The government is consulting on changes to improve customer service and protection in the water and sewerage sector

The government is consulting on changes to the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) to improve baseline customer service standards and protection in the water and sewerage sector. These proposed changes include roughly doubling payment values contained within the scheme, and broadening the set of standards which warrant payments to provide more comprehensive protection from service disruption for customers in England, following the announcements to this effect of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 11 July 2024.

This consultation is seeking views of stakeholders in the sector and parties or individuals who may be affected by the changes within the government’s proposals to amend the GSS as it applies within England.

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW), the statutory consumer representative body in the water sector, has conducted a review of the GSS which concluded with recommendations for improvements. Government has carefully considered these recommendations and incorporated them into these proposals as appropriate.

The proposals below lay out updates across 3 key areas in relation to the scheme:

• Uprating payment amounts
• Improving and clarifying existing standards within the scheme
• Introducing additional standards which are not at present a statutory provision of the scheme

They also propose potential changes to the procedures for updating the GSS to future-proof the level of protection it offers to customers and ensure that standards can be adjusted with flexibility to future circumstances.

Part 2.1 will set out the proposed uprating of payment values associated with the GSS from the levels last set in 2000. The proposed updates and clarifications to the existing standards will be detailed in Part 2.2. Part 2.3 will put forward proposals for potential new standards to be added to the existing scheme. Finally, proposed procedural changes to the way GSS is administered and updated in future can be found in Part 2.4.

We anticipate that this consultation will take approximately 30 minutes to complete.

The consultation closes on 7 October