Ofwat, the economic regulator for the water industry in England and Wales, has set out resilience as one of the key priorities for water companies to address. It has called on companies to consider ‘resilience in the round’ in a report released on the theme, indicating also that it will feature the regulator’s methodology for the next review of pricing, details of which will be announced soon.

Ofwat set out examples of how to approach resilience in the report ‘Resilience in the round: building resilience for the future’. According to Ofwat, ‘resilience in the round’ includes corporate resilience, which is defines as ‘the ability of an organisation’s governance, accountability and assurance processes to help avoid, cope with and recover from, disruption of all types; and to anticipate trends and variability in its business operations.’

It includes financial resilience, which is defined as ‘an organisation’s ability to avoid, cope with and recover from, disruption to its finances’.

It also includes operational resilience: ‘The ability of an organisation’s infrastructure, and the skills to run that infrastructure, to avoid, cope with and recover from, disruption in its performance.’

The report suggests aspects of an approach to resilience, including systems thinking, recognition that natural systems underpin resilience, an understanding of customers, resilience planning, ‘smart’ approaches, monitoring and measuring, and the role of company boards.

‘Companies across the sector must take ownership of the resilience challenge, and consider the ideas and examples in this document, to develop their own innovative and integrated plans to bring resilience in the round to life,’ Ofwat concludes in the report.