Wessex top and Southern bottom of polarised complaints performance in 2022-23

Wessex Water was the best performing water and sewerage company (WASC), and Portsmouth Water the best performing water-only company (WOC), on household complaints in 2022-23, according to CCW. Both companies attracted the fewest complaints per 10,000 connections compared to their peers, and were better than average at handling them.

At the other end of the scale, Southern Water attracted the most complaints per 10,000 connections of the WASCs, ten times more than Wessex and three times more than the overall WASC average. It was worse than average at complaints handling.

Thames also performed badly, in second worst place on numbers and poor at complaints handling. Between them, CCW said the two firms skewed the overall result.

Of the WOCs, South East Water trailed in both numbers and handling ability.

Overall, the report showed households made 232,817 complaints to water companies in England and Wales during 2022-23, with problems relating to billing and cha

rges accounting for almost half (47%) of these disputes. For the first time, CCW was able to include all complaints that water companies received, regardless of how they were made. It said this provides a far more complete picture of the scale of complaints but means comparisons cannot be made with previous years.

Overall complaints to CCW remained stable (1% increase) at 6,1

97. However, the number of complaints it received from customers of WOCs increased by a huge 66%. CCW added that it had seen a 29% rise in complaints made to it about water companies in the first quarter of the current year.