Ofwat has confirmed the payments due to companies or customers as a result of water company performance against their 2020-21 performance commitments. Overall, £67m will be repaid to customers.
The largest outperformance payment will be to Severn Trent Water, which will receive £25m. Thames Water and Southern Water will return £53m and £46m to their customers respectively.
Our 2019 price control determinations set the price and service packages that companies have to deliver through to 2025.The outcome delivery incentives (ODIs) are the financial or reputational consequences for companies of outperformance or underperformance against their performance commitments and these are reviewed year on year to make them timely against the company performance and customer experience. The payments will affect the amount of revenue companies can recover from customers through 2022-23 bills.
For Severn Trent Water and Portsmouth Water we have agreed to defer some ODI payments.
Following a consultation about the impact of COVID 19 on customers’ use of water, we have decided to review company performance on per capita consumption at the end of the 2020-25 period, rather than by individual year. ODI payments for per capita consumption performance commitments will be determined at the end of the period for all years within the 2020-25 price control period. Consequently, we have not included any adjustment in relation to this performance commitment in our final determination.
We analyse and compare water company performance through publications such as our Service Delivery Report and Financial Monitoring Report, both of which are due to be published before the end of 2021.
