Scotland and England have separate water markets that work differently. Find our how they work and the benefits they can deliver to your business.
Scottish Water are the wholesaler and there are licensed providers who are the retailer, who buy the water from Scottish Water. All suppliers buy the same water but the customer gets to choose who serves them with their water services. This arrangement is only available to non-domestic (business) customers.
There is a maximum price that retailers can sell the water at and they all are heavily regulated by a default set of service standards that serve to protect customers and remove price volatility.
Learn more about governance and compliance at Business Stream.
Competition was introduced into Scotland in order to give business customers choice and to improve customer service, value for money and innovation across the water utilities market.
It isn’t the same as Scotland. Not all businesses can switch supplier. You have to meet certain criteria:
and it isn’t for all water services, you can only switch water – not waste water, trade effluent or any drainage costs.
Hopefully customers will benefit from full retail competition in the future. The Water White paper published by Defra in December outlined the future of water in England and Wales. It spelled out full non-domestic retail competition but the timetables for rolling this out aren’t yet known.
No - they’re different. In Wales there is no form of competition for non-household customers. In England you can only switch your water supply (not waste, drainage or trade effluent) and you have to use more than 5ML at one site.
We’ve been able to deliver real benefits to customers through retail competition:
Defra published a Water White paper outlining the future of the water market in England and Wales in December 2011. The main highlights from that paper are:
A draft water bill was then published on 10 July 2012 by Defra. In a nutshell, England is going to follow Scotland’s lead in creating a competitive water market for non-household customers. Remember if you have a site that consumes 5Ml or above you can switch your water supply now.
In Scotland speak to us before doing anything. We’ll see if we can save you money or offer you a package that suits your business.
In England you need to meet the criteria for switching. If you meet the criteria then get in touch, we would love to talk to you about your business and what we could do to help you keep running.
We already work with a range of companies that have sites across the UK, where we help them to reduce their water consumption and costs.
Firstly we have a whole range of water efficiency services that can be tailored to suit all scales of business and help cut down on water consumption.
If you are looking for ways to make bills more manageable then we have a range of water discounts and offers.
For innovative ways to fund investment into water efficiency you can learn from our partnership with Glasgow City Council.
To find out about our full range of targeted products and services for your business, see Services for your business.
In Scotland all businesses can switch but in England only the largest water users can switch.
Want to register your interest about switching or simply want to know more market competition?