Thames Water to pay £86 million package

An Ofwat investigation found that the company had misreported the number of properties at high risk of sewer flooding between 2005 and 2010, meaning that more properties were recorded as high risk than there was evidence to support.
The water regulator said that the misreporting may have led to “poorly targeted and inefficient spending of customers’ money.”
However, it said that there was no evidence of deliberate misreporting and it was satisfied that no homes had been put at risk of sewer flooding.
Ofwat added that Thames Water’s programme reduced the risk of sewer flooding at the homes of a large number of its customers.
Thames Water spokeswoman, Becky Trotman, said that none of the misreported properties were in West Berkshire.
Following the investigation, Thames Water has accepted a reduction of £79m from its regulated capital value and will give back £7 million to customers and the community.
Ofwat said that this reduction would see bills lowered by £15.2m, in total over the next five years.
Thames Water also agreed to invest £5m to support additional community projects such as local programmes to better protect rivers and improve the natural environment; and to put an additional £2m into its independently managed Thames Water Trust Fund, to assist customers who are having difficulty paying their bills.
Ofwat said it recognised that Thames Water had spent an additional £20m of its own money to help deal with sewer flooding problems between 2005 and 2010, and this money has not come out of customers’ bills.
Since 2010, it has also taken steps to avoid such a problem recurring and it has been able to demonstrate to Ofwat significant improvements in its sewer flooding reporting processes.
Chief Executive of Ofwat, Cathryn Ross, said: “We welcome Thames’s co-operative approach which means we have concluded our investigation more quickly and resulted in a better outcome for customers.
"We are satisfied that Thames has put right the problems that caused the misreporting. It’s only fair that when companies make mistakes, they put it right and make sure customers are not out of pocket.”
Thames Water said in a statement: “We made a mistake in some of our 2009/10 sewer flooding statistics. Ofwat agree that this was not deliberate and we are pleased they have accepted our package of measures in response. This is a positive result for our customers, communities and the environment.”