UK water bodies are affected by a number of high-profile threats including agricultural and sewage pollution. The water sector faces other important concerns such as weak resilience of water supply systems and future water security. Water companies providing services have been criticised for their environmental, financial and customer satisfaction performance. As a result of these …
| Title | HC No. | Published | Items | Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8th Report – Failures at South East Water | HC 1861 | 1 May 2026 | 16 | Pending |
| 2nd report - Priorities for water sector reform | HC 1001 | 16 Jun 2025 | 28 | — |
Different models of ownership could offer a better culture of responsible leadership, which is key to a thriving water sector. A variety of corporate ownership options should be on the table for the water sector. As well as the publicly and privately owned businesses, options include not-for-profit enterprises, Community Interest …
We urge the Independent Water Commission to analyse all potential water company ownership models to determine which models are most likely to lead to a thriving and responsible culture. The Commission should then outline the steps needed to encourage those models of ownership. It is not enough to simply look …
Given the wide array of performance issues across the sector, more responsible leadership is clearly needed for better stewardship of our natural water resources. Incremental steps have been taken to improve governance, increase consumer representation and influence bonus cultures in order to improve decision-making, but we are not satisfied that …
The Independent Water Commission should consider what other reforms are necessary to ensure that the right people are put into senior positions and the appropriate bonuses are paid to them. This should include greater oversight or approval from Ofwat before appointments are made and bonuses are paid; clearer statutory expectations …
Trust and accountability in the water sector is very low and water companies must improve transparency through open data and more collaboration with consumers. (Conclusion, Paragraph 16)
The Independent Water Commission should consider how the link between water companies, communities and citizen scientists could be strengthened and formalised to provide a broader picture of water quality in local regions. These proposals should consider how water companies can be democratised and made as open as possible, with a …
Complex financial structures are not necessarily a problem, but they can obscure water company finances, enable bad practices, undermine transparency and worsen the public perception of water companies. Water companies increasingly look like financial institutions rather than businesses servicing monopolised critical infrastructure. These structures have undoubtedly been used, in some …
The Independent Water Commission should determine how regulators can have better oversight over debt levels in regulated entities and other connected companies. Its proposals should actively require companies to simplify structures to allow for greater regulation and oversight of any company’s true financial situation. (Recommendation, Paragraph 21)
There has been serious economic mismanagement of companies, leading to unsustainable levels of debt and a high price for consumers. This situation must be resolved and a culture of relying on debt must never be allowed to 47 arise again. Since investment levels and revenues in the sector have clearly …
The Independent Water Commission should determine new measures to regulate the accumulation and management of debt in the water sector. These measures should allow the economic regulator to intervene when irresponsible debt management is taking place. Any new powers should be tempered by a realistic and consistent understanding of what …
There clearly have been examples of excessive dividends, particularly when poor performance or finances are taken into account, symptomatic of a culture of prioritising profit over duties to regulators and customers. However, dividends for other companies have been in line with regulatory expectations. Dividends are controversial, particularly when total shareholder …
The Independent Water Commission must determine whether equity investment has been value for money for customers. If it is advisable to continue with a totally privatised model, the Commission needs to create a comprehensive but stable regulatory environment for water companies and their investors to ensure that the sector is …
Special administration should be a last resort. However, it is unclear whether allowing a failing company to struggle on and accumulate progressively more debt is a better outcome than assuming temporary national control more quickly, with the associated costs that it could incur. (Conclusion, Paragraph 35)
The Independent Water Commission must provide recommendations on improving the special administration regime which, while it should still be a last resort, must ensure that the criteria for its deployment are sufficient for ensuring value for money for customers. (Recommendation, Paragraph 36) The price review process
Customers should be protected from paying more than is necessary for maintaining national water infrastructure, and the price review is an important part of doing this. Some evidence suggests that previous determinations have not been sufficient, at least for some companies, to keep up maintenance and stakeholders have suggested a …
The Independent Water Commission must ensure that water bills and spending allowances are sustainable and appropriate for maintaining assets and delivering services. If the price review process is retained, the Commission must begin the process of reforming it to ensure that allowances are calculated fairly and openly, and to ensure …
The incentives that Ofwat puts in place for companies are too complicated, fail to match public expectations, and in many cases are not bringing about a culture of improvement. Despite public consultation, there are too many to provide a clear picture of company performance. There is scope for simplification and, …
The Independent Water Commission’s proposals should ensure that the price review system is reshaped so that its system of incentives creates a culture of improvement. The price review should contain a comprehensive but straightforward set of performance metrics that matches public expectations and national targets for water. Targets should be …
