13 key commitments. In 2014 we submitted a five-year Business Plan to our regulator which set out a path to meeting this
Our Performance Update 2015/2016
Your water. Our report. Hello. Thanks for taking the time to take a look at Our Performance Update for 2015/16. As your local water supplier, we manage the water in your area every single day – treating it and supplying over 900 million litres of it so we can ensure that 3.5 million people have high quality drinking water when they need it. We understand that we provide an essential service to households and businesses across our region. It is what drives our ambition to be your trusted, community-focused water company. But we face a very real challenge to our ability to continue to meet demand in the longer term. We supply water to one of the fastest-growing, most economically active regions in the country. While demand is going up, the amount of available water is going down. 13 key commitments In 2014 we submitted a five-year Business Plan to our regulator which set out a path to meeting this challenge. In developing our Business Plan we got the thoughts of our customers and stakeholders through face-to-face community meetings, online panels and our Let’s Talk Water Campaign.
Our vision is to be the leading community focused water company. As a result of what our customers told us, we set out 13 key commitments. These commitments ensure that we have enough water to meet demand while leaving enough water in the environment, minimising disruption to supply, providing high quality water and offering our customers a value-for-money service. This report sets out how we’re performing against each of these 13 commitments at a company level.
As a result of what our customers told us, we set out 13 key commitments
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But we wanted to go one step further. That’s why we’ve broken down our performance by our individual communities. We want our customers to be clear about how we’re performing where they live and how this measures up against the company average and against other communities in our supply area. Listening and learning We want to be completely open with our customers and stakeholders about our performance. We want them to have trust in our service and encourage them to provide constant feedback about how we’re performing against our commitments. Thanks again for taking the time to read this booklet. Best wishes,
Simon Cocks Chief Executive Officer
About us…
Where each pound of our customers’ bills is spent: Our shareholders
We provide clean water to 3.5 million customers across the South East. That’s a lot of customers – and a big responsibility, which we take extremely seriously. We are committed to being open and honest about our performance at both a company and community level. We are working hard to reduce our impact on the environment, whilst improving the levels of service our customers receive at the same time. And where customers find themselves in vulnerable circumstances, we’ll always make support a real priority. How we have performed this year How have we done this year at a company and community level? This report tells you more – but here are some key facts at a glance… • This year we have reduced the amount of water we take from the environment by 6.7 million litres • Supported 38,000 households on low incomes through our Low Income Fixed Tariff (LIFT) • Invested over £100 million into our assets and network.
In 2015 we carried out over 170,000 tests on water leaving water treatment works, at reservoirs and at customers’ taps as part of our regulatory monitoring programme. We also carried out over 400,000 tests on operational samples. Our overall compliance performance in 2015, as regulated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (‘DWI’), was 99.99 percent (‘%’). 3
To homes, schools and businesses
Water tower
7p
Dividends Our bondholders
10p
Interest paid on debt financing Local and central government
10p 17p
Corporation tax, business rates, abstraction charges, employer’s national insurance, Climate Change Levy and streetworks permits Our people Wages, salaries and pensions
26p
Our suppliers for operating services Operational cost of suppliers’ services Our suppliers for assets
30p
Investment in our assets Figures are based on our statutory financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2016.
Water treatment works
We operate 98 water treatment works to ensure that our water is of the highest quality.
We distribute our water through a network of over 16,500km of mains.
Chalk aquifer
We supply on average 900 million litres of water a day to over 3.5 million people, serving 1.5 million homes and businesses.
Our communities The area we supply is made up of eight water resource zones which we call communities. Each community is named after a local river to strengthen the link between our water sources and the area they serve. We manage our business at a local level to enable us to engage with our customers in a meaningful way and tailor our future plans.
