PR14 Draft Determinations

Understanding customer acceptability of Ofwat’s draft decisions on price limits.

The main aims of the research were to find out how acceptable the proposals were to customers and to establish the role of affordability in unacceptability. The research is unique as 500 customers from each water company were surveyed using the same research methodology, allowing comparisons to be made both between companies and with the overall results.

The key findings are:

• Acceptability among customers is quite high when presented with a statement showing the percentage amount bills will change each year on average before inflation.
• This drops markedly when the effect of inflation is introduced.
• Acceptability rises again once customers are given more information about the services they will receive for their money.
• The research also found that customers are feeling financially squeezed and a significant majority feel their incomes are not keeping up with the cost of living.

Download the research findings: