Water

Summary

Mr C had run his business from shop premises since 2006. In 2012, Business Stream contacted him to say that he had not been paying for the waste and water services he was using, and issued invoices for their services from 2008 to 2012. Mr C complained that he had had no previous contact from Business Stream and they had delayed in issuing their invoices. He believed that Business Stream had failed in their duty to fit a water meter, and were at fault in not doing so in his shop. He also complained that, since receiving invoices from Business Stream, he had repeatedly asked for a water meter to be fitted and the invoices to be recalculated based on probable usage, but Business Stream had refused to agree to this. Mr C said that Business Stream's actions in demanding payment while the matter was under dispute were unreasonable, as was their action in disconnecting the supply to his shop when he had made a part payment towards the bill.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that Mr C had not contacted Scottish Water in 2006 when he moved into the shop, or sourced a service provider when the water market opened up in 2008. Business Stream had explained their charges and offered a payment plan, and told him how to go about having a meter fitted, but he had not applied to have this work done. We were satisfied that Business Stream had explained that they could not accede to his request for the recalculation of his account because they could not backdate their bills. Further, we found nothing to suggest that Business Stream had not followed due procedures to pursue payment, or in the steps taken to give notice of their intention to disconnect the supply and of the action Mr C could take if he wished to stop this happening. We found that Mr C had made a part payment but that this was too little too late because it was for a tenth of the sum owing and was only made after disconnection had taken place.

Summary

Mr C runs a business that relies solely on customers visiting his workshop. He complained that work carried out by Scottish Water resulted in disruption to, and closure of, the road that provides access to the workshop. Mr C said that, as a result, he did not have any customers for a period of three months. The road works were originally scheduled to take two weeks, but were extended on more than one occasion. Mr C was dissatisfied with the reasons Scottish Water gave for the closure of the road and their rejection of his claim for compensation.

We accepted Scottish Water's position that the road works had to be extended due to the contractors hitting rock when excavating. We were satisfied that exploratory work had been carried out to assess the ground and that the delays to the work were unforeseeable. We were also satisfied that Scottish Water took reasonable steps to minimise the impact on Mr C's business by ensuring access remained possible to his property and by erecting 'business as usual' signs on the main road.

That said, we found that Scottish Water failed to communicate with Mr C about the extensions to the road closure. We also found that they dismissed his claim for compensation without passing on the details to their claims handlers in line with their customer charter.

Recommendations

We recommended that Scottish Water:

• pay Mr C £20.00 in line with their service standards in recognition of their failure to notify him of the delay to completion of the mains installation; and
• in line with their customer charter, pass Mr C's claim for compensation to their claims handlers for consideration in terms of the inconvenience caused.

Summary

Mr C complained about Scottish Water's response when there was sewage flooding outside his home.

Our investigation found that there had been problems with a sewage pumping station that had contributed to the flooding outside Mr C's home. In response to this, Scottish Water had installed new bigger pumps, lowered the pump start level and installed an emergency overflow at the pumping station. However, there was further flooding outside Mr C's property even after this work was carried out because a temporary bung (stopper) that Scottish Water had installed was washed down the sewer. They fitted a new bung and concrete was put in to stop this from happening again. This helped to reduce the risk of flooding.

We established that where Scottish Water can resolve the cause of flooding outside someone's home, either without additional investment or through operational measures (jetting, cleaning etc), they will do so. However, they are not funded for capital solutions to resolve hydraulic capacity issues that cause external flooding. In this case, we found that Scottish Water had taken reasonable steps to investigate and to try to resolve the problem. Although not all of these steps were successful, we considered that their actions had been reasonable. They had also awarded Mr C financial compensation for the problems he had faced.

Mr C was also unhappy with the way that Scottish Water dealt with his complaints about the matter. We identified a number of failings in relation to their complaints handling. There was no evidence that they responded to one of his letters. Another letter they sent did not clearly explain that it was in response to a number of pieces of correspondence received from him, and they failed to respond to some of Mr C's complaints within the appropriate timescale.

Mr C also complained that staff refused to provide their business cards to him. Scottish Water said that they had investigated this and that staff did offer him their contact details. Although it is good practice for members of staff to be able to provide business cards at a meeting, we considered that it was reasonable for staff to offer their contact details if they were unable to provide business cards. However, we found that staff had failed to keep adequate records of their meetings with Mr C. Mr C also complained that staff had failed to honour commitments made to him. We did not find any evidence that this was the case.

Recommendations

We recommended that Scottish Water:

• consider awarding Mr C further guaranteed service standard payments in line with their code of practice for the delays in responding to his complaints;
• remind relevant staff that they should make adequate records of meetings with service users; and
• issue a written apology to Mr C for the failings identified in relation to the handling of his complaints.

