OUTCOMES
REPORTING
POLICY
PURPOSE
This document explains how we will report on our performance during the five years 2015-2020. Our plan for the period
includes a series of Outcome Delivery Incentives (ODIs), against which our performance must be measured. Here we set
out the principles behind our approach to this, and our commitments on transparency, engagement, data quality risk
assessment and assurance.
We intend for this document to be helpful to all stakeholders interested in our performance and to be the foundation for
all our reports and publications on this topic over this period.
BACKGROUND
Our service delivery framework
In 2014 we agreed a plan with Ofwat, acting on behalf of customers, to cover the period 2015-2020 (AMP6). The key
components of this plan were controls on bills, which limit how much we can charge customers, and a framework for
ensuring customers receive satisfactory levels of service. This document focuses on the service delivery framework.
At the heart of the service delivery framework is a set of outcomes. These describe, at a high level, the most important
things that customers want us to deliver and are prepared to pay for through their bills. After undertaking a substantial
listening exercise with our customers during 2013 and 2014, we settled on a set of ten outcomes. These are set out on
the back page of this document.
As well as the outcomes, we have a set of measures which enable us to assess and demonstrate our progress in
delivering them. For each measure there is a level of performance that we have committed to deliver.
Finally there is an incentive against each measure. The purpose of these incentives is to encourage us to meet the
commitments we have made and ensure that customers are compensated in the event that we fail. In some cases the
incentive is reputational but in most cases we will suffer a financial penalty in the event that we fall short. In some
cases we will earn a financial reward for exceeding our commitments, where customers told us they would be prepared
to pay for higher performance. Penalties and rewards, for the most part, take the form of adjustments to customers’
bills in 2020.
CUSTOMERS’ INPUT INTO OUR FRAMEWORK
Customers played a key role in the development of our AMP6 service delivery framework.
Our engagement programme ran for over two years and included a wide variety of events
and activities. To give a few examples:
• More than 4,800 customers responded to our Discover, Discuss, Decide consultation
• 7,150 customers participated in our willingness-to-pay research
• We ran 15 focus groups, talked to 90 customers through deliberative workshops and
engaged 213 future customers through educational workshops
• We held in-depth interviews with 45 business customers.
Early in the process we established a Customer Engagement Forum (CEF), with representatives from a range
of customer and other stakeholder groups. Led by the Chair of the Consumer Council for Water, our CEF met
regularly and played a large role in shaping our plans. Our CEF will continue to meet throughout AMP6,
monitoring our performance and holding us to account for the commitments we have made.
DELIVERING AGAINST OUR SERVICE FRAMEWORK
Having established our service delivery framework, we are now focused on performing within it. We
understand that customers and other stakeholders want information on our progress. Their questions will
include the following:
•
•
•
•
How exactly do the outcome delivery incentives work?
How is Anglian Water performing in comparison to its committed performance levels?
What rewards and penalties is Anglian Water earning as a result of its performance?
How can I trust the information Anglian Water tells me about its performance?
This document describes what we intend to do to provide answers to these questions. It recognises that in
order to have open and honest conversations with stakeholders about our performance, those stakeholders
need to have access to information that they understand and can trust. Providing that information, using
the approach set out in this policy, is therefore the foundation for high quality stakeholder engagement.
OUR OUTCOMES REPORTING POLICY
Transparency
We intend to be fully transparent
about our performance within
the AMP6 service delivery
framework.
We will
• Publish a document that sets out the detail behind all of our outcome delivery incentives – what they
measure and how our performance against them translates into rewards and penalties
• Publish an annual performance report that sets out our progress against all of our outcome delivery
incentives and the associated rewards and penalties
• Explain our performance, especially if we have fallen short against our committed performance levels
• Seek to ensure that all our information is presented in a way that stakeholders can easily understand and
navigate
Engagement
Customers played a key role in
the development of our service
delivery framework and we will
seek ongoing engagement with
them about how we are
performing within it.
We will
• Reflect the views of our Customer Engagement Forum in our policy and our publications
• Engage proactively with stakeholders to find out what information they would like us to present and their
preferred means of presentation
• Invite feedback and questions from stakeholders about our reporting policy and our performance
• Seek to respond positively to feedback from stakeholders about our reporting policy and explain our
response
Assurance
We understand that stakeholders
seek assurance that the
information we publish about our
performance is reliable. Our
assurance framework describes
what we do in order to provide
this. Accountability for the quality
and reliability of our information
lies with the Board of Anglian
Water.
We will
• Publish a description of our assurance framework
• Maintain our existing framework for assuring the reliability of our information, reviewing it as necessary
• Ensure that our assurance activities are proportionate and guided by our assessment of the greatest
risks to data quality
• Jointly with our CEF, appoint an independent third party assessor as part of our assurance framework
• Publish for consultation our draft assurance plans and respond to stakeholders’ feedback
• Publish a report on the assurance activities we have carried out and the outcome of that work
• Include our CEF within our assurance framework, with the freedom to commission independent
assurance activities
Data quality risk
assessment
We will assess the risks to data
quality and use this to inform
our assurance activities.
We will
• Establish a methodology for assessing the risks to data quality
• Engage with customers on our risk assessment exercise and publish a statement on the outcome of that
exercise
NEXT STEPS
This policy is the first of a series of documents we will publish as part of our outcomes reporting framework.
Over the coming months we will also publish the following:
• An explanation of the detail behind all of our outcome delivery incentives, what they measure and how our
performance against them translates into rewards and penalties
• A description of our assurance framework and risk assessment methodology
• The results of our risk assessment exercise and the findings of our research into stakeholders’ information
needs
• Our draft assurance plans, based on the findings of our risk assessment exercise and stakeholder research
FEEDBACK
We welcome feedback from stakeholders on our outcomes reporting policy. You can contact us in any of the
following ways:
[email protected]
03457 91 91 55
We undertake to share the feedback we receive and explain how we have responded to it.
ANGLIAN WATER’S OUTCOMES FOR 2015-2020