1. Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
Bill Assistance Awareness

2. We serve customers in most of Wales, Herefordshire and communities along the English border
LAURA
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
- We provide water and sewerage services to over 3m people living and working in Wales and some adjoining areas of England.
- We have 1.2m household customers and over 110,000 business customers and are a not-for-profit company. Every penny we make goes back into improving services for our customers.
- We operate 81 reservoirs, 105 water treatment works and supply an average of 900 million litres of water every day.
- Then we take it away again once it’s been used.

3. Targets for Affordability
There are two Social Tariff/Debt Scheme targets we are working towards:
87,000 customers on to a Tariff/Scheme by 31st March 2018
100,000 customers on to a Tariff/Scheme by 31st March 2020
We currently have over 91,000 customers on a Tariff/Scheme
ADAM
CLARITY AROUND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 100K TARGET AND ADI – This is the Affordability departments objective and the ADI it’s one of the key enablers we have in us meeting this target.

4. Difference between a Social Tariff and a Debt Scheme
A Social Tariff is a method of charging our customers based on their circumstances.
A Debt Scheme is a specific payment method for customers to help clear their arrears.
ADAM
Point 1: Explain ongoing charges
Point 2: By means of deductions from benefits or a way of completely writing off the whole amount based on 12 month payment agreement

5. HelpU WaterSure Wales Water Meter
Social Tariffs
HelpU
WaterSure Wales
Water Meter
ADAM
The two Social Tariffs we offer are HelpU and WaterSure Wales

6. HelpU Overview
Designed to help low-income households with a total annual income of £15,000 or less (includes all occupiers over 16 years old).
Charges for 2018/19 water £84.14, sewerage £ = £197.37
Available to both Unmeasured and Measured domestic customers.
Charges will be applied to the successful applicants account from the date we receive the application.
ADAM
-Launched on 1st April 2015, it was developed with the help from CCWater, key partners such as Community Housing Cymru, focus groups and Registered Social Landlords.
-Designed to help Low-income households with a total annual income of £15,000 or less, which includes all occupiers over the age of 16. That means we take everyone’s income who resides at the property, whether you rent a room out, or you’re a student in shared accommodation.
-Made up of 4 different bands based on income, of which we’ll cover later.
-If the customer isn’t able to apply at the time of the visit or isn’t comfortable with applying over the phone, they can apply online via www,dwrcymru.com or by requesting a paper application
-All accepted applications will be backdated to 1st April 2016 for this financial year

7. HelpU Qualifying Criteria
Our definition of total household income means all income of everyone over the age of 16 living in the household and should include, but is not limited to, the following:
All take home pay
All pensions received (e.g. Pension credit, state pensions, private, widows/spousal)
All unemployment benefits received
All maintenance payments/child support payments
Working and Child Tax Credits
Child Benefit
Student loans (not grants)
Interest from savings and investments
NB: Exclusions are Housing Benefit, Disability Living Allowance/Personal Independence Payment, Student Grants and Attendance Allowance.
-All take home pay, which is part or full time.
-Pensions self explanatory
-All unemployment benefits could include JSA, ESA, Income Support are the most common.
-Working and Child Tax Credits
However, we don’t take [List benefits]

8. WaterSure Wales Overview
The tariff is available to measured domestic customers.
If the customer is unmeasured and applies for the tariff, they’re agreeing for a meter to be installed. To make the process easier for our unmeasured customers, we’ve added a meter application to the application form.
For customers having a meter installed for the purpose of being accepted to WaterSure Wales can have it revoked at any time if the customer no longer qualifies for WaterSure Wales.
The annual charge for the tariff is £ ( ). £ for water and £ for sewerage
This tariff helps low income households with a large families or, low income households where a member of the household has a medical condition that requires them to use a significant amount of water.
Successful applicants will have their charges applied from the day after the last meter reading or the date of occupancy, whichever is the latest.
ADAM
Point 2: So instead of calling us and completing a separate form, the customer can apply for both at the same time, a good thing to remember is we’ll only send the meter application for processing if the customer has been accepted to the tariff.
Point 3: In some cases we actively remove people from WaterSure Wales if their circumstances change of which we’ll cover on the next slide.

