Drought ja Vu

Spoiler alert! For those of you who haven't seen this one before, heres the full storyline for every UK drought ever. Obviously this is my personal view and its totally fictional and any resemblance to actual organisations is purely coincidental.

The story always starts with denial and an expectation that there won’t be a drought, with statements like ‘we have sufficient water resources’ etc.

Then there is the sudden ramping up of water efficiency messages from a baseline of practically zero to fever pitch, ’even though you haven't heard from us in the past 5 years and you probably still refer to us as the water board, its important that you only use 1 litre of water a day and never brush your teeth again’ and the classic ‘if your kids use a paddling pool you are personally responsible for this drought'. Strangely this combination of blame, panic and impracticality from companies who have very little social capital doesn't work that well.

Then there is the innovation thing. This is where all water companies talk about innovation and their innovation manager goes round with stickers saying ‘innovation!!!’ and puts them on everything. But at the same time it is important that no money is actually spent on innovation and that all the innovators and NGOs who have been knocking on the door for the past 5 years are still excluded.

Then there is the social engagement thing. This is where qualified professionals in behavioural psychology are ignored and the water company marketing department brings in charlatans from a company called something like Blue Otter who divide the customer base into segments like ‘soggy savers’ and ‘willing wasters’, this costs a fortune and is totally pointless because there is no baseline and no aim other than to be seen to be doing something.

As the drought gets worse there are hosepipe bans, which are minimal but the Daily Mail treats them as if they cover the whole country and are on a par with the apocalypse. Then the water companies ask if the EA they can trash the environment even more by increasing abstraction just at the point when its suffering from drought already, and the EA always says yes after pretending to review the application (which, to be fair, is reasonable because the alternative is standpipes, except water companies don't have standpipes any more so its probably rota cuts, and although people love queuing and love the environment they are not keen on washing from a bucket when its 34 degrees outside)

We then reach a point where tabloid headlines become too much for the government to bear and a Ministerial drought summit is convened. During the summit there is a massive thunderstorm and the organisers laugh and say ‘well we can stop the meeting now’ (this bit is absolutely verbatim).

The final bit is the switch from dealing with drought to dealing with floods, this is same scenario except the Minister is in wellingtons rather than holding a water efficient showerhead, and in both cases they are saying that 'something must be done'. There is also some token discussion about ‘learning the lessons from the drought’, but in general all the water efficiency and drought communications stop until the next time. And occasionally there are often a few unguarded classic comments from water company CEOs like 'why did we waste all that money on communications if it was going to rain anyway', but normally the PR people manage to keep them quiet.

I am sorry to dash the hopes of all you newbies who are believing all the stuff about ‘a step-change in innovation’ and ‘co-ordinated national communications approaches’ and ‘a fundamental change in the way we communicate with customers’ but I have seen this lots of times before. I hope I am wrong but why would water companies spend money on resilience and engagement and preparedness and water efficiency, when they can just do nothing for a few years and apply for increased abstraction whenever theres a drought, safe in the knowledge that the EA can never refuse. And in case you think that the Government or regulators will take action please excuse my laughter.