the position. The final laggard is SES Water, which fell into the bottom camp after three years of average performance.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 1 shows overall company performance for the year, and Table 2 shows sector performance over the whole 2020-25 period.

Here, the sector made improvements in nine of the 12 Performance Commitments tracked by the WCPR, and Ofwat said most companies had improved their performance in more than half of the Performance Commitments. However, even where performance has improved at sector level, this often fell short of PR19 targets. For instance: 

• The sector committed to a 41% reduction in internal sewer flooding incidents across AMP7. It secured a 29% reduction. 

• Leakage reduced by 9% against a target of 16%. 

• In three areas, Ofwat said there was clear underperformance: 

  • Pollution incidents remain at “unacceptable levels”, with only two companies reporting a reduction in incidents over the five-year period. The sector had committed to delivering a 30% reduction over five years – but actual performance has deteriorated by 27%.

  • While half of companies improved their supply interruption performance, it remained “at unreasonable levels” for some. “Too many customers are being impacted by long duration [12+ hours] interruptions – with some companies being repeat offenders.”

  • Customer satisfaction continued to fall and is now at its lowest level since the measure was introduced in 2020-21.