9. WaterSure Wales Qualifying Criteria
The customer (or another person at the property) must be in receipt of one of the following benefits or tax credits:
Universal Credit
Housing Benefit
Income Support
Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
Income-Related Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
Working Tax Credit
Child Tax Credit (Except Family Element Only)
Pension Credit
Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
AND…
ADAM
-The qualifying benefits for WaterSure states you have to be in receipt of at least one of the listed benefits. We cannot by any means make any exceptions for other benefits other than these.
- When applying the customer must provide proof of this supplying the most recent documents in full (For example, ESA confirmation is 4 pages long, we’ll require all the pages so we can verify it accordingly)

10. WaterSure Wales Qualifying Criteria continued…
…EITHER
Be in receipt of Child Benefit for 3 or more children under the age of 19, who all live at the premises.
OR…
They, or someone living at the property, is diagnosed as suffering from a medical conditions which causes them to use a significant amount of water. These are, but not limited to:
Renal Failure, requiring home dialysis (except where the health authority contributes to the cost of dialysis)
Abdominal Stomas
Weeping Skin Disease (eczema, psoriasis varicose ulceration)
Crohn’s Disease
Ulcerative Colitis
Desquamation (flaky skin Loss)
Note: Other medical conditions that cause an excessive use of water may, at the company’s discretion, be considered subject to independent confirmation by a medical practitioner.
ADAM
-So as well as a qualifying benefit you must either have 3 or more children, who are in full-time education and claim child benefit for all children at the property (Of which the customer must provide proof of the child benefit document) Or
-Have a medical condition which requires extra usage of water. Although the list shows the more common conditions, and the ones we have listed in the application, it is totally to the doctors discretion: Be it Fybromyalgia, Cerebral Palsy, Back pain, or even something more trivial like OCD (Turn taps on constantly or washing of hands more than normal)
-With the medical section they will have to make an appointment with their doctor/medical practice to stamp and sign the application. If the doctor won’t provide the stamp, we’ll accept a headed letter from the doctor confirming the medical condition.

11. Water Meter Qualifying Criteria
Customers who are unmetered can apply for a water meter
Where a water meter cannot be physically fitted, an Assessed Measured Charge will be applied
From date of installation, customers have up to two years to revoke back to unmeasured charges
Water meters and cost of installation are free of charge to the customer
Explain to them that we’ve tried to engage with the U/M WWA customers but successful contact has been low.  Where we have had a response, customers are fearful of having a meter in case their bills increase – despite the fact that we would not charge them based on consumption.
As these customers are already vulnerable, we do not want to further add to their burden, and increase their bills significantly by reverting them to standard u/m charges.
We can’t automatically switch them to WSW as this is a metered charge, so we are making amendments to our AMC policy to allow us to transfer them to WSW (AMC), which will be set at the same rate as WSW.  As this will mean no change to the customer, other than a change in name of tariff, we do not currently propose to communicate it to them, other than a bill message at AB.
Customer moves – WWA will be transferred to the new address, same rules apply as transition – unmeasured properties will increase until on full property charges and measured will transfer to WSW.

12. Water Direct (DWP payments) Customer Assistance Fund (CAF)
Debt Schemes
Water Direct (DWP payments)
Customer Assistance Fund (CAF)
ADAM / NICHOLA

13. Water Direct (DWP Payments)
Introduced to help domestic customers who are in financial hardship to pay their charges, who have a minimum of £75 of arrears for metered accounts and 3 months worth of arrears for unmeasured accounts.
The money is taken automatically from the customer’s benefit on a weekly basis.
The amount we’ll take is their ongoing weekly charges + £3.70 towards the arrears.
The customer must be in receipt of at least one of these qualifying benefits:
*Universal Credit
Jobseeker’s Allowance
Employment and Support Allowance
Income Support
Pension Credit
*UC is a monthly figure, not weekly. The arrears figure will depend on which category of UC is applied.
If accepted onto Water Direct, the customer will receive a £25 discount from their bill once a year.
We’ll need the customer’s National Insurance Number to process the application.
ADAM
Point 2: This scheme is perfect the “forgetful payer”
Point 3: Highlight  ongoing weekly is annual bill value over 52
This is essentially what we would do as a standard for someone who has arrears and also had to pay their ongoing charges. Some customers willingly set up a plan, for example, like a monthly direct debit and we’ll add the arrears charge to this, of which I’ll explain later.
This scheme is a way of taking the payments automatically from the bill payers benefits they receive their benefits
When we offer debt schemes to customers, this is preferably what we would offer first. In terms of benefits this is great as the customer will only be removed from DWP payments when the arrears have been cleared and DCWW rightfully receive all the payments that are due.

