Southern Water has awarded a contract for legal services worth an estimated £11 million-plus.

The contract covers the provision of litigation services and pre-litigation debt collection services on household customer debt.

The successful supplier will undertake an 'end to end' litigations process under the contract, including:

Pre-litigation proactive action to encourage collections

issue letter before action/pre-action protocol

processing of bulk claim files

administer court judgement process

actioning and management of post judgment enforcement.

Initial contract term is three years, with further extension options. No information has been made available about the successful supplier.