Latest performance metrics

Lower bills

Our promise: We will reduce bills to help customers who can't afford them.

We were the first water company to reduce bills for customers by introducing tariffs for those on the lowest incomes.

Our well-established partnerships include a network of trusted affordability and vulnerability charities in our region which have worked with us to deliver ever-increasing levels of support to customers who need extra help.

Introduced with the support of our customers and stakeholders, we offer the following three social tariffs:

• Assist, which provides large bill discounts to customers on the lowest incomes
• WaterSure Plus, which provides an increased discount to customers with unavoidable high water use
• Discount for Low Income Pensioners, which provides an average 20% discount to customers who are in receipt of Pension Credit or whose sole income is state pension.

From our experience assisting customers for over a decade, we know that to make improvements to customers' wellbeing the support we offer needs to be meaningful.

We sought a definition change to this commitment that reflects the reduction in customer bills following our final determination from Ofwat, the water industry regulator.

* Total bill reduction to customers receiving a social tariff, divided by the number of residential customers, expressed as £ per 10,000 households.

Helping with bills

Our promise: We will work with expert partners to help customers who are in financial difficulty.

Through our award-winning Tap programme, we offer customers a range of schemes and low-rate tariffs to help them afford their ongoing water bills and repay their debt. We also offer practical support to help customers reduce their water and energy use.

Over the last 19 years we have developed effective partnerships with the debt advice sector including Citizens Advice, StepChange and the Money Advice Trust. This has enabled us to raise awareness of and increase the number of customers who have access to our financial support schemes. Debt advisers provide holistic help and support, including how to maximise income.

We support these partners to help our customers by providing funding to advice agencies for every successful application we receive. An application is deemed successful when it leads to the customer being accepted on to one or more of our affordability schemes, eg, Reduced bill - Assist, Discount for low-income pensioners or Debt support scheme - Restart.

Void sites

Our promise: We will reduce the number of properties that are receiving our services but are not billed.

There are properties connected to our water and sewerage system that aren't billed for the services they're using. This is due to a range of reasons such as inoccupancy.

There will always be a natural level of these properties, but we are keen to ensure there are as few as possible and that we bill the maximum number of possible properties.

Gap sites

Our promise: We will reduce the number of properties receiving our services that we were not previously aware of.

Gap sites are defined as properties that are connected to the water supply or sewerage network, but the company is not aware of. As a result, these properties are unbilled and (potentially) gain a free service.

We are striving to discover all customers connected to our water and sewerage network.

This is important to ensure:

• water quality compliance and network management performance are maximised
• we are able to bill all customers that use our services.

Customer experience

Our promise: We will deliver excellent customer service to household customers.

Water companies are measured by C-MeX, a mechanism designed to incentivise the water industry to improve customer experience.

Introduced by our regulator Ofwat, C-MeX takes into account how well we handle or resolve queries or complaints from customers as well as overall customer satisfaction levels.

Developer experience

Our promise: We will deliver excellent service to house builders and developers.

Like C-MeX, our regulator Ofwat introduced a mechanism designed to incentivise water companies to provide excellent service to developers, self-lay providers, new appointments and variations.

Value for money

Our promise: We will deliver excellent value to our customers.

The table below shows the percentage of customers in our region who rate our overall service as good value for money.

Priority services

Our promise: We will identify more customers in vulnerable circumstances and understand their needs.

Our Priority Services scheme offers a range of free services to customers who have additional needs due to age, ill health, disability, poor literacy or mental illness.

The services we offer include:

• extra support in the event of a water supply interruption
• additional meter readings to help customers monitor their water use
• a password scheme to protect against bogus callers
• a nominee service
• bills and communication in braille, large print or an alternative language.

Customers can apply to join Priority Services online, by telephone or by completing a printed application form.

The register is accessed by both our billing and operational teams to ensure customers receive the additional support they need whenever they have contact with us.

Priority Services is part of our extensive offering to support customers who need extra help.

Our vulnerability strategy, Every Customer Matters, sets out how we aim to raise awareness and increase the numbers registered for Priority Services.

Our performance commitment is to increase the number of customers added to the Priority Services Register each year.

