Water resilience shortfalls to be highlighted

The shortfalls in the water sector's resilience plans are set to be highlighted by the independent resilience taskforce.

The group, which was set up by Ofwat in January, has started scrutinising the companies’ plans and documents – such as water resource management plans, AMP6 business plans, and climate change adaptation plans – to collate the resilience plans each company currently has.

A working group from the taskforce is assessing ten areas such as water resources, sewerage, HR and IT security, and rank them red, amber or green, to highlight where the critical issues are.

The anonymised data will provide a “detailed picture” of what the companies are currently doing well and where further work needs to be completed or more detail provided, with a report being produced in the autumn.

“There may be elements of resilience in loads of different plans produced by the water companies, so we’re pulling them together into one place,” Tompkins said.

He added: “This will be a meta-analysis of the sector and highlight if there is a lack of consistency across the industry or if there are any gaps in the planning.”

This data will then be used to create a “resilience dashboard” which will use five to 10 key metrics to highlight the preparedness of the companies and the sector as a whole and indicate where any improvements need to be made.

The group is currently a series holding face to face interviews and has published a consultation, which quizzes stakeholders on their definition of resilience, the top three resilience issues, and who should be responsible for resilience.

The next meeting is due to be held in September, and the group is due to report its findings to Ofwat and feed into the PR19 process.