North East Water is engaging with customers, service agencies, and councils to improve the support it provides to people who are having financial difficulty, such as struggling to pay their water bills or access services.
The corporation is proactively conducting surveys, interviews, and workshops to better understand the region’s economic and social vulnerability issues.
Marni Jones, General Manager of Customers, Community & Culture, said North East Water was committed to listening to its customers to improve its support and reduce service barriers.
“Our Board of directors recently met with leaders from a range of service organisations to hear from them how to better support people who are experiencing vulnerability and the agencies that are caring for them,” Jones said. “Our staff are also directly engaging with customers who have previously sought help from North East Water, and we’re holding workshops with local service agencies. The feedback will be incorporated into a new Fair Practice Customer Support Plan. This will help inform broader community engagement for our draft 2026 price plan later this year.”
Helping customers experiencing financial difficulty
Fifteen service agencies are participating in the engagement. They represent Aboriginal health, disability advocacy, elder rights, ethnic communities, community health, youth services, women’s health and family care, rural financial counselling, food support and local government.
Jones said the discussions identified the rising cost of living, access to regional services, health and wellbeing, homelessness, and housing availability as key issues for vulnerable customers and the agencies that support them.
“We are hearing that customers appreciate the support North East Water currently provides. They want us to continue prioritising targeted support, ensure our services are well communicated and easy to access, maintain affordability and flexibility in bill payments, and, importantly, be responsive to customer needs.”
North East Water provides water and wastewater services to more than 117,000 people across a 20,000-square-kilometre region. Each year, its customer support team helps thousands of people with difficulty paying their water bills or accessing services.
“Support is available right now to all customers who are having difficulty paying their water accounts,” Jones said. “The most important message for customers is to let us know as soon as possible so we can work out the best way to help. This may include more time to pay, flexible payment plans, community rebates, utility relief grants, help accessing concessions, and access to financial counselling and budgeting tools.”
North East Water’s support team is available here or at 1300 361 633.
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