And there is nothing to say that, having increased charges by less than CPI+2% in recent years, Scottish Water can’t increase charges in subsequent years by more than CPI+2% to ‘make up the difference’. 4.18 Nonetheless, this illustrates the challenges in trading off, on the one hand, the requirement to raise revenues from customer charges to fund investment in the water network, and on the other hand, the imperative of ensuring that water charges are affordable to current consumers. 21 Chart 3.1: Water poverty rates are expected to remain below historic highs Percentage of households in Scotland spending above 3% or 5% of disposable income on water charges 16.0% Forecast 14.0% Households spending >3% of income on water and sewerage ytre 12.0% vop reta 10.0% w ni sdlo 8.0% hesuoh Households spending >5% of income on water and sewerage f 6.0% o egatnec 4.0% reP 2.0% 0.0% 1...