WET News

MARCH "I'm a bit like a proud dad... we've got a lovely baby and we've just been told our baby is a bit ugly, so I am disappointed about that" Thames Water CEO Steve Robertson after Ofwat marked the company's PR19 plan for significant scrutiny "The challenges are many and we will need to be smarter in the way we work with data, invigorate assets and optimise our solutions in order to deliver community solutions in the most affordable way" Stantec in the UK's new strategic technical consultant for water, Chris Mooij, on the need to be 'holistically integrated in our water cycle thinking' moving forward £81.6M Morgan Sindall Group has reported that adjusted profit before tax was up 23 per cent to £81.6 million on revenue of £2.9 billion for the year ending 31 December 2018 "Galliford Try has delivered a strong financial and operational performance in the first half, with further progress against our 2021 strategy. The group is well capitalised and average net debt is below previous guidance, driven by focused working capital management over the period" Galliford Try CEO Peter Truscott as the group announced that its net debt had fallen to £40 million from £85 million, with a current group order book of £5.4 billion "Lanes has demonstrated consistently high performance, shared learning and excellent communication, so we know we're always supported, and the drainage work we need doing will get done" BAM Nuttall's James Lees after the nine-year working relationship with Lanes Group was prolonged for 12 months IN A NUTSHELL 2 WET NEWS MARCH 2019 | wwtonline.co.uk 58% More than half of junior engineers taking part in a new survey by Topcon Positioning GB and the Institution of Civil Engineers believe the industry's skills challenge can be overcome by adopting new technology EngineeringUK already predicts a shortfall of between 37,000 and 59,000 against the annual demand for 124,000 engineering roles requiring Level 3+ skills, and the report warns that Brexit could substantially worsen the issue, with ONS Labour Force Survey data indicating that 7.7 per cent – or 560,000 – of those employed in UK engineering sectors are EU nationals. "It is hard to predict at this stage exactly what effect future A s the utilities sector con- tends with staffing issues that threaten to become substantially worse in the com- ing years, CEOs from a number of leading employers are sup- porting an initiative designed to attract a more diverse range of new recruits. Employers from the energy and utilities sector – including nine water companies as well as Amey, Balfour Beatty, Clancy Docwra, Kier, Morrison Utility Services and Veolia – joined Energy & Utility Skills in supporting the 'inclusion commitment'. Energy & Utility Skills has found that 83 per cent of the sector's workforce is male, compared to 47 per cent for all sectors nationally, while people with disabilities, the BAME community and under-24s have all traditionally been under- represented in the energy and utilities sector, compared to national averages. To tackle this challenge and build a resilient workforce for the future, 32 leading employers have committed themselves to drive change and work collaboratively to attract, recruit and retain more diverse talent to the sector. The commitment will challenge the sector to act and think differently and aims to inspire and connect with underrepresented groups, attracting new talent and ideas into the energy and utilities sector. T he Institution of Civil En- gineers (ICE) and Wavin have formed a partner- ship to help support profession- als in the implementation of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and identify better, more cost-effective and sustainable ways to manage the rise of ex- cess surface water. Ahead of the forthcoming Sewers for Adoption 8 guidance, anticipated to come into effect in mid-2019, ICE and Wavin are gathering water and sewerage companies, local authorities, designers and developers at a series of design sprints to seek creative solutions for the implementation of SuDS, with the outputs to be presented at the Futurebuild conference in London from 5 to 7 March. The partnership will also see the organisations establishing a dedicated SuDS community of practice, providing a forum for collaboration and the sharing of knowledge. Further activities to support SuDS professionals will include roundtables, webinars and industry research. Nathan Baker, ICE engineering knowledge director, said: "Civil engineers play a vital role in managing our precious water resources, so ICE is committed to providing • Companies from across utilities sector make moves to increase diversity and boost numbers amid concerns over the pipeline of new talent • Partnership running design sprints to improve implementation Industry takes action to tackle growing skills crisis ICE and Wavin link up to help promote best practice in SuDS migration legislation will have on the supply of engineers from abroad although restrictions in labour flow are widely expected," the report