Out in the cold : our response to Ofwat s investigation into the freeze-thaw events of February / March 2018

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1 From the Chief Executive John Russell Senior Director, Strategy and Planning Ofwat 4th Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street London WC1B 3HF Anglian Water Services Limited Lancaster House Lancaster Way Ermine Business Park Huntingdon Cambridgeshire PE29 6XU Tel: th September 2018 Dear John Out in the cold : our response to Ofwat s investigation into the freeze-thaw events of February / March 2018 You wrote to me in June when Ofwat published the report of its investigation into the events associated with the period of very cold weather which the UK experienced in late February and early March Your letter summarised Ofwat s analysis of Anglian s performance during that challenging period and asked me to publish our response to the matters raised by the review. This is my response to that letter. I am pleased that Ofwat s investigation found that Anglian performed well. It recognised that the impact on our customers was small, despite the severity of the conditions experienced in our region, and that we met our customers expectations. I was pleased that it acknowledged - the quality of the plans we have in place for managing severe weather events the preparations we made in February in expectation of a period of challenging weather how we were able to prioritise our interventions on the network as a result of our data capture processes and integrated field systems the support we gave to neighbouring companies the value of our alliance model in responding to the incident the quality and range of our communications with customers and other stakeholders during the incident, and our approach to compensating the small number of our customers who experienced lengthy supply interruptions. Registered Office Anglian Water Services Ltd Lancaster House, Lancaster Way Ermine Business Park, Huntingdon PE29 6XU Registered in England No an AWG Company

2 However, given the evidence that we provided, we were disappointed that our use of real time information and monitoring systems to identify and manage the issue was not highlighted in your report. Other companies were listed in the highlighted text on page one and as many of our customers are unlikely to read the entire document this was an unfortunate omission. Overall we have studied the letters Ofwat sent to other companies and concluded that we were one of the best performers in the sector in terms of preparing for and responding to the challenges of this period. There is no room for complacency and our continued certification to ISO (the international business continuity quality management system) demonstrates our ongoing commitment to learning and improving. Learning from our experience Your June letter identified one area where there was scope for us to improve: Anglian Water s response did not specify whether the company welcomed claims from impacted individuals or business in addition to the amount of compensation paid and it should consider the clarity of its messaging on this. It is standard practice for us to write directly to customers affected by an incident and copy these letters to retailers. As an example, I attach a copy of the letter we sent to customers affected by an incident in You will see that in this letter we proactively invite claims for compensation. We have now amended our customer codes of practice ( Our promise to you ) to make it clearer that we invite customers to make claims where they have suffered loss as a result of a service failure. Learning from others experiences It is part of our culture that we seek continuous improvement in what we do and draw lessons from past events, wherever they occur. We have therefore, of course, also considered the issues raised by the report based on Ofwat s findings at other companies. Below we set out some of the ways we have responded to these findings. Water UK is making a separate submission about industry-wide initiatives in response to the 2018 freeze thaw event. We have played a full role in developing this reponse as a member of the Strategic Steering Group.

3 Planning and Preparation Our severe weather plans are on a programme of continuous review throughout the year. We also plan for critical periods such as Christmas, Easter and Bank holidays. We regularly attend Local Resilience Forums (LRF) groups and exercises to test our inter-operability with partners. Since the 2018 freeze-thaw we have reviewed our severe weather matrix and suite of response plans, including our escalation process. Relevant teams have received training in the updated plans. The 2018 summer heat wave counted as a severe weather event and provided an opportunity for these revised plans to be used. Incident response To enhance our alternative supplies response, we have developed a remote Alternative Supplies Cell as part of our Incident Management structure. This is a dedicated cell which specifically focuses on providing alternative supplies to customers and providing additional support and assistance to vulnerable customers. Following a review of our internal bottled water provision, we have increased our stocks and opened an additional storage hub within our region to enable a quicker, more resilient response. We are actively engaged in the Priority Services Register which will enhance our response to vulnerable customers by helping to integrate our list with those of other utilities. We have developed our guidance on the use of Resilience Direct to share sensitive information securely with other responders. We have also engaged with Local Resilience Forums to develop the Resilience Direct mapping system to enhance our collective response to incidents. We have worked with our retailers to put together robust response plans for Non-household customers such as hospitals and prisons. We are currently developing plans to respond and work with other priority commercial customers such as power stations and oil refineries. Communication and support We have robust procedures for managing our liaison with professional partners during incidents. These plans are on a rolling review and are updated frequently. We have developed our multi-agency LRF and partner updates which we successfully used in the summer heat wave event to provide our partners with weekly updates on our response to the hot weather. As per our usual planning process, we have set up our early winter preparedness meetings and provided staff with safety advice for the winter. We are hosting road shows across our region and preparing operational sites to ensure resilience, such as reviewing grit stocks, checking generators, increasing fuel stocks for generators and reviewing the locations of 4X4 vehicles.

