MPs accuse South East Water leaders of incompetence over repeated outages

MPs have accused the leadership of South East Water of incompetence over repeated water outages for tens of thousands of customers, and expressed no confidence in their ability to reform the company. MPs from across the political spectrum said David Hinton, SEW’s chief executive, and the board of directors operated a culture of unaccountability at the company, which provides drinking water for 2.3 million customers in Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex. SEW describes its leadership in official communications as having a “family feel”, but the environment, food and rural affairs committee of MPs said they were better described as “an unaccountable clique”. The company, which faces a £22m fine from the industry’s regulator, Ofwat, over serious disruptions to the water supply over many years, comprehensively failed to deliver for the consumers it served, the MPs said. The damning report comes after the committee mounted an investigation following a major water outage in November and December last year which left tens of thousands of people in Tunbridge Wells, including elderly and vulnerable people in care homes, without water for two weeks. There was a further disruption to supplies in January this year. Alistair Carmichael, chair of the committee, said MPs had taken the unusual but necessary step of declaring no confidence in Hinton and the board to highlight the gravity of what was an extraordinarily poor situation. …