Misbourne • £2.8 million invested in renewing pipework • £29,000 raised at the 32nd annual Ricky Road Run • Three community groups supported with £5,000 worth of funding
“I believe that by taking decisions at a community level we are better able to meet the needs of our communities and provide better outcomes for our customers.” Drew Ritchie Managing Director of Wholesale Operations
Wey • £1.5 million spent on improving the performance of our network • £10,800 donated to support local community projects • Supported the British Disabled Water Ski and Wakeboard Association at Heron Lake 4
Colne • £4million invested in making our network more resilient • £4,600 donated to support local community projects • 6,000 students visited our award-winning education centre in Bushey
Saffron Walden Harwich
Stevenage Luton
Clacton-on-Sea St Albans
Harlow
Hemel Hempstead Rickmansworth
Watford
Wembley
Dover Folkestone Woking Guildford
Lee • £6 million invested in infrastructure • Children In Need call centre – 1,700 calls answered by our team • 13,000 free Home Water Efficiency Checks carried out
Stort • 34km of pipework renewed to strengthen our network • Partnership with a local school through BITC Business Class • £4,860 donated to support local community projects
Brett • Our strongest performing network of our eight communities • Partnership with a local school through BITC Business Class • £2,360 donated to the St Clare Hospice
Saffron Walden Harwich
Stevenage Luton
Clacton-on-Sea St Albans
Harlow
Hemel Hempstead Rickmansworth
Watford
Wembley
Dover Folkestone Woking Guildford
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Pinn • Over 15km of pipework renewed to improve the reliability of our service • We provide recreational facilities to local community groups • 220 million litres of water cleaned and delivered through our largest treatment works
Dour • £2.5 million being invested in a new storage reservoir • £4,000 donated to support local community projects • 140 people employed in our local call centre
Our challenge We supply water in an area which has been designated as being under serious water stress by the government. That’s why we’re working hard to meet the challenge of matching supply with demand.
Water saving Demand for water is increasing We provide water to one of the fastestgrowing, most economically active regions in the UK.
“It’s important that we work with our customers and stakeholders to find the best way to leave more water in the local environment while continuing to meet rising demand.” Stephen Martin Director of Asset Strategy
Our region will have
600,000 more people by 2040 6
Saving Water
Reducing leakage
Metering
Did you know?
Did you know?
Did you know?
A reduction in water use can lead to a reduction in energy costs. 21% of household energy bills related to heating, are due to heating water.
We plan to reduce leakage by a higher percentage than any other company in England in Wales
Across the six communities spanning from North Hertfordshire down to North Surrey, less than half of our customers have water meters
Available water is decreasing We are committed to reducing the amount of water we take from the environment by 42 million litres per day, to help protect our unique and precious ecology.
Our Water Saving Programme Between 2005 and 2013 we successfully increased the number of households with a water meter in our Dour community from 54% to 93%. This programme demonstrated a clear link between metering and consumption reduction. • Over 40,000 meters were installed as part of the programme • Average household consumption fell by 16% • Customers now use on average 40 litres less water per person per day than those in the majority of our communities
If we do nothing we face a shortfall of 170 million litres of water each day by 2040
You said, we did . . . As a community-focused water company, we believe that engaging with our customers is absolutely vital. We’re proud our Business Plan was directly developed from the views, feedback and expectations of our customers and stakeholders. In fact, between 2012 and 2014 we received 12,500 responses through our engagement programme.