4 We chair the Water UK Security & Emergency Planning Network which is a strategic group driving best practice throughout the industry. Tactical work streams have been developed to review LRF liaison and best practice, provision of alternative supplies and our mutual aid agreement and process. We have worked with Water UK on a series of workshops to combine industry learning, best practice and enhance our overall response for the future. We have responded to Ofwat s call for evidence on the Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS) and will support developments in this area. External customer campaigns such as Keep your Pipes Cosy are being developed and will be distributed by both social media and traditional media platforms. We remain proud of the way in which we dealt with the events of last winter. We are equally proud of our response to the severe weather of the summer. Each of these events presented a serious test of our systems, which, by and large, proved resilient to the challenge. As we approach the winter, I am confident that we are well placed to continue serving our customers in the event of future severe weather. Yours sincerely Peter Simpson Copy Gill Holmes, CC Water

5 8 August, 2017 Anglian Water Services Ltd. Lancaster House, Lancaster Way, Ermine Business Park, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE29 6XU Dear customer, I m writing to apologise for the water problems you and your neighbours have experienced over the last two weeks and to explain what we ve done to get things back to normal. What happened? Customers in the Upper and Lower Boddington, Aston-le-Walls and surrounding areas were either without water, or had low pressure, following a burst water main in the area last week. The damaged section of water pipe was directly under a riverbank, which made finding and repairing the problem more challenging than normal. Unfortunately, a second burst water pipe near Culworth affected customers in the same area on Thursday 17 August. What have we done to fix it? Our teams have been working to install temporary pipes and using tankers to pump water directly into the network to as many homes and businesses as we can, while the repair work is underway. Everyone is now back on water and our engineers will be completing the repair work over the coming days. Although the two incidents were unrelated, we will be reviewing what has happened. We re always looking to improve, and while we can never promise that bursts and leaks won't happen in the future, we will do all we can to minimise the chance of something like this happening again. Now the water is back on Now that the water supply is back, please be aware that it may look cloudy or white when you turn on the tap at anytime over the next few days. This is just millions of tiny air bubbles trapped in the water and is nothing to worry about. If you leave it to stand in a glass or a jug it will soon clear. For more information on this, please visit Bottled water and continued help Bottled water has been available for customers affected by the second burst pipe at our Customer Support Unit based at Washbrook Farm and at the Upper Boddington Village Hall.

6 Bottled water has also been hand delivered to customers on our WaterCare Register who needed additional support. If you want to register yourself, a neighbour, a friend or a relative for this extra help at any time in future, please call us on to register. Has your business been affected? We are very sorry for the disruption we ve caused, and would like to thank you for your patience. If you feel your business has been affected, please contact our insurance team on insuranceteam@anglianwater.co.uk. Please set out what you believe your losses to be. Every claim will be looked at and assessed individually. In addition, we are working with local community representatives to discuss what we can do to compensate the community more generally. We know this has been very disruptive for everyone locally. Please rest assured that we have worked around the clock to resolve this, both locally in your community and in our head offices in Lincoln and Huntingdon. We are really grateful to you and your community for your patience and understanding. Yours sincerely, Paul Valleley Director of Water Services