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Ofwat home > Customers and complaints

Customers and complaints

The water and sewerage companies in England and Wales are responsible for giving their customers a good-quality, efficient service at a fair price.

If you have a problem or a complaint about the service that you receive from your local water and sewerage company, you should first speak to the company so that it has the chance to put it right.

You are entitled to guaranteed standards of service, as laid down by the Government. If a company fails to meet any of the standards set out in the Guaranteed Standards Scheme, you will usually be entitled to compensation from them. This could apply, for example, if they do not reply to your complaint within 10 working days. Some companies' compensation schemes go further than this scheme. Contact your water company for details.

If you have followed the company's complaints procedure and you are still not happy, you can ask your local Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) Committee to investigate.

CCWater represents customers' interests. It focuses on the level of customers' bills, the services provided to customers and value for money. It also investigates complaints from customers about their water company.

We deal with certain complaints, disagreements and appeals. These include:

predatory or excessively high pricing;
terms and conditions in service agreements and contracts between water companies and their customers;
water companies abusing their dominant position by consistently overcharging their customers;
cases where water companies charge high prices, allow unjustified delays or impose unreasonable terms when laying water mains;
cases where water companies refuse to give potential competitors access to their water resources;
cases where it is alleged that companies are not complying with their statutory duties or licence conditions; and
agreements between water companies, for example colluding on pricing or bidding for contracts, that may breach the Competition Act 1998.

If you are not happy with the way we have handled your complaint, disagreement or appeal, we would like the chance to put the matter right. So, we have our own review procedure.

For further details please see Customer Charter: Our standards of service, Page 6


15/12/06	What to do if you have problems with your water company: Water woes (PDF - 174Kb)

27/10/05	Protecting your interests (PDF - 314Kb)

27/10/05	Customer charter: Our standards of service (PDF - 388Kb)

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