“Our customers helped us to shape our Business Plan and it’s only right that we are open and transparent about how we’re performing against our commitments.” Christopher Offer Director of Regulation & Corporate Affairs 7
Commitment Making sure our customers have enough water, while leaving more water in the environment
Commitment
Commitment
Commitment
Supplying high quality water you can trust
Minimising disruption to you and your community
Providing a value for money service
What we did…
What we did…
What we did…
What we did…
Promised to reduce leakage by 14% – an industry-leading level
In 2015 we carried out 170,000 water quality tests on our supply system
Committed to investing over £500 million in our infrastructure
Established a Low Income Fixed Tariff (LIFT) for our most vulnerable customers
The result…
The result…
The result…
The result…
In 2015, leakage was reduced by 2.6 million litres per day
In 2015 we delivered our best ever performance on water quality
We’ve reduced the number of bursts on our network by 9%
Over 38,000 customers on low incomes now benefiting from our LIFT tariff
Our performance across our communities As part of our Business Plan we committed to publishing our performance against 13 commitments at a company and community level. The table below tells you more. Performance commitment
Company overall Target 15-16 performance*
Misbourne
Colne
Lee
Pinn
Stort
Wey
Dour
Brett
Leakage (million litres of treated water per day)
25.6
31.2
29.6
45.1
14.5
23.7
5.8
4.0
180.9*
183.9
Average water use (average litres used per person per day)
161.0
161.6
138.6
155.8
155.0
164.5
122.6
128.8
154.4**
156
Water available for use (million litres available for use during peak demand)
114.0
148.4
230.1
284.7
108.5
165.8
49.9
37.7
1,139.1
1,110.4
Compliance with water quality standards (Mean Zonal Compliance - Find out more at: www.dwi.gov.uk/about/)
100.00%
99.95%
99.98%
99.98%
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
99.99%
99.95%
Customer contacts regarding discolouration (contacts received per 1,000 population)
0.34
0.22
0.26
0.19
0.91
0.28
0.48
0.27
0.31
0.66
Unplanned interruptions to supply over 12 hours
57
56
137
14
627
879
0
1
1,771
320
Number of burst mains
275
434
349
423
271
317
84
48
2,201
3,100
Affected customers not notified of planned interruptions
23
22
104
124
25
101
1
0
400
110
Planned works taking longer to complete than notified
109
9
35
47
8
15
43
0
266
550
An Ofwat measure enabling the review of our sustainability performance and comparison with other companies. Not used during 2015/16
N/A
N/A
Average annual reduction in water abstracted from our river catchments quantified in millions of litres per day. This years reductions were carried out in our Lee community.
-6.7
-6.7
Our regulator carries out a customer survey to measure how well companies have handled all types of customer contacts. We have set an internal target of being 9th in the industry.
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We make 2,000 phone calls each year to customers, getting their opinion on whether we offer value. There is currently no target while we continue to develop this metric.
71.6/100
N/A
Non-community performance Abstraction Incentive Mechanism Sustainable Abstraction Reductions Service Incentive Mechanism (customer survey) Value For Money Survey
*The company total does not always equal the community totals. This is due to the way individual performance commitments are measured **Figure taken from annual-average out turns and therefore does not equal the company leakage figure of 180.9 ***Figures taken from average household PCC. Figures not ‘normalised’ for average year. This therefore does not equal the overall company average water use figure of 154.4 8
Improving our service This year we’ve met 10 out of the 13 performance commitments we set ourselves as part of our Business Plan. We recognise there are areas where we haven’t done as well as we should… that’s why we’ll keep doing all we can to improve the service we provide our customers with.
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Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM)
Unplanned interruptions – 12 hours
Notifying customers of planned interruptions
We recognise that our SIM score hasn’t been where we would like it. This year we’ve improved to 13th out of 18 companies – up from 15th the year before. But we know we need to do more. That’s why we’re investing in our talent and engaging with our customers to get their views on what we can do better.
In 2015/16 our performance in this area cost us £1.64 million, as we failed to meet our target. Our approach to reducing unplanned interruptions has now changed, by re-focusing our efforts on prevention, restoring supplies and fixing the problem quickly. We’ve now got new high volume emergency pumping equipment and are improving processes and competencies to reduce the impact we have on customers when we have bursts.
We did poorly against this performance commitment and we know we have to do more to improve. We’re continuing to develop systems and procedures to get better in this area and meet this challenging target. When we do get things wrong, customers are usually entitled to compensation of £20 – we’ve now increased this to £50.