Vulnerable customer contact

Our promise: Ensuring our services are accessible and available to everyone, especially those in vulnerable circumstances.

Customers in vulnerable circumstances often find it more challenging to engage with their water company for a variety of reasons.

These can include financial problems, age, disability, health conditions, language or learning difficulties, poor mental health or a sudden change in circumstances such as bereavement or divorce.

It is fundamental that we provide excellent customer care and are inclusive and accessible to all of our customers, in particular, those who find themselves in vulnerable circumstances, whether in the short or long term.

This is why we are committed to being compliant with the BS18477 British Standard each year. We were one of the first utility companies to comply with the standard which shows that a company is inclusive to its customers, including those who are vulnerable.

Youth engagement

Our promise: We will engage with children and students to teach them about the water environment.

Our customers have an appetite to learn about the work we do and the positive impact their behaviour can have on the environment and our services.

We have a team of dedicated Education Advisers who engage with children and students by:

• visiting schools and colleges
• hosting students and children at our education centres and operational sites
• delivering community projects involving children and students.

Water leaks

Our promise: We will reduce the amount of water leaks from pipes in our region.

Leaks from our pipes and those owned by customers can be affected by:

• freezing weather
• the weight of traffic on roads above
• pressure management or other operational strategies
• the age and condition of our assets and those owned by customers.

Around 75% of the water leaks are on our pipes and the remainder are on customers' pipes.

We have reduced leakage to ensure it is significantly lower than the 'economic' level defined by the regulator Ofwat and is now at its lowest level ever.

However, we have committed to do more and reduce leakage further.

24-hour leak repair

Our promise: We will fix leaks that are reported by customers within a day.

An effective solution to leakage is to work in partnership with our customers.

Achieving this relies on us making it easy for people to play their part and for us to respond effectively.

We are committed to encouraging customers to report leaks and to fix them as quickly as possible where we own the pipes and fittings.

Water use and consumption

Our promise: We will reduce the average amount of water used by each person in a day.

The amount of water used is affected by natural changes such as population growth.

To counteract a growing population, we have implemented schemes including increasing the proportion of metered properties and encouraging water efficiency.

Average household water use has fallen since the early 2000s but there is evidence that this trend has been reversing in recent years.

The challenge of maintaining reductions in consumption has become more stretching for various reasons including:

• the impact of annual weather patterns
• social trends outside of our control.

Our customers are some of the most water efficient in the country, according to industry data, but average use in other European countries is even lower.

As a result, we remain committed to helping our customers reduce their water usage even more.

This commitment is being reviewed across the water industry, and all companies’ performance will be considered in 2025. Customers’ use of water at home increased significantly as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. We anticipate this will take time to reduce.

Water efficiency and savings

Our promise: We will help customers reduce the amount of water they use.

We have empowered our customers to reduce the amount of water they use and take control of their bill as part of our future strategies for managing leakage and water efficiency.

These strategies are founded on research that shows customers value water efficiency services and are keen for us to provide more.

We are committed to helping customers to take part in our water efficiency programme which includes three key strands:

• offering advice and information, including digital services
• providing water saving devices to customers, including those fitted by us during Home Check visits and those requested from us by customers and fitted themselves
• helping customers reduce water wastage by helping them identify, and fix where possible, plumbing leaks in their home and workplace.

Water quality contacts

Our promise: We will reduce the number of times customers contact us about the appearance of their tap water.

We record whenever a customer contacts us with concerns that their drinking water does not look or taste 'normal'.

This can include discoloured water, particles and white water (air/chalk).

The cause of a change in appearance may be due to:

• a burst water main
• a main that has been turned back on after a repair
• a third party is using a large volume of water, eg, the fire service
• plumbing or appliances within customer homes.

Our research has shown that customers think their bills cover the cost of maintaining these assets over the long term.

We are committed to responding to customer concerns regarding drinking water and maintaining our assets to ensure we deliver water in a stable condition.

Each customer contact received is investigated to help understand the cause of the appearance.

Lead pipe replacements around the home

Our promise: We aim to replace all lead service pipes to safeguard water quality.

