Southern Water has accepted its fine from Ofwat.

Southern Water has acknowledged the fine it has received from Ofwat, England and Wales’ water and sewage regulator, for misreporting information and delivering poor service to its customers.

According to Ofwat, the regional water company deliberately misreported information and ‘systematically manipulated information to conceal the company’s true performance’ prior to October 2005.

On discovery of the irregularities in the information it was providing, Southern Water informed Ofwat and the Serious Fraud Office, and independently launched an investigation.

Regina Finn, Ofwat’s Chief Executive, said: “Southern Water deliberately misreported its customer service performance to Ofwat and systematically manipulated information to conceal the company’s true performance over an extended period of time.

”The company benefited directly from this misreporting at the last two price reviews, meaning Southern was able to increase its prices by more than it should have done. Customers received higher than necessary bills because of the company’s deception.

“Southern Water’s shareholders will bear the entire cost of this fine. It will not be passed on to its customers. The magnitude of this fine reflects the magnitude of the offence – deliberately misleading the regulator, failure of the Southern Water Board of Directors to pick up the deception, the resulting poor service to customers and damage to the regulatory regime, in general.”

Ofwat did, however, recognise the prompt response from Southern Water when the water company discovered the inaccurate reporting and has taken its prompt action into account when deciding upon the fine.

In a statement released by the company, Les Dawson, Southern Water’s Chief Executive, said: “I understand Ofwat’s intention to fine us for what happened in the past. Today, I would like to reassure customers that those historically entitled to guaranteed standards payments have now been paid and that we are well on course to meeting a service improvement plan agreed with the regulator.”

Southern Water is continuing to update its customer on the situation through local press and radio advertisements.