Summary

Mr C complained that Business Stream unfairly and unjustly pursued his charity for payment of water and waste water services. He claimed that Business Stream failed to respond to his request for a meter to be installed; unreasonably passed the matter to a debt collection agency, when he was still in discussion with them about the bill; and were wrongly pursuing the charity for payment of services that were the responsibility of their landlord.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that the charity had not contacted a water services provider since they moved into the premises. Business Stream were, therefore, entitled to charge them for the services because they were the service providers before the previous tenant left the property. The property was not fitted with a meter, and Business Stream had correctly charged based on the rateable value. Although Mr C had asked for a meter to be installed, this was after Business Stream issued invoices for payment. They had explained to Mr C how to apply for a meter, but there was no evidence that he followed this up by submitting an application.

We did find that Business Stream had passed the charity’s account to a debt collection agency, but also that they had instructed the agency to put a hold on the account, and this was not done. The fault did not lie with Business Stream, and we noted that they took appropriate action once it came to their attention. Finally, although Mr C said that Business Stream failed to act on his advice that his landlord was responsible for some of the charges for services, we found no evidence that the landlord provided the necessary confirmation.

Summary

In September 2010, Scottish Water realised that a property was wrongly listed as domestic. This meant that that any business occupiers had not been receiving bills for water and sewerage services. Scottish Water notified Business Stream. However, Business Stream were receiving a high volume of new customers at that time, and did not put the property into their system until January 2011, when they also wrongly identified it as vacant.

In May 2012, Business Stream became aware there was an occupier (Ms C) and billed her. Ms C had been in the property since June 2010 and had thought water charges were collected with business rates. As she had been unaware that her company was liable for the charges, she corresponded with Business Stream by phone, email and letter over some months to try to sort this out. There was no water meter at Property A, which meant the bill was calculated on the basis of rateable value. There is a re-assessment process, by which a customer can ask for the amount of water they are using to be estimated and billed on that basis rather than rateable value. Ms C submitted a re-assessment form in October 2012. This led to a reduction in the amount she was being billed from then.

When Ms C complained to us, she had received a bill for January 2011 to March 2013. The period until October 2012 was calculated at a higher rate, based on rateable value. Ms C was unhappy about the delay in billing her, the backdating of the bill and a number of customer service aspects. Business Stream had apologised for the delay in putting the property on the system and reduced the bill as a good will gesture. In the same letter, they said that they would only back date it to January 2012, however, this was a typographical error and she was unhappy when Business Stream clarified that they still intended to bill her from 2011.

Our investigation found that there had been mistakes on both sides. Ms C had an obligation to let utility providers know she had entered the property and to pay for the services provided. She had not done so. This had been an honest mistake but it did remain her responsibility. Business Stream had failed to process the information from Scottish Water quickly, and then wrongly noted the property as vacant. (They have since changed their audit process to improve this.) As a result of the mistakes, Ms C was being charged at a higher rate for some months but she had also received several months of water and sewerage services free. Business Stream had also taken £100 from the bill. Therefore, although we upheld her complaint that there was an unreasonable delay in setting up the account, we did not uphold her complaint that the backdated bill was unreasonable.

We also looked at the customer service aspects of the complaint. There was evidence that Business Stream tried to resolve the complaint and there was some good practice in what they did. However, Ms C had to make the same points repeatedly and the communication was not always clear. They planned to meet Ms C, but failed to ensure the meeting went ahead. Failings in communication meant debt collection proceedings were started when they could have been avoided. We, therefore, upheld her complaints about complaint handling and debt collection.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• backdate the start of the assessed charges to a particular date;
• ensure there are no outstanding recovery charges on Ms C's bill; and
• apologise for the handling of Ms C's concerns and, in particular, for the length of time it took to conclude their handling of these.

Summary

Ms C complained that Business Stream had acted inappropriately in charging extra when a meter was discovered to be connected to her premises, in not notifying her earlier that there was a meter and in taking money from her account without prior notification.

During our investigation we found that, due to an error, Business Stream had failed to take action when they were notified that a meter was in place. The error was not identified until a few years later. Business Stream accepted that the change from an unmetered service to a full metered service had resulted in an increase in water charges. In line with legislation, they could backdate this for five years, but as a gesture of goodwill they decided to phase in the metered charges over a three year period rather than charging Ms C immediately for them. We found no evidence that Business Stream had failed to adhere to the direct debit guarantee, but we were concerned that Ms C's account was not changed to a metered service when Business Stream were first notified that there was a meter and that when the error was discovered they failed to contact Ms C.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• apologise to Ms C for the failure to take action in 2009 following notification that a meter had been installed at the property and and their failure to contact her when the error was discovered.

