Consultation on updating the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS)

Overview

This public consultation on the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) opened on 12th August and will close on 7th October 2024.

The government is consulting on changes to the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) to improve baseline customer service standards and protection in the water and sewerage sector. These changes include roughly doubling payment values contained within the scheme, and broadening the set of standards which warrant payments to provide more comprehensive protection from service disruption for customers in England, following the announcements to this effect of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 11 July 2024. 

This consultation is seeking views of stakeholders in the sector and parties or individuals who may be affected by the changes within the government’s proposals to amend the GSS as it applies within England.  

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW), the statutory consumer representative body in the water sector, has conducted a review of the GSS which concluded with recommendations that have formed a key foundation of these proposals. 

The proposals below lay out updates across 3 key areas in relation to the scheme:  

• Uprating payment amounts 
• Improving and clarifying existing standards within the scheme
• Introducing additional standards which are not at present a statutory provision of the scheme 

They also propose potential changes to the procedures for updating the GSS to future-proof the level of protection it offers to customers and ensure that standards can be adjusted with flexibility to future circumstances.  

Part 2.1 will set out the proposed uprating of payment values associated with the GSS from the levels last set in 2000. The proposed updates and clarifications to the existing standards will be detailed in Part 2.2. Part 2.3 will put forward proposals for potential new standards to be added to the existing scheme. Finally, proposed procedural changes to the way GSS is administered and updated in future can be found in Part 2.4. 

A summary of responses to this consultation will be published on the UK government website on the Defra homepage. An annex to the consultation summary will list all organisations that responded and what part of the UK they represent but will not include personal names, addresses or other contact details. 

Defra may publish the content of your response to this consultation to make it available to the public without your personal name and private contact details (such as home address, email address). 

If you select ‘Yes’ in response to the question asking if you would like anything in your response to be kept confidential, you are asked to state clearly what information you would like to be kept as confidential and explain your reasons for confidentiality. The reason for this is that information in response to this consultation may be subject to release to the public or other parties in accordance with the access to information law (these are primarily the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs), the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA)).  

We have obligations, mainly under the EIRs, FOIA and DPA, to disclose information to particular recipients or to the public in certain circumstances. In view of this, your explanation of your reasons for requesting confidentiality for all or part of your response would help us balance these obligations for disclosure against any obligation of confidentiality. If we receive a request for the information that you have provided in your response to this consultation, we will take full account of your reasons for requesting confidentiality of your response, but we cannot guarantee that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances.  

If you select ‘No’ in response to the question asking if you would like anything in your response to be kept confidential, we will be able to release the content of your response to the public, but we will not make your personal name and private contact details publicly available. 

There may be occasions when Defra will share the information you provide in response to the consultation, including any personal data with external analysts. This is for the purposes of consultation response analysis and provision of a report of the summary of responses only. 

Any information regarding personal health or disability status will be collected and stored securely on Defra systems alongside any other personal data for a period of up to 3 years. Questions which may require the provision of personal health or disability information are optional. 

Compliance with the consultation principles 

This consultation is being conducted in line with the Cabinet Office consultation principles. If you have any comments or complaints about the consultation process, please address them by email to: consultation.coordinator@defra.gov.uk  

Why your views matter

This is a public consultation, and we welcome all views, particularly those from: water supply and sewerage licensees operating under both wholesale and retail authorisation, customer organisations and bodies, industry bodies, regulatory bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), customers who have experienced service disruptions or received GSS payments in the past, and any other party likely to be affected by the proposed changes. The questions are presented in a way to accommodate both a general audience and stakeholders with specialist knowledge on the regulation of service provision in the water and sewerage sector. 

What happens next

Following this consultation, we will publish a summary of responses and a government response.