A Freedom of Information Request (FoI) has revealed that Northern Ireland Water (NIW) spent £400,000 of taxpayers' money on changing their name.

The breakdown of figures showed the publicly owned company spent £45,000 on a brand study and creation of corporate identity, £60,000 on project management and internal communication support plus £30,000 preparing new customer information leaflets.

The company who essentially have a monopoly on water provision in the province also spent £75,000 on web consultancy; this included the development of an online billing system for water charges which have yet to be enforced.

A NIW spokesman said: "In order to meet its wide-reaching public and customer information responsibilities and to avoid public confusion related to the change in name and status from

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Water Service to Northern Ireland Water in April 2007, the organisation made a necessary one-off investment of approx £400k in a full-scale overhaul of key customer information channels and materials."

The spokesperson said the organisation was careful to avoid waste of public money by minimising normal run-of-business costs such as "ordering of publications, stationery etc" in the run-up to the name change.

"Our priority was to make the transition from Water Service as easy as possible for customers and to help build early awareness and confidence among the public in the new Northern Ireland Water. Our approach has been cost-effectively phased and is very similar to that successfully adopted by our counterparts in Great Britain." said the NIW spokesman.

News letter columnist Robin Greer who lodged the FoI request said: "No one is going to stop using water in Northern Ireland because the Water Service changes its name. They did not need to embark on a costly re-branding and marketing exercise."

He agreed that some of the expenditure was on normal 'must do' stuff, but said lot of it smacked of indulgence.

(GK/JM)