Summary

Mr C is the manager of business premises with over 100 staff, and where there is a call centre. He complained that Business Stream did not communicate clearly or provide timely advice about a planned shutdown of the water supply to the premises . The shutdown was to allow essential maintenance work to be carried out. Mr C was unhappy that, after he received notification about the shutdown, when he requested further information this was not provided until the day before the works were due to be carried out.

Our investigation found that, in line with Scottish Water's code of practice, appropriate notification of the proposed works had been given. We were, however, concerned at the delay in providing further information to Mr C. We noted that this led to considerable uncertainty for him as manager of the relevant facilities, and so we upheld the complaint. Business Stream had already accepted that their customer service could have been better, and had made a goodwill payment to Mr C. They also confirmed that Scottish Water had taken action to check if any change was needed to their process, but had decided that the delay in providing information was an isolated incident.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• apologise to Mr C for the poor customer service provided in relation to the delay in providing further information.

Summary

Ms C received an unusually high water bill. She checked the pipework for leaks and confirmed there had been no changes to her business practice to explain the increased use of water. Business Stream said that as the bill had returned to normal, it could not have been a problem with the meter. They also checked the meter as Ms C was having trouble gaining access to the meter.

Ms C was unhappy that she still had not been told how to access the meter and that Business Stream could not explain why the usage had gone up for a short period. Our investigation found that Business Stream had undertaken most of the checks they should have done to reassure themselves the problem was not on the public network. However, they had not confirmed with Scottish Water whether there was any work being carried out on the network at the time. We found that they should have done so, and we upheld this complaint, as well as that about access, as we also found that they should have done more to help Ms C access the meter. However, we did not uphold her complaint that they should have explained why the increase had occurred, as there were matters outwith their control on the private side of the supply, about which they had no knowledge. Business Stream was only required to explain why they were satisfied that the additional usage was not caused by problems on the public side of the meter.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• confirm with Scottish Water whether there were any issues with the network during the relevant period that could have caused the meter to register increased usage prior to pursuing the bill; and
• arrange a visit by their meter reader to ensure that Ms C can access the correct meter.

Summary

Mr C operated a small business from an office converted from two small cottages. There were two separate supplies of water to the office, with two separate water meters. Initially Mr C was only billed for one meter but when Business Stream realised there were two, he received a bill with standing charges for both. Mr C queried this and Business Stream told him if he could alter the building's internal pipework they would remove a meter. Mr C did so, but was unhappy that Business Stream still insisted he pay two standing charges for the period when he had two meters. Mr C was also unhappy that he was sent a bill about a byelaws charge.

We did not uphold his first complaint. We found that Business Stream normally bill customers for standing charges for each meter, which is in line with the wholesale charges they in turn pay. Business Stream had no way of knowing whether Mr C could easily switch to only one as they had no information about the internal pipework of the building. They did, however, explain that he might be able to switch when this became clear to them. We noted that Business Stream had missed an opportunity to discuss this two months earlier, when they were in touch with Mr C about his bills and did not ask about the pipework. We found, however, that there was no requirement on them to suggest this, and that it was not obvious from the conversation that this would be helpful to him.

We did uphold Mr C's complaint about the bill for a byelaws charge, as we found he should not have received this. However, as Business Stream had apologised and cancelled this as soon as they were told about the error, there was no need for us to make any recommendation.

Summary

Mr C is the factor of an estate. He said that his predecessor had agreed with Scottish Water in 2007 to disconnect water to a farm trough, and that after this, Scottish Water would check the work and stop charging. Mr C understood that the water had been disconnected. However, the estate continued to receive water bills and in 2012 Mr C pursued this with Business Stream. He made an application for disconnection which he was told would cost £300. He was later told that this was just an application fee/deposit and that the actual work would cost in the region of £3,400. Mr C complained to us that the disconnection costs were totally disproportionate to the work required as he understood that his predecessor had disconnected the supply. He also complained that he was given misleading information about the £300 fee.

As part of our investigation we made enquiries of Business Stream. Business Stream then asked Scottish Water to check the status of the trough and they confirmed that it was not disconnected. We did not find the cost quoted by Business Stream to be disproportionate, as it was a standard charge that had been fairly and reasonably applied, so we did not uphold this complaint. However, it appeared that Mr C was given incorrect information about the £300 fee. He had understood it to be a disconnection charge, and the documentation we read confirmed this. In reality, however, it was only an application fee or deposit. We upheld this complaint and, in the circumstances, Business Stream offered to make Mr C an ex gratia (voluntary) payment of £300. Scottish Water also agreed to waive the costs of disconnecting the trough if the estate themselves carried out the work satisfactorily (ie in accordance with the terms offered and in place in 2007). In the circumstances we did not find it necessary to make any recommendations.