Decision Report 201600658

Summary

Mrs C complained that Scottish Water unreasonably delayed in providing her with the results of a water sample taken at her home. She also complained that they failed to take reasonable steps to update her with the progress of their inspections.

We found that Scottish Water had gone beyond what they were required to do in assisting Mrs C with a leak. The leak was on the private supply and therefore not Scottish Water's responsibility.

However, in order to determine the source of the leak, Scottish Water carried out a water test. There was no evidence to show that the results were passed on to Mrs C. A later test failed as Scottish Water mislaid or mislabelled the sample, and the results of the final test were not provided until around three months after the original sample was taken. As a result of this, and because we felt that Mrs C had to regularly chase Scottish Water for updates, we upheld Mrs C's complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that Scottish Water:

• review their sampling procedures to ensure that they have a process in place to minimise the risk of failed samples;
• review their procedures to ensure that test results are passed on to the customer promptly, and that they record this contact in their records; and
• apologise to Mrs C for the failings this decision has identified.