Q&A with Peter Simpson, Chief executive, Anglian Water

“The programme’s about committing to continuous professional development”

Anglian Water chief executive Peter Simpson is also the national president of the Institute of Water, which has developed the Rising Stars programme, in partnership with Utility Week, and the Utility Week Stars Awards.

Utility Week met Simpson at Anglian Water’s Hall water treatment works in Lincolnshire after he had hosted the Rising Stars and taken them on a tour of the facility, and a local farm which the company has been working closely with as part of its catchment management plan

Q: What are you hoping the Rising Stars will get out of the programme?

A:  “It is an opportunity to give them a bit of profile for the year and to expose them to a lot of different aspects of the business. It’s about giving them opportunities to meet people they have not met before and the opportunity to look at different businesses. At this time in their career it is a good time for them to do it – it gives them appetisers in lots of different areas and hopefully encourages them to carry on developing themselves.”

Q: How has the visit gone today and what do you hope the Stars have taken away from it?

A: “From an environmental and cost point of view it makes sense having to avoid the need to treat the water in the first place. So to actually have a day when we can focus on what is a leading global technology on removing metaldehyde and then to counterpoint that with what we need to do at farm scale to prevent the pesticide getting into the water is a nice way of looking at it. Hopefully they’ve got something out of that.”

Q: Is the scheme about helping the Stars gain new qualifications?

A: “For me, that is an important thing. Professional qualifications are important for an industry that is so critical to the environment and public health. But the programme is also important in terms of the discipline that comes with it, that opens the mind to development. It’s about committing to continuous professional development, keeping up to date with what’s going on in the industry and keeping yourself current.

“The Institute of Water has always been a more applied and practical professional body than some of the others, and it’s always benefited from developing younger people. But it’s also about the people on the frontline. For me, that one of the big things about this is making sure it never becomes an elitist professional body, but one that covers the full spectrum.”