Speeches by Newbury.

“The bottom line is that, if you give people overly optimistic information, then that is what they use to make their decisions on whether to stay put or whether to make any alternative arrangements.”

“The bottom line is that, if you give people overly optimistic information, then that is what they use to make their decisions on whether to stay put or whether to make any alternative arrangements.”

“If you give people communications that are open-ended, such as, “We don’t know when this is going to come back on,” it is frustrating, but the lesson I hope you will learn is that it is far more frustrating for your customers to be told it is only going to be 48 hours when it lasts for a week.”

“You will understand the importance of clean water to vulnerable consumers better than I do; we know that some people have medical conditions that require them to wash regularly, while others work in professions where hygiene is paramount, including in their home life. Your investigation concluded that public health was…”

“Are you confident that when the next incident comes you are not going to have five dozen vulnerable customers who are not supported?”

“Public health is not protected overall if some people do not have access to water.”

“The DWI said that you did not provide it with what it was looking for on the communications front, and that what you sent it was wholly inadequate.”

“The picture of what you need to do in an outage has not fundamentally changed since the company was set up. You have mentioned all the things that the comms team do from day to day. Why was the preparation work not done for outages, particularly given that you have had outages in the past? You said then, “We will learn…”

“The Drinking Water Inspectorate’s report said that it asked for a communications strategy. In its view, what was provided was just a series of templates, and there was no evidence that, during outages, you were adapting the communications going out based on feedback from customers. It said that decisions were taken on …”

“Back in January, we asked you about support for vulnerable customers, particularly with bottled water; we talked quite a lot about that. Miss Sephton said there were a few isolated issues—I think that was her phrase. But having looked at this extensively, the analysis from the DWI is that there was a lack of early acti…”

“The Drinking Water Inspectorate’s report said that it asked for a communications strategy. In its view, what was provided was just a series of templates, and there was no evidence that, during outages, you were adapting the communications going out based on feedback from customers. It said that decisions were taken on …”

“The picture of what you need to do in an outage has not fundamentally changed since the company was set up. You have mentioned all the things that the comms team do from day to day. Why was the preparation work not done for outages, particularly given that you have had outages in the past? You said then, “We will learn…”

“That is why having a strategy is so important. As someone who has been a comms professional, who has been stuck on a call and often had to listen to some really technical information, I can tell you that you need to understand, first what the customer needs to know, secondly when they need to know it, and thirdly in wh…”

“That is why having a strategy is so important. As someone who has been a comms professional, who has been stuck on a call and often had to listen to some really technical information, I can tell you that you need to understand, first what the customer needs to know, secondly when they need to know it, and thirdly in wh…”

“That is quite a substantial number, but do you think it is sufficient in light of the clear shortcomings in your crisis communications over these outages?”

“I will start with a straightforward question to Mr Hinton. How many people work on communications at South East Water?”

“Time is short, so I am going to move on to vulnerable customers, but there is a lot more work that needs to be done on the comms side.”

“Time is short, so I am going to move on to vulnerable customers, but there is a lot more work that needs to be done on the comms side.”

“Just to tie this off, it seems to me that whether it is crisis comms or support for vulnerable customers, the preparation that you as South East Water deemed to be adequate does not stack up against either the practices of pretty much the whole of the rest of the industry or the expectations of your customers. So are y…”

“I absolutely agree with both my hon. Friends. They echo what I have heard from many of my constituents. This issue is often overlooked, and we need to do so much better for many thousands of people across the country, so I thank them for sharing their constituents’ experiences. So many people are in a similar situation…”