South East Water's reasons for not speaking to the media aren't good enough

By not engaging with the national media or showing concern, control and commitment – the three Cs of crisis management – SEW has lost control over its own regulation.

By Mark Mann

It’s no surprise that Ofwat, the water regulator, is now investigating South East Water (SEW).

I have worked with some of the most high-profile regulated companies, including BAA after the ban on liquids on flights and Royal Mail during its longest period of industrial action. From these experiences, I learned that self-regulation is the most effective approach.

SEW has not followed the example set by BAA and Royal Mail. In a crisis, it is important to engage rather than withdraw.

SEW has given several reasons for not speaking to the national media. They say interviews would be a distraction, and they worry that questions about the CEO’s salary would take over the conversation.

Neither of these reasons is a good excuse.

Both show a concerning lack of understanding of their stakeholders and who holds influence.

They certainly don’t align with the commitment SEW made in 2022, following a six-day water outage in Kent, that lessons would be learned in areas such as crisis management, communication and system resilience.

The water shortages at SEW are not just a local problem for local people.

During the 2024 general election, the idea of renationalising the water sector was a frequent topic. Ongoing financial problems at Thames Water have kept this issue in the news.

How the water sector performs and is regulated is and will remain a national news story.

By not engaging with the national media or showing concern, control, and commitment – the three Cs of crisis management – SEW has lost control over its own regulation.

Can South East Water get back on the front foot?

The good news, and let’s be honest, SEW needs all the good news that it can muster, is that all is not lost.

SEW needs to get on the front foot. It needs to engage, and the golden thread of that engagement is the narrative that clearly lays out the lessons learnt, how things will improve for their customers in a realistic timeframe, doesn’t decouple operational performance from the narrative, and why SEW should be trusted to right their wrongs.

Going proactive won’t solve things overnight. SEW will have a bad media cycle; the reality is that it will have several bad media cycles as scores are settled.

However, over time, things will improve. The engagement with the media, reaching their broader stakeholder groups, which they currently believe will be a distraction, will provide the buffer they need to improve their operations.

For the moment, any thought from within SEW that they and their CEO are being hard done by is misplaced and the one true distraction in this crisis.

Chartered PR practitioner Mark Mann is a director-level communications advisor, managing the reputations of some of the UK’s most highly scrutinised and regulated organisations.

South East Water's reasons for not speaking to the media aren't good enough

Can South East Water get back on the front foot?

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