About Consultation
PR24 is the largest investment programme in the water sector across England and Wales over the last 30 years, with a £104 billion budget for water companies to improve services to customers and protect the environment. This is nearly twice the size of the investment programme in PR19. To support the deliverability of PR24 and hold companies to delivering the step change, we have introduced a series of regulatory and monitoring tools, including transitional and accelerated funding, delivery mechanism, delayed delivery cashflow mechanism, price control deliverables and delivery plans.
This publication focuses on delivery plans, which set out how companies expect to deliver the step change in investment. Companies are required to submit and publish an independently assured report on their progress against their delivery plan once a year.
In this document we set out our proposed approach to assessing progress against delivery plans. Our proposed approach seeks to increase transparency over what companies deliver in PR24 and enable the early identification of risks to delivery and how companies are addressing these risks. It is underpinned by a supervisory approach that supports company specific oversight.
Our approach has been informed by our engagement with the sector, including workshops with water companies and discussions with Defra and the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) – and it takes into account the direction set out in the Independent Water Commission’s (IWC) report and the UK government’s Water Reform White Paper. It is designed to provide a forward looking view of delivery progress and any emerging risks.
We expect our approach to evolve as more outturn delivery data becomes available over the five year review period. We will continue to work collaboratively with the sector to refine our approach where appropriate.
Responding to this consultation
We welcome views from stakeholders on our proposed approach to assessing company progress against delivery plans no later than 18 June 2026. Please submit your responses to [email protected]. We intend to publish our final assessment framework before the end of July 2026.