D. Enquiries and Consumer Complaints
- Describing the Inspectorate’s handling of general enquiries from consumers, organisations and businesses.
- Describing water quality complaints from consumers and organisations representing consumers.
- Recording the extent to which Code for Enforcement targets for responding to all such contacts were met.
General
- The Inspectorate receives many enquiries relating to drinking water quality from the public, businesses and other interested parties. In order to provide an efficient service to deal with these enquiries, the Inspectorate has developed a first response unit which can answer most of the routine questions. More technical or difficult questions are always referred to an appropriate inspector.
- A similar approach is used for handling consumer complaints on drinking water quality.
- The Code for Enforcement sets a target for the Inspectorate to respond to all general enquiries, and straightforward customer complaints, irrespective of origin, within three weeks.
Enquiries
- The Inspectorate received a total of 2,660 customer enquiries during 2001.
- The table below details enquiries received and recorded. It shows the form of enquiry and the number of responses that reached or fell short of the desired target.
Forms of Enquiry
Number received where response has been within 3 weeks
Number received where response has exceeded 3 weeks Total (% meeting target) Phone 1,761 5 1,766 99.7% Letter/Fax/E-mail 881 13 894 98.5%
Total 2,642 18 2,660 99.3%
- Enquiries are received on many subjects including the following:
Bottled water
Lead in drinking water
Chlorine, smell and taste
Nitrates in drinking water
Cryptosporidium
Pesticides in drinking water
Discolouration
Private water supplies
DWI internet site
Water hardness/softness
Fluoride in drinking water
Water supply fittings
General information on drinking water
What does DWI do?
Information on water companies
Other
- Leaflets are available on most of the above subjects. These may be obtained free of charge from the Inspectorate or viewed at the web site www.dwi.gov.uk
Consumer Complaints
- Most complaints are handled effectively by water companies without consumer reference to the Inspectorate.
- In 2001, the Inspectorate investigated 346 complaints from consumers about drinking water quality, an increase of 23% compared with 2000.
- The largest number of complaints related to the supply of discoloured water, with complaints about tastes and odours also featuring highly.
Breakdown of complaints by type
- Most of the complaints were dealt with by the Inspectorate asking the relevant water company to look into the matter and take remedial action where necessary. Additionally, where appropriate, the Inspectorate advised complainants on any action which they themselves could take.
- In the event of the consumer being dissatisfied with the water company’s response, the Inspectorate investigated the complaint further. In some cases this was done in association with the environmental health department of the local authority concerned.
- The Inspectorate continued to liaise closely with the Consumer Service Committee (CSC) of the Office of Water Services (OFWAT). Occasionally the CSC referred complaints to the Inspectorate for investigation.
- Every effort was made to complete investigations within the terms of the Inspectorate’s Code for Enforcement. However, 42% of complaints fell outside the target, mainly because of the complexity of the investigation or delays outside the Inspectorate’s control.
Breakdown of consumer complaints by company
- The bigger water companies supply large areas of the population and consequently they received far more complaints. To give a fair and balanced comparison of customer complaints, the number of complaints received by the Inspectorate per 100,000 people of the population that each water company served was used as a basis for comparison.
Fig. 1: Number of complaints received for each Water Company per 100,000 of the population in each service area for 2001
Fig. 2: A comparision between numbers of complaints received for each water company for 2000 and 2001.
- The Inspectorate received no complaints in 2001 from consumers served by those companies not shown in Figure 1.
- While most consumers who contact the Inspectorate have a concern about a water quality issue, a growing number of complaints relate to consumers being dissatisfied with the way their initial complaints are being handled by some water companies. Based on this trend, it is the intention of the Inspectorate in its inspection programmes to look at the way complaints are handled by the water companies.
- The Inspectorate also receives a number of calls from persistent complainers, where it is not possible either to establish the basis for their complaint or to resolve the issue of concern.
[ Previous ] [ Contents ] [ Next ]
| A - Z Index | Business and Technical | Consumer Information | Contacting us |
| DWI Home Page | News | Product Approval | Search our site | Wales |
Drinking Water Inspectorate,
Floor 2/A1, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6DE
Telephone : 020 7944 5956 - Facsimile : 020 7944 5969
E-mail: dwi.enquiries@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Published 10 July 2002
Return to Publications and Reports Index
Return to Drinking Water Inspectorate Home Page
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)Home Page
The National Assembly for Wales / Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru Home Page
Web site terms
© Crown copyright 2002
