Bristol Water has launched a new consultation seeking views on the quality of data it provides to customers and other stakeholders.

The water company has launched the consultation -  Bristol Water: Risks,Strengths and Weaknesses - in response to Ofwat’s request for additional assurance following the regulator’s decision to move Bristol Water into the ‘prescribed’ company category in November.

Introducing the consultation, Bristol Water said Ofwat categorises companies as ‘prescribed’ when it decides that companies have not provided them with sufficient confidence on their ability to deliver, monitor and report performance.

As a ‘prescribed’ company Bristol Water is now required to incorporate independent external assurance as part of its assurance plans. The consultation paper also sets out the role that its independent technical assurer, Atkins, and financial auditors, PwC, will play in assurance of its key submissions.

Key questions the water company is seeking comment on are:

1. How would you use the information published by Bristol Water? Would you use it to compare Bristol Water with other water companies, or other utility service providers?

2. Is the information that Bristol Water publishes produced in a useful and easy to understand format, and sufficiently precise for your needs?

3. Is there any information that Bristol Water doesn’t currently publish that you consider would be useful?

4. What do you consider to be the most important type of information that Bristol Water provides? This could be information about your bill, the work we are doing in your area, whether we are meeting our customer service targets, our financial performance or other information and data that we publish.

5. Do you have any concerns about the quality of the information that is provided by Bristol Water? Do you consider it to usually be reliable?

6. Are there lessons we could learn from elsewhere to improve the reliability of our information?

7. Are there any other risks, strengths or weaknesses in our information that you think we should address?

The consultation paper says that Bristol Water’s PR14 business plan submissions were subject to a detailed level of internal and external assurance, and were approved by the Board on the basis of the assurance received but goes on to say:

“However, we recognise the comments subsequently made by the CMA and Ofwat that the level of supporting detail and evidence to underpin the proposals in our plan could have been greater. We want all parties to have trust and confidence in the information we produce, and we will take this feedback into account in our future provision of regulatory information and business plans.”

The company is also required to publish all of its assurance plans on the website ahead of reporting. Bristol Water intends to publish a draft version of its plan for assurance of data in February 2016, which will take into account the views received in response to the consultation. The draft assurance plan will set out what Bristol will do to enable Ofwat to move it to one of the less prescriptive categories at the earliest opportunity in Ofwat’s framework.

It will then publish a final version of the plan by 31st March 2016, ahead of its annual reporting and assurance programme. The plan will support the publication of reports on its performance in 2015/16, which will be published in the summer of 2016.

Deadline for submission of responses is 15th January 2016 - Click here to download the consultation document.