News release from Turner & Townsend: With water companies expected to be set ambitious targets for the next five-year regulatory period by Ofwat and other regulators, we have partnered with British Water’s Water Industry Forum (WIF) on a paper exploring the optimal delivery model for Asset Management Period 8 (AMP8).

WIF has launched  ‘The Optimal Delivery Model for AMP8 – A View from the Supply Chain’. WIF’s paper is jointly authored by Turner & Townsend, alongside Galliford Try, JN Bentley, and Atkins – based on a series of workshops that explore potential responses to AMP8 delivery challenges.

Delivery challenges

Such challenges include supply chain disruption from Brexit and COVID-19, high inflation and skills shortages, and more rigorous biodiversity and sustainability goals changing the nature of the market.

The paper warns that failure to tackle these could lead to further supplier issues, cost increases, and suppliers choosing to move away from the water sector – all resulting in an inability for water companies to meet Ofwat’s required regulatory outcomes.

Key recommendations

The paper highlights a need to be collaborative when sharing risk across the supply chain and the water companies, incentive models to incorporate social value and net zero, and closer alignment between tender scope and actual delivery requirements.

Meanwhile, water companies are being called upon to build capital delivery approaches around two distinct delivery models – a programmatic approach and a client-side ownership approach.

Jason Jones, Director at Turner & Townsend, said: “The pressures facing the water sector are larger than ever, with the failure of elements of the supply chain a distinct possibility if action is not taken.  Cooperation across the sector has never been more important, and for the first time, this paper brings together the views and experience of the supply chain.”

Further information can be read here and the full report is here.