Northern Ireland Water has cut its everyday running costs by £7 million, according to its Annual Report and Accounts for 2013/14 published today.

The average planned investment over the PC13 Price Control period, which runs from April 2013 to March 2015, is around £160 million per annum and a similar level of investment is planned for PC15 which runs  from April 2015 to March 2021. The company spends around £80 million a year on maintaining the current assets. Around a further £80 million a year will be spent to deliver quality enhancements, improve service and accommodate growth.

The report says that current levels of asset maintenance are likely to continue to be required in the future and may increase as the assets continue to age.

Around £168m of capital investment was delivered during 2013/14 (2013: £162m). This included the completion of 17 Wastewater Treatment Works, remediation of 12 unsatisfactory intermittent discharges and laying approximately 253km of new and replacement water mains.

The Report shows that on improving performance, NI Water’s composite customer service (OPA) score has more than doubled from 98 in 2007/08 to a record high of 216 in 2013/14. The water company is continuing to deliver near record levels of drinking water and wastewater compliance, while pollution incidents remain at near record low levels.

NI Water said the £7m reduction in every day running costs in 2013/14 had helped it to deliver a 4% average reduction in customer bills.  The efficiency gap with the leading companies in England and Wales has now been more than halved from 49% in 2007/08 to 19% in 2012/13. 

The report says that NI Water is continuing to build its resilience to meet the demands of a major incident response – demonstrated by the successful response to the tidal surges over December 2013 and January 2014.

Looking ahead, the report says that future challenges facing the company including climate change, an increasing focus on the value of water, rising customer expectations and higher discharge standards required the adoption of a more sustainable approach. Sustainable solutions would include improved land management, reduced leakage and customer demand; and local management of storm water.  NI Water is also utilising a new wastewater treatment system which uses willows.

The report also acknowledges that its hybrid business delivery model is "recognised as being not ideal” – NI Water is currently a Government owned company in law, but treated as a Non Departmental Public Body for public expenditure purposes. As a consequence, the firm faces  uncertainty over long term investment planning which the report says “ adds complexity to (its)  capital investment delivery and means it has “less commercial freedoms to restructure and make decisions.“ The report says NI Water is continuing to work closely with stakeholders to limit the effect this has on its performance. 

Presenting the report, Chairman of NI Water Seán Hogan commented:

“NI Water is delighted to present its Annual Report and Accounts for 2013/14.  We continue to successfully transform the delivery of water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland.  Since 2007/08, we have invested £1.5 billion in Northern Ireland’s water and wastewater infrastructure.  This is helping us deliver record levels of service to our customers, become more efficient, and see us better placed to prepare for the challenges which lie ahead.”

Click here to read the report in full.