CCW staff members dressed up at awards

CCWater’s social policy team narrowly missed out on the top prize at last night’s 2017 Utilities & Telecoms Awards.

Senior policy manager Andy White made it into the top three contenders for the Leader of the Year – Transition & Implementation Award for his work in leading the team, otherwise known as the ‘ninjas’.

And the team was a runner up in the contest for the Best Vulnerable Customer Support Team, the most popular category of the awards. They were up against some big organisations like British Gas, Citizens Advice, Severn Trent and United Utilities.

Andy said:

I’m extremely proud of what the team has achieved over the past year. They’ve brought good practice to the water industry and made a real difference for vulnerable customers.

This was the first time we’ve been nominated for a major award so to make it onto the short list for two awards was an excellent achievement.

The team – Andy, Janine Shackleton, Gemma Domican and Lucy Byrnes – was nominated for the work it has done with water companies on developing and promoting social tariffs for low-income customers. All 21 companies in England and Wales now have a scheme in place.

The team has also helped increase the take-up of other assistance schemes like WaterSure, and worked with poverty and debt relief charities to provide further support for customers.

At the award ceremony in Nottingham, the team was joined by Kathie Clarke from our charity partner Turn2us, Mark Mcelveney from StepChange and Ben Groom from Ofwat (a former member of our Consumer Relations team).

Turn2us helped us launch our benefits calculator last year. From April to September this year more than 1200 users have used the online tool to identify a total of £2m in potential annual benefits. The Utilities & Telecoms Awards were run by Credit Strategy, an online news and information service for the consumer credit industry.

For more information about the awards go to http://www.creditstrategy.co.uk/