Every mechanism in this journey comes from our current operations. The standardised signposting letters are the ones rolling out across energy now. The scan to escalate journey and the company data agreements are the Access for All trial and the mutual data agreement programme. The triage, the pre populated intake and the document free investigation are the steps that cut investigation time from 6 weeks to 4. The compliance tracking, the remedy framework and the reporting to companies and regulators are live operating components, and the dashboard is our Operational Control Centre with water measures in place of energy ones.
We have operated the Energy Ombudsman for 20 years and helped more than one million consumers, with more than 200 people resolving disputes across three UK offices. We run multiple national schemes on one operating model, including the Communications Ombudsman and POPLA, so adapting to a new sector's complaint types, remedies and regulator is an exercise we have done before, not a first attempt. The data sharing and insight architecture Defra expects of the Water Ombudsman is the architecture we operate with companies and regulators today. Our in house technology company built this prototype, and a statutory scheme stood up on our model starts with trained investigators, tested case management and delivery capacity from day one, not built from scratch.
The journey is illustrative. The capability behind it is not. Each tested in practice marker points here.
| Ref | Evidence | Source |
|---|---|---|
| E1 | Signposting and journey commitments are live programme deliverables in energy under Fairer, Faster Redress: Phase 1 standardised signposting letters issuing by January 2027 at the latest; Phase 2 bilateral mutual data agreements signed company by company against a six month backstop of end March 2027; the company resolution window moving from 8 weeks to 6; and ombudsman investigation from 6 weeks to 4. | Fairer, Faster Redress programme, aligned to the sector plan. |
| E2 | The digital journey has been trialled with consumers: effort score improved from 70.6 to 84.9, satisfaction from 80.6% to 96.5%, and around 8 days were saved against business as usual. | Access for All trial, Energy Ombudsman. |
| E3 | The consent routes behind the digital journey are tested: agreement at the point of QR scan, or an opt out notice letter, under which fewer than 1% of consumers objected. | Access for All trial, Energy Ombudsman. |
| E4 | Consumers who arrive before they are eligible are measured, not lost: in energy this population is quantified from actuals (18.84% of contacts in 2025) and the measurement drives scheme improvement. | Energy Ombudsman 2025 actuals. |
| E5 | Bilateral data agreements with companies, compliance tracking on accepted decisions, a structured remedy framework, insight reporting to companies and regulators, and a round the clock contact model (customer service experts in office hours, a virtual assistant out of hours, 24/7 online support, and real time case visibility from the case management system) are operating components of our schemes. | Energy Ombudsman operating model; contact model figures Trust Alliance Group, September 2026. |
| E6 | The statutory context for water: Defra is establishing a Water Ombudsman under CEAR 2007, with regulator approval and oversight, binding decisions, enforceable compliance, and data sharing with the regulator to drive sector improvement. Remedies must include an apology or explanation, compensation, and other action in the complainant's interest. Complaint mix: billing is the largest household complaint category across both company and CCW channels; billing complaints to companies rose 72% in 2025-26 following the April 2025 price rises, and disputed metered bills are the biggest single driver within billing. | Defra consultation on establishing a Water Ombudsman, 2026. CCW household complaint handling reports, 2024-25 and 2025-26 (published September 2026). |
| E7 | TAG scale: 20 years operating the Energy Ombudsman, more than one million consumers helped, three national redress schemes operated (Energy Ombudsman, Communications Ombudsman, POPLA), three UK offices, more than 200 dispute resolution experts, and an in house technology company, which built this prototype. | Trust Alliance Group, September 2026. To be checked against published figures before external circulation. |
| E8 | Service speed benchmarks. Communications Ombudsman: cases picked up in under 4 days and investigations concluded in 14 days. Energy Ombudsman: cases picked up in 7 days and investigations concluded in 26 days against a 42 day KPI. The CO and EO figures measure the investigation itself, from evidence gathered to decision issued, and exclude evidence gathering time. Financial Ombudsman Service published service standards, measured on a different clock from case acceptance and including evidence gathering: 95% of initial enquiries actioned within five working days; 50% of cases resolved within three months of acceptance and 80% within six months. | CO and EO figures: Trust Alliance Group, September 2026, to be checked against published figures before external circulation. FOS figures: FOS service standards, financial-ombudsman.org.uk. |
| E9 | OmBudd-i is TAG's AI ombudsman assistant, announced publicly in August 2026, supporting dispute resolution experts with knowledge for consistent, right first time decisions (ombuddi.tagsupport.co.uk). CARES is the TAG sensitive conversation framework, supporting the person as well as the case (cares.tagsupport.co.uk). The round the clock contact model and June, the virtual assistant, are described at E5. | Trust Alliance Group, September 2026. |
Discipline. Priya, the Nowak family, Riverbrook Water and all screens, documents and journey timings are illustrative and labelled as such. No energy figure is extrapolated into a water prediction. Water baselines would be established in the design phase and the scheme tuned on that evidence.
A prototype built from the Energy Ombudsman operating model to support discussion with Defra on establishing the Water Ombudsman. A demonstration of capability and design, not a formal proposal or legal advice. Trust Alliance Group, September 2026. trustalliancegroup.org