Wastewater companies told to improve sewer flooding responses

Wastewater companies have been called upon to review compensation and communication relating to sewer flooding incidents following a report from Ofwat and CCW found that companies’ responses to incidents had exacerbated the stress of the event for customers.

Ofwat said it will consider appropriate compensation for incidents where companies fall short of their expected performance as part of PR24.

Ofwat and CCW commissioned the qualitative research to understand how sewer flooding impacted people physically, psychologically and emotionally, as well as how companies responded. It is part of a campaign by CCW to work with the industry to agree clean-up times, compensation and end the use of the exceptional weather clause, which exempts compensation payments being made.

Jonson Cox, Ofwat chair, said of the research: “As a result of what we have uncovered, Ofwat and CCW are calling water company CEOs to an urgent summit on service to call for immediate action.

“Companies must urgently address how they communicate with customers who suffer this, how they fix the problem, and the compensation they provide to victims.”

The work by research agency BritainThinks found participants consistently reported wastewater companies were not meeting communication expectations, which made bad situations worse. People wanted quick, straightforward ways to report a problem; empathetic customer service; proactive response and updates; and transparency about the cause, repairs and support available.

Emma Clancy, chief executive of CCW, said: “This research has exposed a cross-sector failure which is leaving people who experience sewer flooding in vulnerable circumstances. Through CCW’s End Sewer Flooding Misery Campaign, we’re calling for improved compensation and clean-up standards for sewer flooding victims.

“Individual customer service agents are showing empathy to sewer flooding victims, but too often the perception is that the company’s empathy stops there. We want to see companies’ senior leadership teams showing commitment to ensure that flood victims feel that their water company is proactively there to help throughout their experience, from the initial response through to compensation and resolution.”

Failures highlighted in the report included customers having to chase up information, inconsistent record keeping of ongoing issues, poorly arranged visits involving delays, no one showing up or engineers arriving unannounced.

On compensation, the report recommended companies offer clear information on, and payment of, compensation through the general standard scheme (GSS) and ensure customers are properly, automatically compensated for all incidents that qualify. It said all companies should audit GSS payments in relation to flooding incidents to ensure they have been, or are being, paid to eligible parties. At present companies pay through GSS up to a maximum of £1000 for internal flooding or £500 for external flooding but there are exemptions relating to weather, defects on customer-side drains and customer actions.

The work involved 50 interviews with participants, followed by workshops with people who had experienced single or multiple incidences that ranged from low to very high severity.

People reported anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, anger, frustration and disempowerment at situations they had no control over. Low severity events included bad smells, outside areas being unusable while high severity events could involve ongoing and recurring problems that damaged belongings or destroyed rooms.