Yorkshire Water Financial Support

Yorkshire Water want all their customers to be able to use the water they need, without
worrying about paying their bills. they therefore have a number of bill support schemes,
including bill caps, payment breaks and debt support.
Over the next 5-year regulatory period, known as an asset management period (AMP)
£375m of support will be available for customers struggling to pay their bill; this is more
than triple what has been available in the current 5-year cycle. This includes £49m of
investment from their shareholders specifically to help with bill support.
This financial package will support 345,000 customers with their water bill, 100,000 more
than the current AMP. If a customer is struggling, they can get find out more about help
paying for their bill on our website here.

Yorkshire Water – Help paying your bill

They offer a range of bill and debt support schemes to help customers in different
circumstances. This includes:

• WaterSure: A bill cap scheme for customers who have a water meter, claim an
  income-based benefit, and need to use extra water because they have a medical
  condition or three or more children.
• WaterSupport: A bill cap scheme for low-income households. Customers are likely
  to be eligible if they have a household income below £19,000.
• Community Trust: A debt support scheme for customers who have arrears with
  Yorkshire Water between £50 and £2000 and at least one priority debt.
• Water Direct: A debt support scheme for customers who receive a deductible
  income-based benefit. They can take payments directly from benefits.
• Resolve: A payment matching scheme for customers who are in arrears and
  struggling to catch up on previous water bills.
  How they work with partners
  They currently have over 25 Community Engagement Partners who we work with to help
  signpost customers who may need help to the support we have available. With some
  partners we provide specialist training to allow them to directly enrol customers on the bill
  support package that is right for them, in other cases organisations provide information
  and literature encouraging customers to contact us directly.
  Current partnerships include Leeds Credit Union, Hull City Council, St Vincents, Sheffield
  Housing, Leeds City Council, Wakefield District Housing, St Ledger’s, Horton Housing and
  InCommunities.
  These partners have already ensured ~20,000 customers receive £4.5m of bill support and
  raised general awareness to over 100,000 customers. In the upcoming financial year, we
  plan to increase this to 30 partners, providing over £5.3m of bill support.

Over the last couple of years they have been working even closer with our partners across
the region aiming to tailor our ways of working to the customers within specific areas. This
has included such new activities as:

• Working with housing officers visiting customers face to face at properties in places
  like Hull and Leeds to talk about how customers can save money with water meters
  and our social tariff;
• Trialling data sharing arrangements where councils are able to identify customers
  who would be eligible for Water Sure due to their circumstances so we can auto
  enrol these customers without the need for applications;
• Signposting customers to digital well-being support where data suggests there
  may be wider support needs beyond their water bill. This has resulted in more than
  10,000 customers being provided a digital well-being assessment independent of
  Yorkshire Water.
  Expanding our reach
  Currently they have strong relationships, to help provide bill support, with most of the
  Councils in Yorkshire, including notably with Hull, Kirklees and Sheffield. Whilst we have
  good relationships with Leeds and East Riding there is potential to expand our work with
  them. Further, we do not currently have data sharing agreements (so that we can identify
  people who likely need support), with Bradford, Calderdale, Doncaster, North Yorkshire,
  York and Wakefield.
  They would welcome feedback from the Leaders of these Councils, namely key contacts
  from their organisation, to help us put in place such agreements and expand our
  partnership working as soon as possible.
  How they are promoting bill support before our next regulatory cycle
  We appreciate that customers’ bills have started to be delivered over the last few weeks,
  and some customers may be concerned about the bill increase and unaware of the
  support available. Therefore, we have put in place a range of methods to help increase
  awareness of the support available in the next few months. This includes:
• Information on the bill, advertising on the envelope and aa leaflet included
• Social media posts and adverts across varying platforms
• Digital awareness sessions for all our community engagement partners to
  understand all the support we have available
• Colleague upskilling across the organisation to ensure customers can access bill
  support on contact with us
• Using our ‘customer centre’ vehicle to visit key areas; advice will be available as
  well as free refreshments and some useful items like drain protectors to help stop
  blockages. The dates for these sessions are as follows:
  o Doncaster, Thursday 6th March, outside French gate opposite Poundland.
  o Bradford Saturday 8th March, City Park, opposite Starbucks
  o Sheffield Wednesday 12th March Bankers Pool, near the Town Hall
  o Beverly, Saturday 15th March, in the Market Place
  o Hull Saturday 22nd March, Queen Victoria Square, near City Hall
  o Barnsley, Saturday 29th March, May Day Green
• Sharing information with key stakeholders like yourself.
  Should you or your Council like to share bill support information on social media to help
  raise awareness of the support we offer, we have drafted a post below:
  Do you or someone you know need a little extra help with your water bill? Yorkshire
  Water have a range of financial support options. Find out more and apply now, or
  you can call them on 03451 24 24 24.