says. "While it is hoped that exiting the EU acts as a stimulus to focus both Government and industry on the need to develop a home- grown workforce, the rapid pace of technology development in industry combined with the length of time to fully train qualified Northumbrian Water is among the companies to have signed up and procurement category manager John Murray told WET News: "It's something we're encouraging our supply chain to sign up to as well. Hopefully we can push that." The energy and utilities sector currently employs around 566,000 people across the UK, but more than 221,000 new recruits are required to fill its expected skills gap by 2027. The pipeline of new talent remains a serious cause for concern, with a new report published by E4E and the Royal Academy of Engineering warning that progress in tackling the skills crisis in the UK engineering sector has been insufficient and that the issue could become substantially worse aªer Brexit. The 2013 Review of Engineering Skills by Professor John Perkins, commissioned by Government, was a landmark report that reviewed engineering education from primary to professional for the first time. The new report, 'Engineering Skills For The Future: The 2013 Perkins Review Revisited', warns of a "worrying stagnation" in the number young people opting to study subjects relevant to an engineering career beyond the age of 16 in the years since. In schools, it found that while pupil numbers have increased since 2015, teacher the knowledge they need to tackle the challenges they face. "By partnering with Wavin on SuDS, we are supporting professionals in a key area of responsible water resource management, which is vital for a sustainable future." Speaking from the first design sprint, ICE campaigns producer Ben McAlinden said: "A potential solution is coming around the corner in the form of Sewers for Adoption 8. To make that happen and turn into a real solution for SuDS, we need to listen to all the stakeholder groups, get all the people here together – water companies, who will become the adopting body; local authorities, who have a remit to reduce flood risk; developers, who are involved in developing engineers and technicians means that it is impossible to fill all engineering skills gaps in the near term only by increasing UK domiciled engineers and technicians." In his foreword to the report, Siemens CEO Juergen Maier pointed to the continued lack of diversity, writing that it is time to "put rocket boosters under our collective efforts to make engineering more inclusive", and said far more must be done to attract young people. "We must ensure a constant and stable education system that produces many more engineers to meet our societal demands," Maier wrote. "There have been too many policy changes, and still too much fragmentation and complexity embedded into our education system. Let's do more to join this up, working in partnership with Government. "And let's be honest, our education system is chronically underinvested in too. We need to invest more in our young potential engineers, critically preparing them for the wave of economic disruption that digital technology will create. "Put simply, we need more STEM teachers in our system to inspire and create more opportunities for young people. And we all know our impending exit from the EU – however it transpires – makes this issue more, not less, acute." numbers for maths, science, computer science and design and technology have not kept pace, and Government plans do not go far enough towards addressing recruitment and retention challenges. In higher education, where engineering is a high-cost subject that requires top-up grant funding and cross-subsidy, introducing differential fees could have a disastrous effect on take up of engineering degrees, the report says. residential and commercial property; and designers as well, so civil engineering people who actually design the solutions." George Warren, Greater London Authority project manager, added: "I think for the flood risk problem across London it's necessary to have a partnership approach. It's not just one single body that can solve this issue. "There's a lot of solutions we actually can do as of tomorrow, working together with the Environment Agency, the water companies, the local authorities. We all realise we're talking about the same problems and we all have the ability to make those happen." Martin Lambley, Stormwater product manager at Wavin, said: "We have chosen to partner with the Institution of Civil Engineers because engineers find solutions to the big issues, from Isambard Kingdom Brunel to the young graduates who worked with us on innovative products as part of the 'Future of Drainage' campaign. "They are the problem- solvers we need to help develop solutions to the problems that the UK and the world face around managing stormwater." Amey is among the companies to have signed the inclusion commitment The design sprints aim to aid SuDS implementation practices

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