We’ve improved to 13th out of 18 companies
We are focused on fixing problems quickly
Providing a better service for our customers
WE DELIVER OUR WATER THROUGH
35%
16,500KM
IN THE SECOND HALF OF 15/16
OF PIPE – ENOUGH TO STRETCH FROM LONDON TO SYDNEY
2,000
PERFORMANCE PUBLISHED
12 times a year ON OUR WEBSITE
NEW CUSTOMER RESOLUTION TEAM BROUGHT CONSUMPTION SPECIFIC COMPLAINTS DOWN BY
37%
£IN4VES0TEDING
IN IN TR AEOPLE P O UR
THIS YEAR LESS THAN
0.12%
10
6
CUSTOMER FOCUS GROUPS HELPED US IMPROVE OUR BILLS
0,0
WE CARRY OUT
Director of Customer Relations
LOCAL CALL CENTRES: RESPONDING TO LOCAL ISSUES QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELY
Amanda Reynolds
00
WHENEVER THERE ARE ISSUES ON THE NETWORK WE ARE COMMITTED TO RESPONDING FAST
EES KNOW Y O IN) THE E EY WORK IN H
OUR EMP (AND LIV L AREA T
“ I am committed to ensuring that our customers experience an excellent service each and every time they contact us.”
COMPLAINTS DOWN BY
PERFORMANCEFOCUSED CUSTOMER SURVEYS A YEAR
We are passionate about providing great customer service. Our customers thoughts are important to us and we use their feedback and insights to improve the service we deliver. This year we have already received feedback from almost 80,000 of our customers, giving them a voice in how we shape our service.
OF CUSTOMERS EXPERIENCED AN UNPLANNED DISRUPTION TO THEIR SUPPLY FOR MORE THAN 12 HOURS
Engaging with our customers, planning ahead Engagement with our communities is really important to us. That’s because our customers’ input helps shape our plans and drive our performance. It’s important to us that we hear the views of our customers – this lets us understand their priorities and needs in the longer term which we can factor into our plans.
What we did in 2015-16
What we’re doing in 2016-17
• 71 community events attend by our Water Saving Squad • £141,000 donated to local community groups • Six customer research events carried out.
• We will hold an information event in each of our communities • We will undertake extensive customer research • We will proactively inform our customers about how we are performing.
Customer Challenge Group (CCG) “ The CCG is there to constructively challenge and advise us on how we should engage with customers and stakeholders and ensure our plans are based on a really good understanding of customers’ views. I joined the Group as Chair in June 2016 and am looking forward to working with the other members and the company to make a positive difference for Affinity Water’s customers. The company has ambitious targets to deliver improvements in quality of service, extend water metering and work with its customers to conserve water supplies by reducing leakage and improving efficient use of water. The CCG will be monitoring how well the company actually delivers against what it promised its customers it would do. We will also be reporting to the industry regulator, Ofwat, on how well we think the company has engaged with its customers in drawing up its future plans.”
Teresa Perchard
Chair of the Customer Challenge Group
This year we’re going to be very active in our communities – talking to customers and local community representatives about our performance. We’re going to be seeking views on our Strategic Direction Statement, Water Resources Management Plan, Drought Management Plan and the early planning for our next Business Plan.
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Strategic Direction Statement
Water Resources Management Plan
Drought Management Plan
Our Strategic Direction Statement is a critical foundation for our next Business Plan, which we will submit to Ofwat in September 2018. In it, we’ll set out our vision for the next 25 years, after consulting with customers and stakeholders about our priorities during 2016. We plan to publish our Statement in spring 2017.
Our Water Resources Management Plan considers how we balance water supply and customer demand over the next 25 years and beyond. Our customers’ views are essential to plan how we make sure they have enough water, whilst ensuring our natural environment remains resilient. We will be engaging with our customers and stakeholders across all of our communities over the coming years before publishing the completed version in 2019.
Our Drought Management Plan describes how we monitor our water resources before a drought, and the triggers for action. The views of our customers can make a huge difference, helping us ensure we make the most of our supplies. Over the next year we’ll be talking to customers and stakeholders, making sure we take account of their views.
We want to invite customers and stakeholders to comment on this report and the performance outlined in it.
You can email your responses to
[email protected]
www.affinitywater.co.uk