Environmental regulation and the delivery of a reliable and safe water must be the first priorities of water companies and regulators. Effective regulation, strongly prioritised towards environmental and customer targets, is needed to make these a core part of the culture amongst water companies; it will also need to cover …
The Independent Water Commission should look at potential reforms of the regulatory frameworks and regulators that govern the water sector to ensure that environmental protection is effective and a priority for water companies. It is vital that the reforms the Commission proposes can accommodate and synchronise with wider reforms, such …
We support the Commission’s focus on creating a better regulatory framework, however a good framework is nothing without well-equipped regulators to act against bad actors and poor behaviours. Without clearer information and standards, it is difficult to have faith that monitoring and enforcement levels are sufficient, and we wonder if …
The Independent Water Commission should assess how effectively the regulators audit companies, monitor the water environment, and enforce breaches of licences and permits. It should consider whether regulators are leveraging enough fees from the sector to ensure robust, fair and quick monitoring and enforcement of environmental protections. To bring about …
The current regulatory system does not encourage long-term thinking, as already acknowledged by the Commission. This affects both short-term resilience against asset failures and long-term water security. Improved finances may help, but part of the problem is, like in many other sectors, a 51 lack of coherent resilience standards for …
The Independent Water Commission should determine how the price review and regulatory systems can encourage better resilience, both to protect customers from short-term shocks and ensure that water resources are safeguarded in the future. This should begin a process of creating a robust set of resilience standards for the industry, …
Evidence suggests that some water companies are not sufficiently protecting or compensating their consumers before, during or after high impact incidents such as supply interruptions and sewer flooding. Regulatory steps are being taken to address most of these concerns, although it remains to be seen if these new measures will …
The Independent Water Commission should assess whether Ofwat’s new customer-focussed licence condition, and the new Guaranteed Standards of Service, are sufficient to improve protective services for consumers during and after high-impact events. The Commission and Defra must address the issues of local coordination with other key bodies and communication with …
The Government has not yet set out a timetable for developing a single and comprehensive social tariff to prevent protect low-income households from bill increases, despite the widespread view that it will be necessary in the context of much higher bills. This is a necessary step that allows the regulatory …
The Independent Water Commission’s proposals should contain provisions for establishing a single social tariff, or other protections for low-income households, to protect customers from the worst impacts of anticipated bill increases. The Commission’s proposals should also establish how effectively water poverty is being tackled and whether more effective tools are …
Select committees do not often focus directly on the leadership, behaviour and performance of individual private companies. The water sector, however, is a highly regulated monopoly provider of services essential to public health. Residents have no choice over their water provider yet rely on them entirely for their lives and …
South East Water did not have the right processes in place to identify and mitigate risks at Pembury Works, despite previous warnings from the DWI. That the company had “normalised” critical risks and was “flying blind” in the lead up to the crisis is a fundamental failure for a water …
Maintenance issues at Pembury contributed to the Tunbridge Wells incident in 2025, but it is South East Water’s self-identified lack of proactive and “instinctive” maintenance across its network that is most concerning. One of the most fundamental and basic responsibilities of a water company is to plan for and have …
As regulators told South East Water repeatedly and jointly for over four years, the company needed to invest in new infrastructure to be properly resilient to potential shocks. In particular, single points of failure, supply shortfalls and regional connectivity should have been improved, but the company failed to take action …
Despite South East Water’s assertions to the contrary, periods of peak demand and extreme weather can and should be broadly predicted and prepared for. Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate have shown that the company failed to model upcoming peaks and troughs and take the necessary steps in preceding weeks …
Both the Drinking Water Inspectorate and South East Water acknowledge the weaknesses of the escalation processes around the Pembury incident. This meant that operational staff were not given sufficient support to diagnose problems early and that key stakeholders were informed too late, inhibiting preparations and in breach of regulations. We …
Given the huge number of supply interruptions that South East Water has failed to manage over the years, it is remarkable that the company still struggles with the supply of bottled water during outages, has failed to learn and apply lessons and relies on the goodwill of communities. Problems discussed …
Similarly to the provision of alternative water supplies, South East Water now has years of experience in communicating during supply interruptions. It is incomprehensible that SEW still lacks a crisis communications strategy or a well-developed communications team given the company’s propensity for water outages. This put communication teams in a …
For a company with such regular issues with outages, South East Water’s approach to supporting vulnerable customers gives the impression of a business caught completely by surprise. We accept that it is challenging to continuously update the Priority Services Register: people will not always inform you of vulnerabilities, transient or …
