Establishing a national water utility company
- The Scottish Experience
BLP Water Forum 25th June
Craig Lawson
15 mins
Agenda for the Presentation
1. Context
2. The Scottish Water Journey from the perspective of:
•
Employees
•
Regulation
•
Supply Chain
3. Why has it been worth it so far
Irish/Scottish Water - Differences
Differences
• Scotland’s Water & Drainage service provider:
• Pre 1996 - 38 Municipalities ran water and drainage
• 1996 - combined into 3 regional water authorities
• 2002 -Scottish Water created by merger of 3 regional authorities
• Transfer of People
• Customers in Scotland have always paid for their water and sewerage
Irish/Scottish Water - Similarities
Similarities
• Implied Inefficiencies & Poor Customer Service
• EU Directives – Large scale investment required
• Public sector
• Geographical & Population size similarities
SW High Level Deliverables
Targets
2002 – 2006
• 40% OPEX reduction
• £2.3 Billion Capital programme for £1.8B (£0.5 Billion saving)
• Improve customer service
2. Scottish Water Journey from the
perspectives of:
• Employees
• Regulators
• Supply Chain
Scottish Water : A burning platform
Employees
2002 – 2006: “Do less for less”
• Disbelief, some denial of situation, survival mode
• Transformation driven by ‘others’ – everything changing
• Lots of people leaving
2006 – 2010: “Do the same for less
• Some respect for achieving 02 – 06 targets
• Our own people now more involved in Transformation projects
• Roles profiles, T&C, business processes, tools, reports converging towards
consistency
2010 – 2015: “Do more for less”
• Transformation delivered by our own people – more planned
• Engagement Very High
• Performance related pay, bonus, employee performance measured,
coaching/mentoring leadership
• New recruits joining the business
Regulators
2002 – 2006
• Imposing a ‘contract’ on us
• Each regulator wanting their priorities 1st
2006 – 2010
• Beginning to work in partnership with regulators
• Stakeholder management structure in place
2010 – 2015
• We now lead the development of the investment
programme in a collaborative manner
• Regulators trust that we know our business and
our customer’s needs best
• Working together
“Scottish Water has
outperformed its
projections in the areas
of investment
in the 2010-15
programme, levels
of service to
customers, leakage
reduction, investment
costs and
financial strength.”
WICS 2012
Supply Chain
2002 – 2006
• High number of small suppliers
• Very aggressive cost challenge on OPEX spend
• Knowledge brought in from England & Wales through JV
• New Jobs created in £450M per year Capital Programme
2006 – 2010
• Reducing number of suppliers – frameworks deployed
• Some outsourced opportunities
• Working to ‘Break the Cycle’
2010 – 2015
• Small number of suppliers – Alliances (11 years)/Frameworks
• Focus on value and outputs
• Long term security of work
3. Why has it been worth it so far….
• Average Household bill would have been
approx. £110 higher than our current £324
• We have delivered our statutory objectives at
£2.5 billion less than we had proposed in our
Business Plans (BP’s from 2001 & then 2005)
• Performance OPA up from 132 points to 368
points
• Helps enable inward investment in Scotland
• Competition gave our 130,000 Business
Customers a choice of retailers
OPA in Customer ‘speak’
Measure
06 - 07
11 - 12
Inadequate Water Pressure
7,772
902 properties
No of Properties supply restored > 6
hours
35,415
21,803 properties
Leakage
1003.8
629 ML/d
Water Quality (Customer Taps)
99.66 (577
fails)
99.84%
Wastewater Pollution Incidents
(Cat1 & 2)
931
499 incidents
Sewer Flooding Properties at Risk
772
267 properties
Customer Experience Transactional
Score
58%
90% (today)