- Drinking Water 2025 – Summary of the Chief Inspector’s report for drinking water in Wales
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Water supplies and testing
- Compliance with standards
- Learning from compliance failures
- Learning from events
- Consumer contacts
- Asset health
- Water safety planning and risk assessment
- Poly and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
- Audit programme
- Recommendations
- Enforcement
- Security and Emergency Measures Direction - SEMD
- Network and Information Systems - NIS
- Materials in contact with drinking water (Regulation 31)
- Research publications
- Whistleblowers
- Working with stakeholders
Recommendations
Where a regulatory breach occurs or appears likely, and an Inspector cannot conclude that recurrence is unlikely, a formal recommendation must be issued to the company. Recommendations highlight areas where companies can improve compliance with the Regulations. Each recommendation is tracked to assess its significance and the company’s response. This regulatory approach helps identify companies at risk of regulatory failure that could increase residual risk to drinking water supplies, ensuring necessary improvements are made.
Inspectors made 89 recommendations in 2025, see table 17
| High level category | Recommendations made |
|---|---|
| Management | 62 |
| Sampling | 11 |
| Storage & distribution | 8 |
| Communication | 6 |
| Treatment | 2 |
| Catchment | 0 |
| Other | 0 |
| Total | 89 |
Figure 46 – Number of recommendations per company in 2025
Figure 47 – Trend of recommendations in Wales
Figure 48 – Recommendation count national
As part of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water’s transformation programme, thematic meetings continued to focus on key areas requiring measurable outcomes. One such theme is recommendations, which are particularly significant because the Recommendations Risk Index is one of the factors considered when assessing whether a company should enter transformation. The main aim of this thematic work is to support the company in improving its Recommendations Risk Index following three years of deteriorating performance. At these meetings, Inspectors discuss examples of responses to recommendations, illustrating the different response assessment scores available under the assessment procedure. Early lessons from these focused discussions included:
- How to monitor the fulfilment of recommendations to the point of delivery with evidence.
- What does delivery evidence look like? What is good quality evidence verses poor quality evidence?
- How to determine the correct people to ‘own’ different types of recommendation.
The meetings are also an opportunity to discuss the fulfilment of current recommendations to help guide the company towards receiving a more favourable response assessment.
Although the number of recommendations issued to the company fell from 95 in 2024 to 83 in 2025, the company still received the second highest number of recommendations in the industry. This indicates that substantial further improvement is needed if the company is to move closer to average industry performance. One approach that has helped other companies on a similar journey is the early identification of potential recommendations during the investigation stage. Offering actions as part of investigation reports, where Inspectorate recommendations are assessed as likely, can result in the recommendation not being made.
Figure 49 shows that management deficiencies account for the largest share of recommendations, with 62 making up this portion. Sampling, storage and distribution and treatment deficiencies also attracted recommendations. Of the 62 recommendations in the management category, the majority were for risk assessment and policies and procedures.
Figure 49 – High level and secondary level categories
The Recommendations Risk Index shows the position of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and Hafren Dyfrdwy compared with the expected recommendation score for each company. Hafren Dyfrdwy is within the expected range, while Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water remains above the red line. This is expected given that the company remains closer to the start of its transformation journey than the end. Additionally, it takes a couple of years for the impact of recent years’ RRI to attenuate through the algorithm.
Figure 49 – Recommendation risk index
This year’s breakdown of recommendations by category reveals an increase related to consumer complaints during 2025, which correlates with the increase in complaints during the year.