Annual performance scorecard for 2021–2022 (year 4)

Introduction

Every five years, Barwon Water develops a Price Submission, a five-year plan which outlines our proposed water and sewerage prices, service standards, infrastructure and operational investments.

The plan for 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2023 was developed in partnership with our customers and community following 18 months of community conversation and is our commitment to delivering greater value for our customers.

As part of our Price Submission, we committed to:

• continually involve our customers and community in our decision making,
• hold ourselves to account and honour what we said we would deliver,
• regular ‘check-ins’ with our customers and community to ensure their values are aligned with our service, and
• ensuring our actions align with what our customers want us to do.

Barwon Water is working hard to keep customer bills affordable, while at the same time investing in critical water and sewerage infrastructure and initiatives to use more recycled water, reduce energy costs and help customers pay their bills and save water.

During 2021–2022, we worked towards delivering five service outcomes our customers told us they most valued and expected from their water and sewerage services:

• Outcome 1 - A reliable, secure water future for our region
• Outcome 2 - Timely, innovative services for our customers
• Outcome 3 - A healthier environment for all
• Outcome 4 - Deeper knowledge and partnerships with our community
• Outcome 5 - Affordability for all our customers

Reporting on our performance to customers

Our year-4 annual performance scorecard provides a snapshot of our performance against these outcomes. It shows how we continue to deliver upon the priorities our customers told us they most valued and expected from us during the 18 months of engagement leading up to our 2018 price determination.

With our customers in mind, we set ambitious targets for ourselves and in 2021–2022 we met 26 of our 33 metrics and are continuing to revise our performance to ensure we achieve all outcomes by the end of the regulatory period (30 June 2023).

Supporting customers remains our priority, which is why we committed an extra $2.5 million over the 5-year price period to help customers in hardship. We also committed an extra $2.5 million to help customers with water efficiency initiatives including identifying and reducing leaks, which is not only good for the environment but also helps keeps bills down.

Our Strategy 2030 vision “enabling regional prosperity” and our organisational values — caring, safe, inclusive, accountable and courageous — are demonstrated in the many examples throughout this performance report.

Essential Services Commission outcomes reporting

The Essential Services Commission (ESC) regulates the Victorian water sector, monitoring and requiring us to report on our performance against measures for each customer outcome.

The ESC also monitors customer perceptions of all Victorian water corporations through quarterly surveys with the results shared on their website. In the 12-month rolling results between July 2021 to June 2022 (PDF 664 KB), Barwon Water was rated first for value and second for overall satisfaction and reputation, and third in the Victorian water sector for trust.

Customer engagement

We felt it was important to test our assumptions about our performance with our independent Customer Advisory Committee (CAC). Throughout 2021 and 2022, we met and consulted with this advisory committee (we met a total of seven times) to discuss our performance and our forthcoming 5-year plan for prices and services (2023–2028). We met with them in June 2022 to share the progress of our top 10 infrastructure projects. Following the meeting, we invited members to provide feedback on our performance, using our self-rating framework which they confirmed in 2021, for each outcome. In July 2022, the committee members completed a short survey which has helped inform our final outcome ratings.

The CAC were positive about Barwon Water’s performance in 2021–2022. Building on their feedback provided for the year-3 performance scorecard stating more flexibility is required in the targets, many members felt Barwon Water should have been green across 4 out of 5 outcomes.

Members agreed with the overall green rating (60%) and that outcome one, ‘a reliable, secure water future for our region’ should remain amber as it they had questions about Barwon Water’s ability to meet the 100% productive use of recycled water by July 2023. Members were divided about the amber rating for ‘a healthier environment for all’, stating that the early stages of getting renewables online and inconsistent outputs made it difficult to assess, while others thought it should be green as most targets were clearly achieved – this has remained amber.

Detailed comments have been outlined for each outcome in the overviews below.

In addition to our CAC reviewing our performance, we checked in with key stakeholders and businesses to understand their level of satisfaction with Barwon Water. In 2021–2022, the overall satisfaction rating was 86%, consistent with the results from 2020–2021 (our business satisfaction target is 76%).

Summary of results

The table below summarises our overall performance over the current pricing period to date using a traffic light system for each outcome, with an overall green rating in all years.

Each outcome below is made up of a number of indicators and our performance for each measure is summarised using the traffic light system similar to the table above.

The ESC uses the same methodology in tracking our performance and full details are available on the ESC website which highlight our targets, results and detailed commentary.

Performance Incentive Mechanism

In our Pricing Submission to the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in 2018 we also included a ‘Performance Incentive Mechanism’, which commits that if we do not meet four specific performance indicators aligned to our customer outcomes, we will return up to $11.5 million to our customers in the next pricing period (2023–2028) or $2.9M for each of four measures:

1. Zero Waste (Outcome 1)
2. Customer Service Index (Outcome 2)
3. Network Performance Index (Outcome 2)
4. Zero Emissions (Outcome 3)

The value to be returned reflects our ESC Outcomes performance and by how much targets were missed.

The current value ($) forecast to be returned in the next pricing period is $0.096M, $0.058M and $0.029M from our 2018–2019, 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 results respectively.

• In 2018–2019, we did not meet the ‘number of customers who have more than two sewer spills to their property in a year’ target in the Network Performance Index due to three consecutive overflows on two adjacent properties in December 2018 (return of $0.096M).
• In 2020–2021 we did not meet the ‘unplanned water supply interruption restored within 5 hours’ target in the Network Performance Index due to increased safety focus or planned contractor jobs exceeding duration estimated (return of $0.058M).

In 2021–2022 we did not meet the ‘unplanned water supply interruption restored within 5 hours’ target in the Network Performance Index due to increased safety focus or planned contractor jobs exceeding duration estimated (return of $0.029M).

* This measure has been renamed since our 2018 Price Submission where it was called ‘Number of customers engaged and supported through Barwon Water’s hardship payment plans’.

** This measure tracks our performance over 5 years of this pricing period and the value paid will be finalised at the end of these 5 years