Conclusion 2

It is wholly unacceptable that over 3 billion litres are wasted every day through leakage, with no improvement in the last 20 years. From a high of over 4.5 billion litres a day in the early 1990s, daily losses through leakage fell to around 3 billion at the turn of the century. However, this reduction was followed by over a decade of complacency and inaction, which has meant water leakage is now a hugely pressing problem. No one organisation has got a thorough grip on dealing with this issue and driving the change necessary. The Department urged water companies in 2016 to make tackling leakage a much higher priority. However, there has still been little progress. The Department has belatedly set annual targets for water companies and longer-term targets to reduce leakage by a third by 2030 and by half by 2050. Ofwat assures us that companies are exposed to substantial penalties if they do not meet their targets over the next five years and is confident that the worst performing companies are now starting to get their act together. Ofwat now expects leakage to fall by 16% between 2020 and 2025, which would result in 561 million litres of water a day being saved. However, meeting the targets relies on unknown and untested approaches. We are unconvinced by Ofwat’s hope that water companies will “surprise themselves” at what they can achieve, and call on the Department and Ofwat to be more proactive in ensuring companies meet leakage targets. Recommendation: The Department should hold water companies to account by publishing annual league tables showing their performance on tackling leakage against the targets set. Annual published league tables should be introduced by 31 December 2020.