Ms Maria Graham:

Deputy Pringle asked if there were charges that people faced beyond those subsidies. He is correct - charges are set by each individual group water scheme. The charges people face or the degree to which the subsidy covers the domestic may vary from scheme to scheme because of the different types of usage, particularly farm usage and other usage in the rural environment. The subsidies that were agreed back in 1997 with the group water sector, against the background of there being no domestic charges, were the level of subsidies they were satisfied with, and we agreed the principles. From looking at previous meetings I think that perhaps the federation have undertaken to give some information beyond what the charges are. They are quite varied. There would be a huge issue around the regulation of that sector. The figures I gave include that in 2015 some 700 individual schemes looked for subsidies. Somewhere around 350 of those are schemes covered by drinking water, meaning that there are 50 or more people involved. Some of these group schemes are very small and some are large, and they all face very different cost structures which they have been happy to deal with in an independent way to date. We have had no requests from the sector to change that overall regulatory process.