Each year, Ofwat looks at the performance of the 16 largest water and wastewater companies in England and Wales across a set of key performance and expenditure metrics. The information in the report provides transparency for customers, and wider stakeholders, to see how water companies are performing on the issues that matter to them.
Information used in this report is taken from companies’ annual performance reports. Alongside the main report, we present the data in an interactive dashboard (see below), which allows users to select and view a specific company or year.
We are taking action to drive performance improvements, particularly for the poorest performing companies.
Headline findings
We set companies stretching performance commitments at the 2019 price review. Four years into the period, companies are making progress in some areas, but in other areas performance is unacceptable.
- Maintaining asset health is key to ensuring companies can meet the needs of customers and the environment. Most companies have performed well in their asset health measures in 2023-24.
- Most companies reported a reduction in annual leakage, but improvement needs to be accelerated.
- The majority of companies improved their performance for water supply interruptions, but some companies still have unacceptable levels.
- Customer satisfaction continues to fall. Improving this should be a key priority for all companies.
- Companies need to take action to reduce pollution incidents which have increased and are at an unacceptable level.
- Almost all companies reported an increase in internal sewer flooding incidents and companies must take actions to address this.
- Companies have continued to overspend on their total water and wastewater allowances but have underspent on their enhancement allowances. Companies should be delivering their enhancement schemes so that customers and the environment start to receive the benefits.
- Details on the actions we are taking to drive performance improvement are included in the main report.
The dashboard below outlines companies’ progress in year four of the period and how performance in specific metrics is changing.
Water Company Performance Report 2023-24 – Key documents
Download the full Water Company Performance Report 2023-24
Download the data for the Water Company Performance Report 2023-24
Data for the Water Company Performance Report 2023-24 – Open data-friendly machine-readable format
Data for the Water Company Performance Report 2023-24 – Open data – Data Dictionary
Water companies must go further to create lasting change – visual summary
All data available on this page is released under the Open Government License and is free for use and re-use.