The provision of safe and wholesome drinking water is of paramount importance to us. Therefore, our drinking water is of a high quality and free from lead when delivered to customers' properties.

However, before the toxicity of lead was fully understood, the service pipe, which connects the home and the water main, was sometimes made using lead.

Under these circumstances, as water transits between our distribution network and the home, it may pick up lead as it comes into contact with lead pipes.

The health and wellbeing of our customers and the communities we serve are important to us, which is why we have a long-term aspiration to remove all lead service pipes as soon as possible.

This performance commitment supports the delivery of this health-beneficial goal.

Some customers may also have internal lead pipes in their properties, but it is their responsibility to replace these pipes. We encourage them to consider replacing internal lead plumbing and obtaining several quotations from reputable and approved plumbers.

Find out more about how to check for lead pipes.

Tackling water quality

Our promise: We will work with customers to improve the quality of the water in their property.

Our customers have an appetite to learn about the work we do and the positive impact their behaviour can have on the environment and our service.

It is the reason why we are offering a future partnership with customers - we will go the extra mile to identify and, where appropriate, solve water quality issues that are caused by our customers' assets.

This drinking water quality measure monitors our progress in partnering with customers through activities such as water fittings inspections.

This will help to improve drinking water quality and reduce risk levels, while also supporting our goal to mitigate usage issues and protect customer supply.

However, we remain unlikely to meet our March 2025 target, as we work to catch-up from the reduced checks achieved during the Covid-19 period.

Event risk index

Our promise: We will improve the quality of the water we provide to our customers.

We believe responding to water quality events is crucial to managing drinking water quality risks. This is why we act quickly to identify, resolve and prevent future incidents.

We use the event risk index (ERI) measure to monitor how well we are responding to events.

Our relationship with the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) is positive, open and honest and the feedback we receive from them is that they are generally satisfied with our response.

Compliance risk index (CRI)

Our promise: We will provide excellent drinking water.

We use an approach designed by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) to measure our compliance with reducing risk.

The approach, known as the Compliance Risk Index (CRI), was designed by the DWI in consultation with water companies to illustrate risk arising from treated water compliance failures.

It aligns with our approach to reduce risk and includes the following elements:

• the significance of the parameters around failing the standard, also known as the parameter score
• the cause of the failure, how we handled the investigation, and how much mitigation we put in place - this is known as the assessment score
• the location of the failure within our network and the number of customers affected.

Flooding inside your property

Our promise: We will minimise the number of times sewage floods into customers' homes.

Internal and external sewer flooding is caused when sewers become overloaded as a result of severe weather, equipment failure, blockages or sewer collapses. 

Internal sewer flooding is one of the most distressing service failures for a customer and reducing it is a very high customer priority.

The measure includes the total number of flooding incidents, including those due to overloaded sewers, as well as restricted toilet use.

Flooding caused by circumstances that are out of our control are excluded, eg, fluvial and coastal flooding.

Flooding outside your property

Our promise: We will minimise the number of times sewage floods outside customers' homes, eg, gardens.

External and internal sewer flooding is caused when sewers become overloaded as a result of severe weather, equipment failure, blockages or sewer collapses.

The external flooding measure includes the total number of incidents including flooding due to overloaded sewers (hydraulic flooding) and other causes (FOC).

For instance, if land attached to five properties suffered two flooding events during a year, it would count as 10 incidents.

Areas which are excluded from this measure include flooding beyond our control, such as coastal flooding.

If a property is flooded both internally and externally, it would be counted as an internal flooding incident and would not be included in this measure.

Flooding resilience risk

Our promise: We will manage the overall risk of sewer flooding.

Our sewer flood risk grid measures properties or locations which:

• have been internally flooded due to inadequate capacity
• are considered to be at risk of flooding due to their proximity to other properties or locations that have flooded in the past.

Properties can be removed from the grid or moved to another impact and/or probability category as a result of new information or action taken by us.

North Bristol Sewer Scheme - Trym Catchment

Our promise: We will deliver one of our major projects - a new sewer in the north of Bristol.

We are committed to delivering projects that improve service, mitigate risk and benefit the environment.

