International comparisons - network indicators: results for 2006-07
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Ofwat home > Publications > Reports on water companies

Introduction
Introduction

 Customers' bills
Customers' bills		 Unit costs
Unit costs

 Customer service levels
Customer service levels		 Water quality
Water quality
Environmental performance
Environmental performance		 Water balance
Water balance

 Water efficiency
Water efficiency

 Leakage
Leakage

 Network activity
Network activity


International comparisons - network indicators: results for 2006-07


Key conclusions
  • The level of customer service provided by companies in England and Wales compares favourably with the other countries compared.
  • The overall performance assessment (OPA) shows that Scotland is still lagging behind England and Wales, but Scottish Water has improved significantly since last year and the gap is closing.
Network indicators

Table 8 shows the network indicators we use to measure the performance of the water and sewerage networks. The only directly comparable data for low pressure comes from Scottish Water, which has a higher proportion of properties at risk of low pressure than all companies in England and Wales. Sydney Water's performance is towards the top end of the England and Wales range but it reports low pressure against a slightly tighter standard.

For unplanned interruptions in water supply, Scotland's performance is similar to the England and Wales average for the longer duration interruptions, but worse for properties affected for more than six hours. The data provided by Portugal and the USA is limited to properties affected by interruptions greater than 12 hours; the average values for both these countries are lower than England and Wales. For Portugal, the values are lower because they reflect the number of incidents rather than the number of properties affected.

For Australia, we can compare the overall number of properties experiencing unplanned interruptions per thousand properties. For those Australian companies that provide this data, the average performance is poorer than England and Wales. However, the average is skewed by the poor performance of the largest company, Sydney Water. All the other Australian companies lie within the England and Wales range.

Canadian companies' performance is also worse than England and Wales against this measure.

For sewer flooding, Scottish Water is the only comparator reporting on incidents caused by overloaded sewers and it performs better for this measure than the average performance in England and Wales. For the proportion of properties flooded because of both overloaded sewers and other causes Scotland performed the same as the average in England and Wales. In Canada performance was generally significantly worse than in England and Wales for this measure.

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Customer service levels
-   Network indicators - results for 2006–07
-   Customer contact indicators - results for 2006–07

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