Politics
DWP have no idea which water companies are deducting benefits
The Canary has revealed how during a 12-month period, water companies leached £22.4m from customers’ Universal Credit via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
However, in obtaining the figure, we also discovered that the DWP has no record of what each company has been seizing from welfare claimants. When already vulnerable benefits claimants are in debt to water companies, the DWP will then allow these privatised water companies to deduct benefits from desperate claimants.
Apparently it needs saying: water is not a luxury
DWP doesn’t know the scale of water companies’ Universal Credit deductions
The Canary submitted freedom of information (FOI) requests to the department for regional and parliamentary constituency data on water deductions. In order to comply with the request, it appeared that the DWP had to collate this data from its records. In other words, until the Canary queried the proportion of third party deductions the water industry had made, it was not information the DWP had already calculated.
What’s more, through a series of further FOIs, the DWP admitted to the Canary that it doesn’t know how much each water company has deducted individually.
The DWP said that this was because:
data on deduction requests from specific organisations or the date a deduction request was made is not readily available for Universal Credit.
As such, it told the Canary that to “explore the available datasets” and “collate the relevant data” would take it over the cost limits in the FOI Act. But the admission ultimately underscored how the DWP has made no efforts to assess the scale of individual companies clawing back aggressive arrears through the benefits system.
What water companies took £22.4m in Universal Credit?
The Canary also attempted to find out how this divided up for water versus sewerage services. But in response to a further FOI, the DWP said that:
The Universal Credit deductions data does not state the name of a water company owed money, or reason for the debt, and as the water arrears data is not broken down, we cannot determine whether any deduction is for water supply or sewerage.
Unfortunately, outside official statistics, it’s really difficult to get a read on individual water company deductions.
The first reason for this is that water supplier coverage overlaps in some constituencies. So, while we can use obtainable data showing coverage by constituency, companies don’t actually always supply water services to all postcodes within these electoral boundaries.
It’s also not the case constituencies always have the same sewerage providers to their water suppliers. In other words, the deduction could come from either company administering these services. That further complicates calculating what each company is deducting.
However, under the Universal Credit priority order, the water supplier makes deductions first for any arrears. The company providing wastewater services can only start taking deductions once the water debt is cleared.
Because it comes first in the order of priority, it’s probable that the lion’s share of these deductions is for water supply services. Ultimately though, it’s not possible to establish from the data available how much is for water, and how much for sewerage arrears.
Water companies won’t say, naturally
The Canary contacted 13 of the largest water and sewerage companies. We asked them directly to provide figures on their Universal Credit deductions. Predictably, not a single company offered this information. By and large, despite a few initially responding that they would look into this, water firms ignored our query. Only two companies eventually came back to confirm that they were not willing to supply these figures.
A spokesperson for Pennon Group, South West Water’s parent company, responded saying that:
The information you have requested is commercially sensitive but all Universal Credit deductions are managed in line with DWP guidelines.
Meanwhile, Dwr Cymru came back with a similar dismissal:
We’re unable to provide specific figures for Universal Credit deductions received by Dŵr Cymru for 2024 and 2025 as this information is commercially sensitive.
However, we can confirm that deductions are managed in line with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guidelines, including the Fair Repayment Rate and deduction cap changes, which aim to ensure affordability for customers.
Our focus remains on supporting customers in financial difficulty with affordable payment arrangements.
In both instances then, water firms leaned on the claim it’s “commercially sensitive” information to refuse the data.
In reality, it’s nonsense for them to suggest this. For one, water companies already publish data about their ‘bad debt’. As just one example, they will include financial information on County Court Judgements (CCJ) against their customers in annual reports.
More likely, firms fear the reputational fallout of the public learning just how much they’re hammering their poorest customers.
The DWP should turn its attention to the real fraudsters
The Labour government continues to justify brutal disability benefit cuts and dystopian surveillance with nonsense rhetoric around the so-called ‘benefits bill’. Yet, the DWP couldn’t put figures to the welfare it’s funnelling into the pockets of privatised water firms.
Perhaps it’s time the DWP turned its attention to the corporate criminal water corporations draining the welfare system for profits they neither need, nor deserve.
Featured image via the author