We have completed a major scheme in north Bristol which has:

• increased foul sewerage capacity in the area
• reduced sewer flooding in Blaise Castle
• minimised the risk of pollution in the Frome and Trym river valleys
• reduced spill frequency at combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

Water supply interruptions

Our promise: We will minimise interruptions to customers' water supply.

Supplying drinking water is a fundamental part of our service.

In the event of an interruption we endeavour to maintain supplies by managing our network, however, this is not always possible.

As interruptions indicate the resilience of a water network and how well we can recover from an incident, we have a measure for supply interruptions of more than three hours.

We were trending below target again this year until we had one major incident in February 2024 which resulted in us slightly exceeding the target.

Drought restrictions

Our promise: We will ensure that people don't experience supply restrictions in extreme droughts.

During periods of abnormally low rainfall there may be a drought.

It doesn't happen often; it's been more than 40 years since we had to impose restrictions on water use such as a hosepipe ban.

We take maintaining and managing the resilience of our water resources seriously and use a measure to ensure future resilience.

It identifies the percentage of the population that is at risk of severe supply restrictions in the event of a drought happening once every 200 years (equivalent to a 0.5% chance each year).

Asset health: Water main repairs

Our promise: We will reduce how often our water mains burst.

Water pipes can burst and need repairs for a number of reasons.

They include:

• the ground expanding or contracting around water pipes as a result of dry, hot summers or freezing cold weather
• the age or condition of water pipes
• some pipe materials deteriorating due to soil conditions
• heavy traffic in cities and towns compressing the soil around the pipe.

It's essential to replace mains to prevent increasing bursts.

To measure our future ability to provide water services, we keep track of our performance on mains repairs.

Asset health: Unplanned outages

Our promise: We will reduce how often our water treatment works have to be taken out of service unexpectedly.

Supplying water to our customers without restriction is a fundamental part of our service.

However, there are times when unexpected incidents reduce the performance of our water treatment works or require us to take them out of service for maintenance.

As a result of the resilient water network we have developed, we are able to plan ahead and manage our resources to maintain a continuous supply when such incidents occur.

Restrictions on water use

Our promise: We will avoid enforcing a hosepipe ban.

We do not expect to impose a hosepipe ban more than once every 100 years on average or more than once every 150 years for a non-essential ban for commercial customers.

Modelling has shown that our services are now resilient to any of the droughts that occurred in the past 100 years.

Our drought resilience is amongst the highest of all UK water companies and research indicates our customers support our approach.

Our commitment is not to impose hosepipe bans.

Security non-SEMD outputs

Our promise: We will ensure our technology estate is updated in line with the latest security guidance.

This bespoke performance commitment will ensure sufficient enhancement to customer protection through improved cyber security measures.

The performance commitment contains seven discrete deliverables which are due during the 2020-25 period. The deliverables are:

• PC1 – Cultural Awareness & Upskilling (completed 2022)
• PC2 – Security Incident & Event Monitoring, SIEM (completed in 2023)
• PC3 – Cyber Security Operations Centre, CSOC (completed in 2023)
• PC4 – Rogue Device Detection & Asset Inventory (completed in 2024)
• PC5 – OT Network Segmentation (target 2025)
• PC6 – User Access Control (target 2025)
• PC7 – PSTN Delivery (target 2025)

Asset health: Sewer collapses

Our promise: We will reduce how often we have to repair a sewer because it collapsed.

We have more than 35,000 kilometres of sewers in our region that transport sewage from homes and businesses to our water recycling centres. To ensure we provide a consistent and stable service to current and future generations, it is important that we continue to maintain the health of the network.

A sewer collapse will happen from time to time which risks causing disruption to customers and environmental pollution.

Sewer collapses or blockages are good indicators of the health of our wastewater infrastructure and help us to identify areas that we need to specifically target for maintenance.

The trend over recent years indicates that we need to do more to maintain the asset health of our sewers to achieve the targets that have been set.

Drainage and wastewater management plans (DWMPS)

Our promise: We will share a long-term plan for investing in our wastewater network.

This commitment monitors the delivery of a new phase of work related to our wastewater network: creating a long-term plan that identifies areas requiring future investment as a result of population growth, climate change and increasing customer expectations.

