WET News

2 WET NEWS APRIL 2016 COMMENT "The water rms have their regulatory targets but are these challenging enough?" APRIL £8M Northumbrian Water is investing £8M to upgrade its sewer network in Sunderland. Work on the one-year scheme begins this November Prof Tony Conway, known as 'Director of Curiosity' during his time at UU, has joined British Water's governing board. He is a visiting professor at the University of Sheffield Water Centre, and acts as a consultant for organisations. Chancellor George Osborne announced a £700M rise in flood defence spending in his budget speech last month. The increased budget will be funded by a 0.5% rise in the standard rate of Insurance Premium Tax from 9.5% to 10%. It will be additional to the govern- ment's £2.3bn capital programme, which plans to invest in more than 1,500 flood defence schemes across the country. 1,500 10% £800M United Utilities (UU) expects its regulatory capital investment for 2015/16 to be around £800M. UU said its underlying operating pro t for 2015/16 will be lower than for 2014/15. 3.36bn The number of litres of drinkable water lot daily in the UK through leakage of some sort. "We're delighted to officially welcome our partners PWN Tech- nologies, Balfour Beatty, Interserve, Arcadis and Pell Frishmann on board for what promises to be a very exciting and globally significant project" SWW's Mike Court on who will design and build the £60M Plymouth WTW "Cybercrime is a key concern certainly in my own company in the South-west at the moment, it is something that our board is very interested in" Bob Taylor, Bournemouth Water managing director, at the WWT Smart Water Network Conference. £95M The cost of Derby's Our City Our River project, which will reduce the city's flood risk and maximise regeneration opportunities along the River Derwent. The overall scheme will cover 13km of the river. I s it too soon for the Cyclicality Working Group to be hanging up its AMP6-sized boots? I can appreciate the reason behind it but I must admit I'm a little bit disappointed it's calling it a day. The Cyclicality Working Group has achieved a great deal over the past couple of years or so as its cross-industry members strived to eliminate the negative impact of the ˆ ved-yearly regulatory cycle. The greatest achievement was in getting Ofwat to allow the water companies to bring forward £440M of transition investment from AMP6 into the ˆ nal year of AMP5. Another achievement I would add to the list is that the group has introduced collaboration across the the industry, which is no mean feat. Recommendations The Cyclicalty Working Group now plans to put recommendations based on what has been observed over the past couple of years or so. But who is going to ensure those recommendations are acted upon? The water companies are coming to terms with a totex culture and the ODIs imposed by Ofwat, and also have the added distraction of non- domestic retail competition becoming reality in a year's time. The start of AMP6 has not been all joy for the sector's contractors and suppliers with some complaining of slow project starts, delayed tenders for instance. I would suggest the Cyclicality Working Group would be the ideal candidate to act on its recommendations. So, rather than the group taking a rain check why doesn't it do what students are keen on and take a gap year or two? Put leakage reduction higher up the industry agenda again Nearly four billion litres of drinkable water are lost daily in the UK through leakage of some sort, states Mark Hodgens, managing director of Talis UK (see p10-11). That is a shocking amount of water. And despite signiˆ - cant investment by the water sector to minimise leakage there has only been an 8% improvement over the past ten years. Drought and water shortages are increasingly being reported from around the world. On the homefront, there are concerns that a new water supply is needed by the mid-2020s. The water companies have their regulatory leakage targets but do these oš er enough of a challenge? Reducing leakage was high on the water sector's agenda just a few short years ago. It needs to be once again. Mott MacDonald signs up to the industry-led 5% Club œ Engineering consultancy makes apprentice pledge, as NIPS claims 250,000-plus construction workers will be needed by 2020 M ott MacDonald has pledged to ensure that at least 5% of its UK workforces are on a formalised apprentice, sponsored student and/or graduate programme, having signed up to The 5% Club. The club is an industry-led campaign focused on creating career opportunities for apprentices and graduates in the UK. With the government's National Infrastructure Plan for Skills (NIPS) having identiˆ ed the need for more than 250,000 construction and 150,000-plus engineering construction workers by 2020, there is a need to recruit and train nearly 100,000 additional workers by the end of the decade. The 5% Club is focused on creating momentum behind the recruitment of apprentices and graduates who can help ˆ ll this gap in the workforce. Its members consist of large and small employers from a wide range of sectors who want to make a diš erence and support the UK's ability to compete in increasingly tough global markets. Mott MacDonald has a well- established graduate and apprentice scheme to train new recruits in the industry. About 20% of its UK workforce is currently made up of apprentices, graduates or sponsored students. From as early as 16 years old, staš work on fee- earning projects for clients around the world, as well as in the UK. They also work alongside some of the consultancy's most senior experts, learning fundamental workplace skills and gaining valuable experience of real-life situations. Davide Stronati, Mott MacDonald's group sustain- ability director, said: "Progress, drive and the strive for excellence have long been key principles at Mott MacDonald. Providing young people with the opportunity to become the professionals of the future is both a business and social imperative. We are proud to support the aims of The 5% Club and play our part in the development and training of young people. Their future careers and skills could go some way to solving the skills crisis facing the industry." In a blog, regional managing director Mike Haigh said: "…we recognise that bringing on young people to become the professionals of the future is both a business and social imperative. Besides apprentice- ships and graduate schemes, we run other training programmes for young people: our railway signalling unit in York, for example, trains school leavers in-house to become professionally qualiˆ ed (IRSE) signal engineers. "We remain committed to using apprenticeships as a learning pathway, along with other routes, to address skills gaps and promote diversity. They beneˆ t business, society and not least the individual." "We remain committed to using apprenticeships as a learning pathway, along with other routes, to address skills gaps and promote diversity" Mike Haigh, Mott MacDonald

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