Featured in this report: Water
This included their experience of managing household budgets, whether/how their situation has been affected by the pandemic, their relationship with their water company, awareness/usage of assistance schemes, barriers to seeking help and how they would like to be communicated with.
The research will be used to update and expand CCW’s understanding of the needs of financially vulnerable customers. It will be used to inform the CCW Affordability Review, which was launched in October 2020.
40 one-hour in-depth interviews were conducted with a range of customers on low incomes (less than £16,000 per year), across England and Wales. 12 of the respondents were already on a social tariff and three of the respondents spoke English as a second language.
The interviews were conducted via video or telephone, depending on the respondent’s preference. Prior to their interview, all respondents completed a task (either online or on paper) to understand their attitudes to money, impact of the pandemic and to record any in-the-moment trade-offs they were making when considering spending money.
As a qualitative piece of research, the focus was on collecting rich, detailed insight from a relatively small number of people, as opposed to a nationally representative survey of hundreds of people. The findings are based on individual stories and experiences. The research was conducted between 30 November 2020 and 18 January 2021.