The commitment measures whether we completed our first cycle drainage and wastewater management plan (DWMP), which we did in 2023.

We have worked with our stakeholders, regulators and customers to produce this 25-year DWMP. As part of this work, we have developed:

• a company-wide drainage and wastewater management plan
• local drainage and wastewater strategies for sewage treatment works catchments with existing or future risks.

Find out more about our Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan.

Storm flooding

Our promise: We will reduce the number of people at risk of sewer flooding in a serious storm.

We maintain our sewer system to ensure it has sufficient capacity to cope with wet weather.

However, there is a limit to how much additional capacity we can build to maintain its effectiveness.

As this means flooding can occur during extreme rainfall, we use a measure to identify the percentage of the population at risk of sewer flooding in a 1-in-50-year storm (equivalent to a 2% chance each year).

Abstraction: Mere

Our promise: We will reduce the amount of water we take from environmentally sensitive areas.

We are committed to taking less water from environmentally sensitive areas at times of low river flow and where the impact is not sufficiently clear to warrant changes to abstraction licences. 

Working with the Environment Agency, we have reviewed abstraction licences listed in the Water Industry National Environment Programme.

We have also reviewed other abstraction licences where we have community engagement on the issue. 

This review reconfirmed Mere as a suitable abstraction site for this scheme.

In 2023/24 we exported 142 Ml less from Mere over the Abstraction Incentive Mechanism period than the historical baseline.

*Indicates a lower number is better

Abstraction: Stubhampton

Our promise: We will reduce the amount of water we take from environmentally sensitive areas.

We are committed to taking less water from environmentally sensitive areas at times of low river flow and where the impact is not sufficiently clear to warrant changes to abstraction licences. 

We have investigated the environmental impact of abstracting water from the Stubhampton borehole in the upper reach of the River Tarrant Valley. 

We found the impact is not environmentally significant but that local concern remains. 

As a result of our investigations, this measure was created and it voluntarily caps our abstraction at times of lower flow.

In 2023/24 we abstracted 140 Ml less from Stubhampton over the Abstraction Incentive Mechanism period than the historic baseline.

*Indicates a lower number is better

Bathing waters

Our promise: We will support or create community projects at beaches to improve the experience of beach users.

Research has shown that our customers want to see an improvement in the quality of bathing waters.

One of our eight priority areas is improving our relationship with customers and we want to work in partnership with them and local communities to tackle this issue.

It means we are making it easy for customers to play their part and for us to be responsive when they do.

We are committed to increasing public awareness, engagement and action on bathing waters through a participatory approach. Within schools and residential, visitor and business communities, we are promoting behavioural change.

This performance commitment goes above and beyond our statutory duty to manage and improve our assets to comply with the Bathing Water Directive.

The 2025 target is cumulative across 2020-25, and we are on track to outperform against this target.

Frequent spilling overflows

Our promise: We will improve the environment by reducing the number of overflows that frequently spill sewage into rivers and sea.

Unusually heavy or prolonged rainfall can result in excess water flowing into our combined sewers which causes them to exceed their capacity.

When this happens, we need to protect properties from flooding by using combined sewer overflows (CSOs) which prevent sewage from backing up and overflowing into the streets.

CSOs act as a relief valve within our system, enabling us to release excess stormwater into a river or the sea.

We have identified 13 areas where this is happening frequently and have committed to making improvements within the next five-year AMP period.

Measuring our performance against this commitment will help us to improve the environment.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Our promise: We will reduce the amount of greenhouse gas our activities create.

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and becoming a carbon neutral business by 2040. We also recognise the need to insulate ourselves from the growing cost of energy and carbon.

Since 1998 we have reported our carbon footprint. Initially this was voluntary but since 2009/10 it has been included in our annual return to our regulator Ofwat.

Over the next AMP period we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint even further.

Improving natural capital

Our promise: We will work on projects with partners that have wider benefits to the natural environment and protects our water supplies and local rivers.

We are committed to working with partners to improve the management of land in our region which we do not own in order to benefit the environment and improve raw water quality.

This involves working with our catchment delivery team and wider environmental partners to improve water quality, biodiversity and flood reduction.

