Key issues for Thames Water over the next five years
Key issues for Thames Water over the next five years
Background
Thames Water is UK's largest water and wastewater services provider, which serves 14 million customers and supplies 2.6bn litres of drinking water each day, with an annual turnover £1.8bn. The company’s business is closely regulated by a number of regulators including Ofwat (The Water Services Regulation Authority), DMI (Drinking Water Inspectorate) and EA (Environment Agency).
During 2012/13, Thames Water achieved 100 on the Security of Supply Index, which means it satisfied the target to maintain security of supply to all the customers. It helped the London 2012 Olympic games to meet key sustainability objectives by undertaking some innovative work at the Olympics Park. The company was also awarded a National Water Efficiency Award for its Save Water Swindon project.
Going forward, Thames Water faces a list of immediate and long term challenges and needs plan ahead to ensure it continues to provide essential services.
Immediate challenges
(1) Customer service
Customer experience: The water industry's customer experience is periodically measured by its regulator Ofwat through quarterly CSAT (customer satisfaction) surveys and annual SIM (service incentive mechanism) evaluation. Thames Water scored 3.88 in CSAT during 2012/13, the lowest in water industry
Sewer flooding: sew flooding in residential properties is one major reason for customer complaints. Improving the performance of the underground wastewater assets to provide a better operational response to sewer flooding and pollutions, is a big challenge to tackle immediately
(2) Financial pressure
Non-payment of bills: Customers not paying their bills have caused bills for all paying customers to increase by around £11 a year. However, the number of customers failing to pay their bill has significantly increased over the past few years and this is not reflected in current price limits applicable to Thames Water, it is a
Background
Thames Water is UK's largest water and wastewater services provider, which serves 14 million customers and supplies 2.6bn litres of drinking water each day, with an annual turnover £1.8bn. The company’s business is closely regulated by a number of regulators including Ofwat (The Water Services Regulation Authority), DMI (Drinking Water Inspectorate) and EA (Environment Agency).
During 2012/13, Thames Water achieved 100 on the Security of Supply Index, which means it satisfied the target to maintain security of supply to all the customers. It helped the London 2012 Olympic games to meet key sustainability objectives by undertaking some innovative work at the Olympics Park. The company was also awarded a National Water Efficiency Award for its Save Water Swindon project.
Going forward, Thames Water faces a list of immediate and long term challenges and needs plan ahead to ensure it continues to provide essential services.
Immediate challenges
(1) Customer service
Customer experience: The water industry's customer experience is periodically measured by its regulator Ofwat through quarterly CSAT (customer satisfaction) surveys and annual SIM (service incentive mechanism) evaluation. Thames Water scored 3.88 in CSAT during 2012/13, the lowest in water industry
Sewer flooding: sew flooding in residential properties is one major reason for customer complaints. Improving the performance of the underground wastewater assets to provide a better operational response to sewer flooding and pollutions, is a big challenge to tackle immediately
(2) Financial pressure
Non-payment of bills: Customers not paying their bills have caused bills for all paying customers to increase by around £11 a year. However, the number of customers failing to pay their bill has significantly increased over the past few years and this is not reflected in current price limits applicable to Thames Water, it is a