Annual report shows Scottish Water delivers best ever value to customers

Scottish Water Press releases

Scottish Water’s annual report for 2007/08 reports more progress in transforming the water industry in Scotland.

The report, which was laid before Parliament today, highlights that Scottish Water continues to outperform its regulatory contract while improving service to customers and keeping charges steady.

Household average charges are now the fourth lowest in the UK with the average household bill for 2008/09 £20 lower than the average in England and Wales.

This is at the same time as we are investing record levels to improve the service we provide to our customers. In 2007/08 we invested £625 million, one of the biggest investment programmes in the UK, to deliver clearer, fresher drinking water, a cleaner environment and improved customer service.

Richard Ackroyd, chief executive of Scottish Water, said: “I am delighted to be leading the fastest improving water company in the UK. For our customers, we aim to provide one of the leading value for money packages in the UK water industry, and we are investing in the future of Scotland’s infrastructure by transforming the water network to world class standards.

“We still have much to do, to reduce leakage, to further improve customer service and become a more environmentally sustainable business. I believe we have the management and the people to ensure that Scottish Water continues to improve and meet the challenges of the future.”

The improvements in 2007/08 include:

 

  • We improved our customer Overall Performance Assessment by a further 16 points to 248, an improvement in the year of 6.9%. The OPA score is a basket of measurements which look at service to customers. It includes drinking water quality, water pressure and sewer flooding. The target for the year was 213 points – we have beaten this by 16%.
  • Delivered a further £625 million of investment in Scotland’s water and waste water networks. This has improved the quality of drinking water supplied to customers and the waste water quality discharges to the environment across Scotland. Of this £149million has been invested to provide clearer, fresher drinking water to 486,000 customers.
  • Delivered £43.7 m of savings to 31 March 2008.
  • The number of properties at risk from internal sewer flooding, while still too high, went down from 1042 in 2006/07 to 563 in 2007/08.
  • The number of properties with low water pressure reduced from 7,772 in 2006/07 to 5,907 in 2007/08.
  • We have reduced customers’ properties affected by unplanned interruptions lasting longer than 6 hours by 12,195 compared to last year. This is an improvement of 42%.
  • Continued to service new development in Scotland, developing even closer links with local authorities and developers to ensure we play our part in helping Scotland grow and prosper.
  • Working to minimise the impact of climate change through our carbon management programme and developing new ways of saving energy while still continuing to deliver the highest levels of service to our customers.
  • Ronnie Mercer, chair of Scottish Water, said: This annual report illustrates the strides we have taken in Scotland to improve the water industry since we were first formed in 2002. In those first six years we have become an efficient business delivering the improvements Scotland needs while keeping charges steady for our customers.”

ENDS