14. Customer Assistance Fund (CAF)
Designed for domestic customers in severe financial hardship, have a minimum of £150 arrears and are unable to clear their arrears within 3 years.
The customer must be able to afford their ongoing charges to be accepted onto scheme.
Once accepted, we set up a payment plan for 6 months at their ongoing charges only (nothing towards arrears).
After 6 months worth of payments, we will remove half of the customer’s arrears.
We’ll reflect the customer’s plan for the next 6 months and, if completed, we’ll credit the account the rest of their arrears – resulting in the customer being debt free within 12 months of starting the Debt Scheme.
ADAM
If the customer doesn’t like the sound of DWP or they essentially don’t qualify, we can therefore offer CAF as a last resort. Now some people may not have a qualifying benefit and therefore go to CAF first.
-Repeat what is on the list
Point 1: The way we establish if they could clear their arrears within 3 years is by simply asking how much they can afford. The ADI advisor will use a basic calculator to then calculate if it could be cleared within 3 years.
Point 2: This can be lowered if the customer is accepted onto HelpU or WaterSure Wales
Point 5: Now we are essentially just writing off half of the value and then the remainder once they’ve completed the arrangement. The wording we use for customers is that “we’ll credit the account half of the arrears”. We’ve found people feel more obliged to try CAF as it feels like we are benefiting them

15. Customer Assistance Fund (CAF)
Customers can apply online, via their local CAB/MAS or over the phone with an Aged Debt Advisor (Fast-Track).
Customers must have a credit rating of “+250” or less to be accepted via the fast-track method.
The purpose of the Fund is to change customer’s payment behaviour whilst clearing their arrears, encouraging them to pay their future charges.
ADAM
Point 1: Normal process is to go to their local CAB/MAS. CAB will complete an application for them, taking into account their income and expenditure to determine whether the customer can afford their ongoing charges and not be able to clear within 3 years.
Point 2: For the fast-track method of applying over the phone, we currently use Equifax to view a credit score and we’re looking for a relatively low score of below It’s +200 because the scale falls into a negative, we’ve seen customers as low as -350 but are capable of seeing If the customers come over +200 we can use our own discretion, given the customers situation and if, for instance they couldn’t easily get to a CAB, we may accept them over the phone but it’s totally to the discretion of the Aged Debt Advisor handling the call.
Point 3: By completing the fund and clearing the customer’s arrears, it’s in the hope that the customer changes their payment behaviour and continues to pay on the said amount, be it the customer’s normal charges or if we’ve got them onto WaterSure or HelpU

16. Priority Services
Service helps those customers who are disabled, elderly, have a medical condition or have learning difficulties.
Services we offer are:
- Braille bills/ Large print bills/ Auditory bills
- Text relay
- Emergency bottled water
- Password scheme
- Home visit
ADAM
Point 1: Normal process is to go to their local CAB/MAS. CAB will complete an application for them, taking into account their income and expenditure to determine whether the customer can afford their ongoing charges and not be able to clear within 3 years.
Point 2: For the fast-track method of applying over the phone, we currently use Equifax to view a credit score and we’re looking for a relatively low score of below It’s +200 because the scale falls into a negative, we’ve seen customers as low as -350 but are capable of seeing If the customers come over +200 we can use our own discretion, given the customers situation and if, for instance they couldn’t easily get to a CAB, we may accept them over the phone but it’s totally to the discretion of the Aged Debt Advisor handling the call.
Point 3: By completing the fund and clearing the customer’s arrears, it’s in the hope that the customer changes their payment behaviour and continues to pay on the said amount, be it the customer’s normal charges or if we’ve got them onto WaterSure or HelpU

17. Social Tariff and Debt Scheme Compatibility
HelpU
WaterSure Wales
CAF
Water Direct (DWP)
Key:
Helps reduce ongoing
Helps to clear arrears
Compatible Tariffs
Non-Compatible Tariffs
Please note:
A customer can only have:
One BLUE tariff and,
One GREEN scheme assigned to their account at any given time.
ADAM
I understand this is a lot of information to take in and you have got handouts present, but this is how the tariffs and schemes link.
So just to go back onto what is the difference between a Social Tariff and a Debt Scheme is
1.) Hopefully someone can stay on a Social Tariff for a long time, keeping their normal charges low, and
2.) The Debt Scheme should be for a relatively short amount of time, or in relation to DWP payments, until the arrears are cleared.
Every customer has the ability to be on 1 social tariff and 1 debt scheme at any one time.
We could have a call where we’ve determined the customer could go onto HelpU band 2 and CAF paying about £4.97 a week. If we didn’t apply HelpU and the customers annual charge was over £600, this customer couldn’t afford the ongoing charges for CAF at £12.50 a week. This is why it’s important to split up the conversation and determine one Social Tariff or Debt Scheme at any one time.
Break for lunch

18. Questions? Ideas for further engagement?
Thanks for Listening
Questions?
Ideas for further engagement?
Tracey Price
Business Relationship Manager
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
External:
Internal: 40084
Mobile: 
Office: Linea, Fortran Rd, St.Mellons, Cardiff, CF3 0LT
Tracey Jones
Bill Assistance Advisor – North Wales
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
Mobile: 
Office: Linea, Fortran Rd, St.Mellons, Cardiff, CF3 0LT