Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | March 2015 | 27 In the know It is now one year since water employees from Ireland's local authorities began working as agents of Irish Water, aer the implementation of the national Service Level Agreement (SLA) and the annual, local service plans that sit beneath it. Since customer service was transferred to Irish Water in March 2014, council employees no longer have direct interaction with customers over their water, with work requirements and instructions coming via the new utility. Conway, who is appearing at WWT's Water Ireland conference in Ashbourne on March 19th, told WWT that while operational teams on the ground were doing their jobs on a 'business as usual' basis, some aspects of the new arrangements had taken a while to bed in. "Generally speaking, it has worked well for the first year," said Conway. "There have been some teething problems, as you can understand, as it's a new experience for both sides and we are all getting used to new systems. As most of Irish Water's people are new and starting off in the new structure, inevitably there have been some issues around communication and procedures that Irish Water are introducing and trying to fit them into existing procedures. It's difficult to have a single set of procedures for the whole country. But in general, we're working fairly well considering the size of the change." WATER IRELAND PREVIEW Council water workforce adapts to Irish Water shi Ireland's transition to a utility model is progressing well although there is much work still to be done over the coming years, according to adrian conway, Executive Manager (Engineering) at Dublin city council. As Conway spoke to WWT, Irish Water was preparing to publish its 25- year strategic plan and put it out for public consultation; a five-year plan for the Dublin region will then be produced within that national context. Conway said that he hoped the plan would demonstrate Irish Water's ongoing commitment to meeting the water demands of the Dublin region, which he said faces very different challenges to the rest of Ireland. "Dublin is quite different in the sense of our structure, scale and complexity. We have been in the business of the provision of water services for far longer, going back to the middle of the 19th century, which has implications not least because of our ageing infrastructure. The network is also much more complex, because it is regional and much larger in scale. We have half a million people living in the city, and if you take the greater Dublin area you are talking more like a million, which means Irish Water has had to adjust their thinking to accommodate what is in Irish terms a very large organisation compared to other local authorities." One of the key areas for further work concerns councils' role as planning authorities – which are outside the scope of the SLA – and how they co-operate and communicate with Irish Water on planning issues. More broadly, Conway said that this year will provide further clarity on the shape of services provision in the country, as Irish Water makes progress on drawing up its key document showing how the sector will operate, the Water Industry Operating Framework. "That's at a very early stage - we are working with Irish Water at the moment on a high level concept design for that operating framework and hoping to develop it further over the remainder of 2015," said Conway. "You have 31 local authorities with their own treatment plants and networks, and I presume Irish Water will want to rationalise the way water services are delivered across Ireland. But that will take some time. If you look at what's happened elsewhere these things are not going to develop over 2 or 5 years, it will be a much longer period than that." Adrian Conway is speaking at WWT's Water Ireland conference on 19th March 2015 at the Pillo hotel in ashbourne. For details and to book your place visit www. wwt-ireland.net ● 31 Digging deeper: water management ● 35 Getting to grips: sustainable drainage ● 38 Technically speaking: data analytics ● 40 Nuts & bolts: products, solutions and services RISING UP Peter Millward has become chairman of the Board of Semb- corp Bournemouth Water (SBW). Millward has been on the board of SBW since 2009 as a non-executive director, and was previously chair of the audit committee. a chartered accountant, Millward was a partner at PriceWaterhousecoopers from 1984 to 2007. at the same time, SBW have appointed Philippa Goodwin to the board as Finance Director. Ian Cheung is the new head of Mor- gan Sindall's construction business across the South and West of the UK. he replaces Tony Dixon, who has le a er just ten months in the role. Cheung has joined Morgan Sindall from Kier, where he was managing di- rector of its central business unit, and now takes over a Morgan Sindall team that operates from bases in London, Surrey, Sussex, hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and South Wales. Charley Maher has been appointed as managing director of Bristol Wessex Billing Services Ltd (BWBSL) the joint billing service provided by Wessex Water and Bristol Water. Maher was previously a regional director for NatWest Bank. Sykes Pumps has appointed Stuart McConaghy to the role of director of major accounts. He takes over the role from chris Graham, who has recently been promoted to sales director. Veolia has appointed John Abraham as cOO of its water business in the UK. abraham was previously chief operat- ing officer at MWH Constructors and Treatment. 03 March WWT's Water Industry asset Management conference, Birmingham 09 March World Water Tech Summit, London. 17 March Global Leakage Summit event, London. 19 March WWT's Water Ireland conference, ashbourne. COMING UP

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