Q+A: Sara Venning, chief executive, Northern Ireland Water

Northern Ireland Water chief executive Sara Venning speaks to Utility Week about the differences between the Northern Irish and Great British water markets, domestic charging, and the challenges the business faces.

Q: What do you see as the main difference between the Northern Irish and Great British water markets?

A: I think we have all the same drivers and all the same quality and aspirations around quality and environmental compliance, so I guess that the key difference is the funding of the enterprise and of the business. For us in Northern Ireland that has manifested itself now in an uncertainty around funding, and that lack of a medium-term financial plan. If I think about counterparts in GB, they’re now after their five-year plan, they have certainty of funding, and that just enables you to do so much more, and it enables you to deliver so much more outputs and efficiencies. So I guess that’s the main difference.

Q: Where is Northern Ireland with domestic charging?

A: So domestic charging in Northern Ireland is something that would be decided upon by the Northern Ireland Executive, the governing body of Northern Ireland. And where we’re at is that they’re heading into an election, and their indication at present is that they want to continue with the current model whereby the government would continue to provide a subsidy for water and sewerage services.

Q: What does Northern Ireland Water think about that?

A: We’re very ambivalent to how the funds are generated. Our main concern is that as a water/wastewater utility – a very asset-intensive business – that we need certainty of funding and we recognise the need for long-term planning in the water industry, as indeed we see from government with a long-term water strategy, each programme for government sets out the social and environmental guidelines for us as a business and we build those into our business plan. So as far as funding goes, we’re ambivalent about how they do it. Our main concern is that, with whatever method that the government chooses to use, that they ensure that we have that long-term view and that we have that certainty that enables us to get on and deliver the infrastructure and the customer services required.

Q: What has been your biggest challenge since you took on the role of chief executive?

A: Well undoubtedly, we’ve had a number of challenges as a business – in terms of security of supply back when we were dealing with severe weather events. We were dealing with extremes of weather back in 2010, and we were dealing with industrial action recently which was also a challenge for the business. But I think really, taking the business and saying to ourselves ‘we can do this, we’re as good as anyone else, and what we really want to deliver is top-level customer service and just change and turn our focus to that.
So a number of big challenges, probably the big key challenge is how do we deal with climate change? How do we make sure, as a business, we’re resilient enough to deal with climate change?

Q: What are Northern Ireland Water’s climate adaptation plans?

A: We’re working very much in partnership and in conjunction with the work that’s being carried out right across the industry, across a range of measures, whether that’s resilience in our own networks, planning for climate change now in all that we do, in all that we buy, and all the maintenance that we carry out, and then also working with customers and consumers to make sure that they’re planning adequately, because often the effects of climate change, whether that be flooding, is something that they need to work on, and they need to protect their properties as well as we need to make changes to how we work. Carbon, of course, is another key area. We’re looking at all the ways that we can help to reduce our own carbon footprint, and our own continued good stewardship of the environment.

Q: Does Northern Ireland Water have – or does it have any plans for – renewable energy and onsite generation?

A: Yes, that’s quite a key feature of our PC15 business plan, to maximise what we can achieve from renewables, to maximise our own asset base, whether that be solar energy, or any other form of renewable that we can use beside our own load base. I think the key thing for us, the advantage for us, is that we have a load, and we have land or an asset on which to install perhaps photovoltaics or something similar. We have quite a bit of ambition and we’re seeking to reduce our energy consumption from the grid in two ways – by using less electricity and by using more renewables. We’re looking at various ways of doing that, whether we might enter into partnerships with third parties as well as some installations of our own. We’ve commenced that programme and we see that ramping up through the period.

Q: What main piece of advice would you offer to someone taking on or running a business like Northern Ireland Water?

A: Be passionate about what it is that you do, be interested in what it is that you do and get to know all of it, and be very resilient, just like your network and your assets have to be.

Read Utility Week’s analysis on the Northern Irish water market here