Bournemouth Water has launched a new consultation on its data quality, assurance and information presentation following a report published by the water company last year identifying weaknesses in the way it provides information.

The company is also planning to explore the additional risks arising as a result of the organisational restructuring/integration with South West Water.

During the autumn of 2015 Bournemouth Water  undertook stakeholder engagement focussed on whether its stakeholders are assured that the firm knows and understand its risks and responsibilities in relation to data. Its subsequent report published in November 2015 concluded that additional internal assurance conducted together with the stakeholder engagement process showed that:

• risk management processes in relation to data are robust, and
• the company’s strengths lie in well-developed, time tested and externally verified data collection methodologies and in the quality and clarity of the information provided
• there are some weaknesses in relation to the provision of information.

Bournemouth Water is now consulting  on a draft supplementary assurance plan to address the weaknesses and is seeking comment on the following key questions:

• Has Bournemouth Water addressed all of the areas identified as a weakness in drawing up this draft assurance plan? If not, what is missing?
• Do you agree with how Bournemouth Water has prioritised the actions in the plan?
• Does the draft supplementary assurance plan give you assurance that the company is appropriately responding to the weaknesses identified in the Autumn Review? If not, please explain why.

Key areas the water company has looked at include a deep dive on data working with an independent technical expert to examine how far back in any audit trail process he should go to achieve the desired level of confidence and satisfaction.

Bournemouth Water has also looked at how it can improve its approach to communications, including:

• working to make the information more easily accessible to customers and stakeholders
• promoting  its work in the environment and the community more
• exploring the introduction of a formal process to measure the improvement of customer and stakeholder levels of awareness as a result of the communications strategy
• extending future engagement with customers and stakeholders on information provision.

New and evolving risks

It was also agreed that the Independent technical expert needed to discuss with the company the additional risks arising as a result of the organisational restructuring/integration with South West Water. Any concerns and a schedule of any work to be undertaken will be fed back to Bournmouth Water's Customer View challenge group.

Bournemouth Water' Risks, Strengths and Weaknesses Statement published in November also flagged up the need to remain alert to and manage new and evolving risks closely, highlighting:

• the risk of corporate memory loss regarding the importance of accurate and consistent regulatory reporting following Ofwat’s move to a less prescriptive approach
• as a small company, there is a reliance on key individuals
• the company is set to enter a period of significant change as a result of the merger with South West Water
• new systems and processes arising primarily from the migration to a new billing system have resulted in some new, and therefore less well tested, data collection methodologies.

Deadline for submission of responses to the current consultation is 11^th March – click here to access the consultation document.

Once the consultation has concluded Bournemouth Water said it will publish the responses on its website and incorporate the responses into its data assurance process for 2016/17 where appropriate.