South East Water’s chief executive has admitted he “got it wrong” in his handling of recent water outages as he made a contrite appearance before MPs.
Bosses of the company were grilled by the parliamentary Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on Tuesday about their response to the multiple supply interruptions in Kent and Sussex.
Tunbridge Wells suffered a sustained outage in November and December before thousands of properties across Kent and Sussex saw their supply disrupted in January, leaving many people without drinking water for days.
Customers were left with no tap water, unable to shower or bathe and could not flush their toilets, while a number of schools were forced to close.
During the crisis, chief executive David Hinton was criticised repeatedly for not giving interviews, and for a lack of “clear communication” with customers from South East Water (SEW).
On Tuesday, Mr Hinton admitted he did not communicate quickly enough during the outages, telling MPs: “I got it wrong, and that’s very much a lesson that we’ve learned into the playbook of how we handle future events.”
The firm has since used consultants to develop a crisis communications “playbook”, he added.
“We went through the pain of getting it wrong, and part of the transformation process is to learn from that and that is well embedded already into the organisation,” he said.
It was among a string of mistakes that the chief executive admitted the firm had made as MPs grilled him for the second time about the supply interruptions.
Mr Hinton said failures also included not spotting issues with infrastructure early enough, poor routine maintenance and a “reactive culture” when it came to problems.
His answers marked a significant shift from his previous evidence to the committee in January, where he was picked up by MPs for a lack of accountability.
At the time, he said problems at the Pembury Water Treatment Works – which caused the supply issues in November – were “unexpected” while the Drinking Water Inspectorate watchdog said they “should not have been a surprise”.
On Tuesday, he conceded the issues were foreseeable, acknowledging that there were “signals” in early November.
“We should have reacted on those earlier warnings quicker and our problem solving around it when we got into that situation was too slow and unstructured,” he said.
Mr Hinton also said the company’s performance was “disappointing” when it came to delivering bottled water to vulnerable customers.
While the firm carried out nearly 35,000 bottled water deliveries to these customers, 70 were missed, the committee heard.
“We know how important what we do is for society and communities. It’s absolutely fundamental,” he said.
“It absolutely breaks all our hearts when we can’t do that properly. And particularly when vulnerable customers are at the heart of what we’re trying to do and trying to achieve.”
SEW’s chairman Chris Train also admitted to MPs that the company “failed on the basic objective of delivering water to customers and therefore that is a failure and we recognise that failure”.
During the hearing, he revealed that Mr Hinton, who receives a £400,000 salary, has surrendered any bonus the board may have chosen to pay him this year.
However, MPs went on to repeatedly question Mr Train on why there had been no changes in the leadership team, highlighting the major failings as well as criticism from the Prime Minister, its shareholders, customers and a whole range of public and private bodies.
Asked how bad performance would need to get to change the company’s leadership, Mr Train said: “We have looked, as you would expect us to do, at what the appropriate leadership of the organisation is going forward.
“The board has given its commitment and its backing to Dave and the executive team going forward as the right solution for delivering what is best for South East Water customers.”
It comes after regulator Ofwat announced in March that it plans to fine SEW £22 million over water supply failures between 2020 and 2023, affecting more than 286,000 people – the second-largest fine ever proposed.
Appearing in front of the committee later, Ofwat’s chief executive Chris Walters told MPs that the regulator is seeing “steps forward being made” by the company since the outages.
“There is a step change in the amount of responsibility, from our perspective, the company appears to be taking,” he said.
Asked if the company is learning anything, he said: “On the basis of what I’ve heard today and interactions with the company since then, we are seeing steps forward being made.
“Only time will tell if those are sufficient, which is part of the reason why I welcome South East Water’s commitment to work constructively with us and we will work constructively with them but only time will tell.”
