Welsh Household Customer Views On Water Market Reform

This research is a companion piece to our Floating The Idea report, which explored customers’ views on the possibility of household retail competition being introduced in England.

Welsh Government has retained the existing regulatory framework as the mechanism for ensuring customers receive “first-class, value for money water and sewerage services”. However we were interested in seeking the views of customers in Wales on the idea of competition within this context.

We sought customers’ views through a focus group held in Cardiff and 200 telephone surveys.

The key findings include:

• Customers in Wales are happy with their current service and the price of their water and sewerage provider.
• Just over half of customers are initially supportive of the principle of introducing competition in the water and sewerage.
• Support for competition drops considerably when customers understand the level of saving that are likely to be achieved.
• Customers in Wales are content with Welsh Government’s policy position – there is no strong push for retail competition in Wales.