This measure includes the following projects:

• catchment management and delivery schemes including those already operational
• co-funding management projects such as the Bath and North East Somerset WaterSpace Study and natural flood management projects 
• Biodiversity Action Plan project delivery through our Partners Programme such as Dorset Wild Rivers. 

We anticipate this will inform our approach to natural capital accounting. 

Improving rivers: Non-WINEP

Our promise: We will improve river quality by reducing the amount of unwanted nutrients.

We are committed to improving the ecology and quality of water in rivers, as well as continuing to offer leisure and recreational activities for the benefit of the public.

We measure the following activities in relation to improving rivers: 

• the length of rivers where we have improved water quality by removing nutrients; these are rivers where no action is required by the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) but where stakeholders agree there is a need for further improvement 
• the performance of our water recycling centres against their discharge permits; improving the performance of treatment works can help to ensure the region's rivers function ecologically  
• the implementation of catchment management offsetting in the river catchment; where cost effective, the alternative use of catchment management to reduce run-off from agricultural land can be a more sustainable option than traditional treatment methods.

Improving rivers: WINEP

Our promise: We will make improvements to waterbodies in our region through the delivery of our statutory obligations.

Every five years the Environment Agency produces the Water Industry National Environmental Programme (WINEP) which aims to benefit the environment.

It lays out a set of requirements for water companies to address. These vary by region but include schemes or areas for investigation such as:

• reducing excessive plant decay and growth
• investigating chemical risks
• improving inland water for fish.

We are committed to meeting these requirements and measuring our performance against them.

Please note that this commitment has been adjusted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic; the Environment Agency delayed some delivery dates to take into account the delays in construction.

Improving SSSI sites

Our promise: We will improve habitats for plants and wildlife on SSSI land we own.

Our aim is to ensure that all SSSI land that is eligible for this performance commitment is managed appropriately so that it will reach its required conservation status over time. We are working towards our Biodiversity Action Plan target to improve or maintain SSSI land that we own to meet 100% favourable status by 2030.

We have agreed actions with Natural England for each SSSI site within scope of the project to enable the recovery and enhancements needed.

Pollution incidents

Our promise: We will minimise events that pollute the water environment eg, untreated sewage leaking from sewers.

Although we strive to protect the environment, sewage can be released accidentally into the environment as a result of an incident such as a sewer collapse or a failure at a water recycling centre.

We are committed to measuring our performance against varying levels of pollution, for example, a category one pollution incident would be classed as significant and a category three incident as minor.

This measure will identify how many times the water environment has been polluted as a result of our activities or assets.

Sludge disposal

Our promise: We will safely dispose of the solids that are left at the end of the waste treatment process.

We recycle all sludge to agricultural land, providing nutrients for crops but there are also soil structure benefits where it is applied.

This measure covers how we handle, transport and use the sludge in a responsible way and is used by the Environment Agency to monitor our performance in complying with all necessary regulations and codes of practice.

Treatment works compliance

Our promise: We will ensure our water recycling centres return wastewater back into the environment meeting all allowed levels.

Our water recycling centres need to meet the Environment Agency's standards when discharging treated water back into the environment.

On occasions these standards are not met, for example, when an asset fails or when illegal discharges enter the water recycling centre affecting the process.

We are committed to measuring our compliance with these allowed standards.

Delivery of WINEP

Our promise: We will deliver our environmental programme to protect and enhance the region we serve.

This commitment monitors the delivery of our full Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) and not just those projects that see new permits implemented at our water recycling centres which are covered by other commitments.

Please note that this commitment has been adjusted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic; the Environment Agency has delayed some delivery dates to take into account the delays in construction.

WINEP Requirements (Bristol (Avonmouth) STW)

Our promise: We will deliver the required environmental permitting improvements at our Bristol water recycling centre on time.

This commitment monitors the delivery of a large project at our Bristol water recycling centre.

We submitted our planning application for the scheme in March 2023 and, after careful consideration, Bristol City Council planners gave the go-ahead for the expansion, subject to conditions, in November 2023. Construction itself got underway in January 2024, and we are on track to meet the WINEP completion date of March 2028.

Find out more about our Bristol water recycling centre project.