People have been forced to queue up for bottled water following an outage in Hampshire (Image: PA)
As we are forced to scavenge for extra cash next year to pay for the rise in water bills – the average rise in England and Wales will be £86 from April – spare a thought for the hard-pressed bosses of water companies across England and Wales who have continued to enjoy six-figure financial bonuses.
It is simply outrageous at a time when any positive perception of their businesses has long disappeared down the plughole.
Industry regulator Ofwat has announced that bills will go up by 36% over the next five years.
They say that this steep hike is to reduce sewage discharges and to pay for supply infrastructure upgrades.
The increases are higher than the regulator proposed earlier this year, but lower than the figures requested by water companies.
Yet this comes as we learn that the majority of water bosses have been enjoying chunky financial bonuses.
I bet they won’t be worrying about paying their bills over the next few years.
If you thought that was hard to swallow, the announcement of the price hike came at a time when 60,000 people were without any water in Hampshire because of a “technical fault”.
To add insult to injury, Southern Water has increased their bills by the largest amount of any supplier in England and Wales.
I wonder how that is going down with their customers as they queued this week for bottled water at a nearby water station in Southampton and the New Forest.
Despite some homes being reconnected, Southern Water are warning that the disruption may well continue into the weekend.
Company accounts reveal that most water and sewerage companies in England and Wales increased their chief executive bonuses last year.
Bosses received bonuses ranging from £183,000 to a staggering £584,000. How is this remotely justifiable?
The research lists Yorkshire Water, Severn Trent Water, Thames Water, Southern Water, Welsh Water, United Utilities and Northumbrian Water as the companies that paid six-figure sums to their chief executives.
Water companies like to argue that the bonuses are paid by shareholders, not customers, and are linked to the improvements in environmental performance and customer satisfaction.
But this clever bit of spin will not cut any ice with most of us who simply see bills going up, while bosses receive eye-watering bonuses and sewage discharges flow regularly into our rivers and seas.
Water companies also seem to forget the salient truth that without our money, there would not be a business for shareholders to profit from at all.
There are some chief executives who appear to have acknowledged the anger and despair many of us feel over the behaviour of water companies in the last few years.
The figures reveal that the bosses of South West Water, Wessex Water and Anglian Water did not receive any bonuses last year.
Fair play to them, it looks like they have a better understanding of the public’s mood and attitude towards their industry.
Bonuses aside, Thames Water has also just been fined £18million after it was revealed it broke new industry rules when paying £170million to shareholders.
The company reportedly paid out dividends despite new regulations designed strictly to forbid so if they are unjustified. Regulator Ofwat says that the fine should be seen as a warning to the whole sector. They must be terrified!
The wild west nature of our water companies must change. Campaigners and politicians have proposed various solutions ranging from renationalisation to scrapping the regulator or deeming it not fit for purpose.
It is clear the situation we find ourselves in has been decades in the making.
A quick solution does not exist. Renationalising the whole sector would cost billions of pounds with taxpayers footing the bill.
Water companies blame Ofwat for not letting them invest in infrastructure. Campaigners accuse the regulator of being toothless in holding firms to account.
The blame game will continue with a group of MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee announcing they will launch an inquiry to scrutinise the latest water bills increase. Whilst laudable, it’s hard to see what this might change.
Water bosses across England and Wales need to demonstrate they fully understand our anger over bonuses at a time when bills are rising.
If they have any sense or compassion, they should collectively forfeit any bonuses for this current financial year and in the foreseeable future to salvage the reputation of their industry.