MSE News: Anglian Water SoLow customer? It's axing the tariff meaning bill hikes

GailForce wrote: »

I think this lack of informational is intentional. The whole tone of the letter suggests that the phasing out of the SoLow Tariff is 'no big deal' and advises customers 'not to worry'. It is a deceitful attempted to hide the true impact of the withdrawal of the tariff will have on many customers, which is why they have not included details of the standard tariff in the letter. Anglian Water's implausible explanation for this is that price increases had not been finalised when the letters were posted as they wanted to let customers know early of future changes.

The examples of increased charges quoted on the website are misleadingly selective for water usage and show only moderate increases in charges. In answer to my complaint about a 100% increase in my water bills I received a poorly written letter, consisting of a batch of irrelevant cobbled together standard paragraphs, which barely addressed my actual complaint.

Why is this Happening

In short, SoLow customers receive a subsidy on their bill and that subsidy is paid for by other customers. The subsidy amounted to every non-SoLow customer paying an £7 extra per year to fund the preferential SoLow rate.

At the time we introduced SoLow it was appropriate to provide preferential rates for customers who were switching to metering and had low consumption. All SoLow customers have benefitted from their time on the tariff as they’ve been paying less than the standard rate for their water services. However, 80% of customers now have meters and are equally water efficient as those on SoLow. Yet, only a small percentage (5%) are benefitting from the SoLow incentive.

With six million customers, we have to ensure fairness for all and hence the need to phase out SoLow.

Recent analysis of the data also showed the SoLow tariff was on average benefiting smaller households rather than water efficiency. While some people were benefitting, others were losing out despite their best efforts to use less water; larger families for instance.

The two factors combined meant that offering the preferential rate SoLow tariff was unfair to the majority of our six million customers and was no longer sustainable as a tariff.

It was a decision we put much thought and consideration into, and that’s why we have consulted with Consumer Council for Water throughout, and have been at pains to make the changes gradual.

A low consumption customer would use less than 35 cubic meters a year, and the increase of going onto the Standard tariff equates to around £2 per month.