Better data and monitoring is helping to drive better standards in the UK water sector – we should do more of it

By Mark Coates FCIHT, FCInstCES, VP, Infrastructure Policy Advancement, Bentley Systems and immediate past chair of British Water’s U.K. Forum, and David Lloyd Owen , Managing Director, Envisager

One of the most effective quotes for communicating the value of data and performance is attributed to the?English mathematician, Karl Pearson: “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance?is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.”

We can likely all agree with this statement, whether you are measuring performance of a water asset, measuring?delivery of a water infrastructure project, or measuring personal, team, company-wide, or sector-wide performance.?

How can you improve performance if you do not measure and know where you are now?

There are some interesting examples that show how measuring and reporting data is improving performance in the?U.K. water sector, which has had some success over the past three decades that tend to get very little media coverage.

Drinking water quality is one such example. The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) tests more than two million samples?of water a year. In 1990, one year after the privatisation of the U.K. water sector, 98.9% (DWI, 2015) of drinking?water samples met the World Health Organisation’s 1984 drinking water standards, according to the Drinking?Water Inspectorate. In 2022, 99.97% of samples met the tighter WHO standards circa 2017. The rigorous collection,?monitoring, and reporting of data provides water companies with insight if there are any problems with water quality?and helps to drive better performance.

Water leakage is another area where performance has significantly improved after the collection and publication of reliable data. Water leakage in England and Wales peaked in 1994-1995, the first year in which reliable data was available from Ofwat , when 5,112 million litres were lost each day. Analysis shows that water leakage dropped considerably over the next five years to the mid-3,000 million litres of water per day, before remaining reasonably steady during the first decade of the millennium. In 2021-2022 the last year for which data is available water companies leaked an average of 2.924 billion litres of water a day. This represents a 43% fall in water leakage over a 27-year period.

However, many agree that latest national figures on leakage remain too high and more can and is being done. In 2022-2023, Affinity Water delivered the largest percentage reduction in leakage of any?U.K. water company. Affinity achieved a 15% annual reduction in leakage by using state-of-the-art technology, data capture, and analysis to find and fix leaks. Affinity’s team of data analysts monitor water usage across its network to see if there are any sudden spikes in usage, which indicates the presence of a leak and dispatches engineers to investigate.

Similarly, data monitoring and reporting has also helped improve the quality of U.K. bathing waters. Data shows the number of bathing waters classed as good or excellent has also improved markedly over the past 30 years. Under the original Bathing Waters directive, the percentage of bathing waters meeting the “guideline” standard increased 2.5 times from 28% in 1990 to 72% in 2010. When revised, Bathing Waters Directive set higher standards. 34% of beaches were rated poor in 2000, falling to 1% by 2001, while those classified as “excellent” rose from 26% to 71%.

While most would accept that there is still much more to do on the quality of bathing water, it is important to acknowledge the improvements that have taken place so far.

What these examples show is that British Water companies are making progress when sufficient regulations are in place, the data collection is reliable, and the need for monitoring is more important and rigorous. Going forward, it will be important to ensure that?current Ofwat key performance indicators (KPIs) are driven?by environmental performance metrics, as well as those linked?to economic and service delivery to support water companies?on their journey to improve environmental performance.

Additionally, the Environment Agency (EA) has been severely underfunded since 2010. Between 2010 and 2021, funding for the EA’s work was cut by nearly two-thirds, from GBP 120 million to GBP 43 million, plus GBP 5 million for new activity. As a result, inspections for water pollution have become the exception, with companies self-reporting their performance. This kind of approach is in nobody’s interest and, as the media storm of the past few years has shown, it is not a way to foster stakeholder confidence.

However, this situation is set to change. From around 2,500 company inspections in recent years, the EA plans 4,000 in 2024-2025 and 10,000 in 2026-2027. This commitment includes inspecting all Category 1 and 2 pollution incidents and 33% of Category 3 incidents. At the same time, it will help to bring an end to self-reporting.

When water companies know where pollution is coming from, they can move from broad brush assumptions and solutions to focussing resources towards delivering more precise and tailored solutions, which means action can make more of an impact. “We cannot manage what we cannot measure” may be a cliché, but it is a useful one. As combined sewer overflow data is combined with weather data, problematic systems can be identified. The forthcoming rollout of real-time water quality monitoring will further help to understand where pollution is coming from.

Good monitoring and data are not threats, but opportunities to deliver better insights which water companies can leverage to improve performance further. Good quality data is a guideway towards best practice. Ultimately, delivering strong and robust data is in the sector’s interest as it improves performance and creates a compliance regimen that can be trusted by all stakeholders, including the regulator, customers and a sceptical media.

A data-fuelled water company is a better-informed water company. When organisations have better information, they can create better solutions—an outcome that benefits the whole sector from consumers to the supply chain.

Well-gathered and regularly monitored data is not only the basis for better performance, it also provides a basis for restoring trust.

We should do more of it.