The Tunbridge Wells incident and Ofwat investigations reveal that South East Water’s leadership has repeatedly proved itself incapable of implementing the lessons learnt from previous incidents, even simple ones such as having a communication strategy for when resolution timeframes are unclear. While the company was clearly trying to learn from …
Since at least 2020, South East Water clearly has had, and continues to demonstrate, an inability to establish the root causes of its supply resilience problems. There are likely many facets to this, including a failure to monitor the key asset indicators, and a tendency to blame external factors, as …
South East Water’s leadership team has demonstrated a clear preference for blaming factors outside of their control for performance issues, and in some cases, they continue to do so, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A lack of data-analysis skills might be partially to blame, but it is also clear …
South East Water has failed to engage with key stakeholders outside the company to help it learn from its mistakes. It is unwilling to properly listen to its customers, who have repeatedly complained of addressable failures 42 and yet continue to suffer them. The company’s leadership has taken a defensive …
Continued leadership failure is grounds for leadership change. Time and again, since 2020, South East Water’s leadership has failed in its fundamental task of supplying water to its customers. That is around six years of poor performance, sometimes with multiple incidents within the same year. Most problematic from a leadership …
These failures are symptomatic of significant cultural problems that cannot be readily explained by issues with the wider regulatory framework: this includes South East Water’s failure to engage with external stakeholders, inclination for groupthink, inability to analyse problems, incapability to implement basic changes and a propensity to shirk responsibility. This …
Repeating the same actions and expecting different results is not a well- regarded tactic for resolving problems. Yet the non-executives of South East Water have time and time again chosen to back a leadership that is clearly not capable of improving outcomes for customers. Their only response to the Tunbridge …
| Date | Witnesses | |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Apr 2026 | Caroline Sheridan · South East Water, Chris Train OBE · South East Water, Chris Walters · Musicians’ Union, David Hinton · South East Water, Dr Marcus Rink · Drinking Water Inspectorate, Dr Mike Keil · Consumer Council for Water | View ↗ |
| 6 Jan 2026 | David Hinton · South East Water, Marcus Rink · Drinking Water Inspectorate, Tanya Sephton · South East Water | View ↗ |
| 9 Sep 2025 | David Hallam · Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Emma Hardy MP · Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Emma Hardy MP · Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | View ↗ |
| 15 Jul 2025 | Chris Weston · Thames Water, Ian Pearson · Thames Water, Sir Adrian Montague CBE · Thames Water | View ↗ |
| 17 Jun 2025 | Sir Jon Cunliffe · Independent Water Commission | View ↗ |
| 13 May 2025 | Chris Weston · Thames Water, Sir Adrian Montague CBE · Thames Water, Steve Buck · Thames Water | View ↗ |
| 12 Mar 2025 | Andy Pymer · Wessex Water, Mark Thurston · Anglian Water, Ruth Jefferson · Wessex Water | View ↗ |
| 11 Mar 2025 | Andrew Beaver · Northumbrian Water, Heidi Mottram · Northumbrian Water, Peter Perry · Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water), Samantha James · Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water) | View ↗ |
| 26 Feb 2025 | Liv Garfield · Severn Trent Water, Louise Beardmore · United Utilities, Phil Aspin · United Utilities | View ↗ |
| 25 Feb 2025 | Nicola Shaw · Yorkshire Water, Paul Inman · Yorkshire Water, Susan Davy · South West Water | View ↗ |
| 21 Jan 2025 | David Henderson · Water UK, Dr Mike Keil · Consumer Council for Water, Lawrence Gosden · Southern Water, Stuart Ledger · Southern Water, Tom MacInnes · Citizens Advice | View ↗ |
| Date | Direction | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 23 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence from Sir Adrian Montague, Chairman, Thames Water regarding due d… |
| 23 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence to the Secretary of State regarding London & Valley Water Thames… |
| 3 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence from the CEO of Association of Drainage Authorities regarding Co… |
| 3 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence to Ofwat regarding Thames Water's restructuring plan, dated 3 Ju… |
| 3 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence to Thames Water regarding its restructuring plan, dated 3 June 2… |
| 3 Jun 2026 | — | Correspondence from the Interim Chair of South East Water regarding its credit … |
| 19 May 2026 | — | Correspondence from South East Water in relation to David Hinton resigning as C… |
| 19 May 2026 | — | Correspondence from the CEO of South East Water regarding Chris Train's resigna… |
| 19 May 2026 | — | Correspondence from the Trustees of the Nat West Group Pension Fund regarding f… |
| 1 May 2026 | — | Correspondence to Louis Babineau, Chair of Fédération des caisses Desjardins du… |
| 1 May 2026 | — | Correspondence to The Trustees of NatWest Group Pension Scheme regarding the EF… |
| 1 May 2026 | — | Correspondence to Andrew Fay, Chair of the Utilities of Australia Pty Ltd regar… |
| 14 Apr 2026 | — | Correspondence from Mike Martin MP relating to water supply issues in Tunbridge… |
| 24 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from the Consumer Council for Water regarding debt collection pr… |
| 24 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Citizens Advice regarding water bailiffs, dated 6 March 2026 |
| 6 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Wessex Water regarding debt collection practices, dated 18 … |
| 6 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Hafren Dyfrdwy regarding debt collection practices, dated 2… |
| 6 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Severn Trent regarding debt collection practices, dated 29 … |
| 6 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Thames Water regarding debt collection practices, dated 23 … |
| 6 Mar 2026 | — | Correspondence from Southern Water regarding debt collection practices, dated 6… |