Unpicking the Gordian knot

(Note - this article reflects my own views and not necessarily to the views of my employers past or present).

Water is so fundamental to life that it goes without saying that each and everyone of us should be able to trust every drop we drink. In many parts of the world (including here in the UK) we confidently turn on our tap, draw off a fresh glass of water or jump into the hot water in our showers without thinking that we are engaging with a potential vector of disease. However in many parts of the world this isn't the case - water is often accessed from contaminated sources or plumbing systems are substandard and such confidence does not exist.

If you ask, most people will probably say that they are more than happy to drink tap water (OK, you will always see a cohort of the population stocking up with bottled of water in your local supermarket) and have no issues bathing or cooking with it each and every day. Dig deeper however and you will probably hear how the water companies providing this essential service are not operating in the interests of their customers or the environment on which they depend, that they leak too much or that they pay big payouts to faceless overseas owners.

So how do we address this mismatch of a trust in the product but not in the provider. I'm can't think of another service where the mindset is the same - certainly not in the utility sector. This underlines the fundamental need for water and the monopoly arrangement for domestic water provision - we can't live without it and we have no choice in how we get it and what we pay.

In my career I have been fortunate enough to work in a sector where dedicated people work tirelessly every day to deliver water services on a 24/7 basis with the very occasional exception where a burst or technical failure interrupts supplies. Of course when things do go wrong the impact on us as individuals can be significant as something we don't think about is taken away from us. When this happens we are forced to revisit our relationship with water by either taking measures to boil before use or in extreme circumstances get in the car and head to a bottled water location station.

Neither of these scenarios has happened to me directly - and I imagine many reading this won't have experienced a prolonged incident - but I have worked in incidents where these eventualities have had to be implemented. I always saw this as a sign of good service with water company staff going above and beyond to try and minimise the impact on individuals in response to events beyond their control. But I accept that's not how everyone sees it - and justifiably.

What is clear in this day and age is that acceptability is determined by the route cause of the problem and not in the efforts to work through it. Customers express concern that problems are driven by underinvestment in asset maintenance for example with the generic view being that money is diverted away from these essential activities.

There is a fundamental groundswell of opinion that the system is broken and it needs to be thrown out with something better put in its place. We could renationalise the water industry and put it in the hands of accountable elected officials. Great in principle (depending on where your principles lean) but, for example, how can we expect the already stretched public service sector to cope with the extra work - it won't! The UK water industry employees some 70,000 people and that is set to grow as the proposed investment in the coming AMP hits record levels.

In my mind the wholesale transfer back to public ownership will cost disproportionately to benefit and unless managed effectively will result in a significant period of flux and lack of control.

That said, just because something is difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be done (as I tell my kids) but we need to make sure we are addressing the right difficult thing - Gordian knots are there to solve (just ask Indiana Jones) after all.

Personally, I'd like to see accountability and involvement of both citizens and elected officials at the highest level of each water company - augmenting the non-exec structure and governance requirements at Board and Committee level. Members can be elected from a pool of customers and a pool of local officials and mandated to provide transparent and open insights into the decisions and running of companies. This could be replicated nationally to really give a voice to not just customers but all of us - customer, consumer, stakeholder and all.

Just an idea and something to throw into the mix...it might just help that thorny problem of trust.