Ofwat is looking to appoint two new Directors to further strengthen its focus on financial resilience and outcomes and customer engagement in the run up to the forthcoming 2019 Price Review.
The water industry regulator is looking to appoint a Director of Financial Resilience – while the role will initially focus on finance and governance activities, from September 2018 it will also provide a key contribution for the delivery of price determinations at PR19.
Describing it as a new role in an important, high-profile area, Ofwat said the new Director would be expected to develop the strategic direction of finance and governance work in close collaboration with the Senior Director and other directors.
The new appointment is also aimed at ensuring Ofwat has a comprehensive up-to-date understanding of the ownership structures of the water companies, coupled with a clear understanding of the issues that could threaten the ability for each company to meet licence requirements associated with maintaining the financial ring fence.
The Director of Financial Resilience will also take ownership of Ofwat’s work to increase focus on the robustness of companies’ assessments of their financial resilience. Key areas of focus include the companies’ risk and compliance statements, including the Long Term Viability Statements needed to ensure the regulator can place confidence in the statements provided by companies about their long term viability.
New Director of Economic Regulation to lead Outcomes and Customer Engagement work stream
Ofwat is also looking to separately appoint a new Director of Economic Regulation whose immediate priority will be to lead the Outcomes and Customer Engagement work stream in the PR19 price review which is expected to complete in March 2020. Following completion of the price review, the new Director may then be called upon to lead work across any of the regulator’s current and future programmes.
Desrcribing the Outcomes and Customer Engagement work stream as "a large and strategically important portfolio of work", Ofwat said the work area is also one of the most significant in terms of the team size and the variety and complexity of issues covered. With a 10 full time equivalent initially, the team is expected to grow to around 35 by September 2018.
The new Director when appointed will also be responsible for leading the delivery of a number of specific work streams, including:
- Water companies’ customer engagement;
- the outcomes they are proposing to deliver for their customers (including the reconciliation of performance commitments from the PR14 review);
- their proposals to address affordability and vulnerability.
The post holder will also be responsible for development of the measures of customer experience for customers (C-MeX) and developers (D-MeX).
Annual salary for each position will be between £74k to £100k per annum.
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