Water quality customer contacts - appearance taste and odour - performance commitment data

What are performance commitments (PCs)?

The water regulator Ofwat sets targets called performance commitments (PCs) to ensure companies deliver the best possible service for customers, society and the environment. Wessex Water has a range of PCs for the 2020-25 period.

Each year we report our results against these commitments, in our Annual Performance Report.

Where appropriate we’re publishing the data underpinning calculation of the PCs – you can find our other PC datasets in the Performance Commitments section.

Water quality customer contacts PC

From time to time customers may contact us with concerns that their drinking water does not look or taste 'normal'. This can include discoloured water, particles and white water (air / chalk).

The change in appearance may be due to:

a burst water main
a main that has been turned back on after a repair
a third party using a large volume of water, e.g. the fire service
plumbing or appliances within customer homes.

Each customer contact received is investigated to help understand the cause. A large number of contacts result from issues within the home and not the water we supply. For example, contacts about oil may be due to a leaking oil tank on the customer property.

Details of each customer contact are recorded and reported to the water quality regulator, the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI).

We also provide a high-level view of this information to Ofwat through the water quality customer contacts PC, which reports the number of customer contacts we receive each year about the appearance, taste and odour of drinking water. We report the PC as a normalised figure (customer contacts per 1,000 population).

This performance commitment incentivises us to improve the appearance, taste and odour of drinking water using approaches such as mains flushing or mains rehabilitation / replacement.

Dataset details

The dataset provides further granularity on the customer contacts contributing to our performance commitment. The number of contacts for different sub-categories of appearance contacts and taste / odour contacts is given, for each of our water supply zones, by year. Water supply zones are geographical sub-divisions of our water supply region, for the purposes of supply management.

The PC and therefore the dataset excludes contacts received which are affiliated with a water quality event reported to the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

Column position	Column heading	Description	Units
1	APR reporting year	The reporting year that this contact contributes towards, e.g. 2020-2021, 2021-2022.	N/A
2	Calendar year	The calendar year during which the contact was made, e.g. 2020, 2021. Contacts in the 2020 calendar year contribute to the 2020-21 reporting year, contacts in the 2021 calendar year contribute to the 2021-22 reporting year, etc.	N/A
3	Water Supply Zone ref	The water supply zone that the customer contact originated from. (Water supply zones are geographical sub-divisions of our water supply region, for the purposes of supply management.) For reasons of security, zones have been anonymised by assigning them a specific letter, rather than disclosing the actual name.	N/A
4	Population band for Water Supply Zone	The approximate size of the water supply zone in column 3. For reasons of security, sizes are given as a population range to prevent identification: < 2000 2000 - 4000 4000 - 6000 6000 - 8000 8000 - 10000 10,000 - 20,000 20,000 - 40,000 40,000 - 60,000 60,000 - 80,000 80,000 - 10,0000	number of people
5	Contact type	There are two possible entries: ‘Appearance contacts’ ‘Taste and odour contacts’	N/A
6	Consumer contact subcategory	For appearance contacts, there are seven possible entries: ‘Discoloured - brown/black/orange’ – coloured water as described ‘Discoloured - blue/green’ – coloured water as described ‘Particles’ – visible particles, either floating or settled at the bottom of a glass ‘White – air’ – white or milky looking water that leaves no sediment in a glass when left to settle ‘White – chalk’ – white or milky looking water that settles to leave a white sediment at the bottom of a glass ‘Animalcules’ – a creature, living or dead, such as chironomid larvae or Asellus ‘General conditions’ – a deposit or slime or colour on the outside of a tap or water fitting where the water appears normal For taste and odour contacts, there are four possible entries: ‘Chlorine’ – includes TCP taste, disinfectant / medicinal odours on boiling a kettle or taking a shower ‘Earthy/musty’ – a natural taste or odour relating to soil or vegetation ‘Petrol/diesel’ – customers can perceive the presence of petroleum or hydrocarbon-based substances ‘Other taste or odour’ – anything that doesn’t fall into the above categories, e.g. bitter, salty	N/A
7	Number of customer contacts	The absolute number of customer contacts of the type and subcategory specified in columns 5 and 6.	no. of contacts

How was this data collated?

Customer contacts about water quality are recorded in our contact management system. These contacts are extracted from the system and verified on a monthly basis, then reported to the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) at the end of the calendar year. This published data set is an extract of this.

We use the report to the DWI to compile our annual reporting of the PC to Ofwat.

Data quality

Note that the reporting zones may not be consistent between years, i.e., zone A in 2020 may not match zone A in 2021.

Publish frequency

For the remaining years of the 2020-25 period, an additional year of data will be added after the annual reporting period.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments about this data set, please get in touch via opendata@wessexwater.co.uk

Terms of use

This dataset is licensed under CC BY, an open data licence, to make it freely available to other potential customers, stakeholders or interested organisations.

Supplementary information

About this dataset

Last updated	1 week ago
Commitments	Customer contacts about water quality