Utility Week

Interview W elsh Water is in many ways a company ahead of its time. Politicians and regulators have only recently moved the customer firmly to centre-stage in price and service discussions; only in the past six months have affordability and sharing outperformance with customers become political and regulatory priorities. Welsh Water has been doing all this since 2001, when it was bought by Glas Cymru on behalf of customers. It has no shareholders, so any gains the company makes are returned to customers and the entire business is managed with bill-payers in mind. Chris Jones has been chief executive since September, but as one of the architects of the company's notfor-profit model and finance director since 2001, he can rightly take pride in 13 years of not-for-profit success. At our interview, he chooses modest words. "It's so far, so good, I'd say." Jones goes on to explain ticks have been put against Glas Cymru's three original ambitions: raising sustainable but cheap finance for investment in the business; winning more customer trust; and motivating staff to want to do a good job because customers, not shareholders, see the benefit. He has some astonishing figures to back up his claims. Welsh Water's business plan for 2015-20 has the support of 94 per cent of customers; and in the latest staff survey, 86 per cent said they were proud to work for the company. Jones adds that now he is in the driving seat, one of his key priorities will be giving his staff more tools, capabilities and strategies to deliver for customers. On the financing side, Welsh Water has consistently been able to access long-term, low-cost bond finance, despite a deep and biting recession. According to Jones: "We're investing more in the business now than we ever have done, at a cheaper cost than any of the other utility companies. So all those doubts about 'can a nonshareholder company access the capital markets in good times and bad' – well after 13 years and through a big recession, I think we can say we've ticked that one off." While there have been difficult times – the recession in particular, but also some instances of service failure to customers – Jones says the structure put in place in 2001 has stood the test of time. "Have we found any generic, systemic weaknesses in the business model? I can't really think of any, to be honest. Is there room for improvement? Sure." When I last interviewed Jones, some ten years ago, there was a lot of talk about whether other water companies would go down the Glas route. In a simple, black and white way, this hasn't happened, despite the model's obvious successes. Why? "A lot of it comes down to the serendipity of the moment," says Jones. "You just haven't had that unique UTILITY WEEK | 31sT JanUarY - 6Th FEbrUarY 2014 | 9

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