Performance report 2022

Comment

We have high expectations on our delivery of water and waste water services, as do our customers. We rated our performance for the ‘Do your job well’ outcome in 2021-22 as green having successfully achieved six of seven output measures. We see this as a positive result in a year in which we were challenged by a range of external factors, including significant wet weather events.

We met our core operational targets for restoration of unplanned water supply interruptions, rectification of sewer blockages, and sewer spill containment. 100% of our population was provided with water meeting e-coli standards, and we can report zero Safe Drinking Water non-compliances this year.

We did miss a target in this outcome area for planned interruptions going over advised timeframes. Five planned interruptions (3.3% of the total number of 151 planned interruptions) were not completed within the advised timeframes. The interruptions that took longer than planned were due to unforeseen inclement weather, complexity in accessing assets due to their location, and delays in developer works. In line with our guaranteed service commitments, impacted customers received a $50 credit on their bill. This year we also implemented SMS functionality to the business which will help us in future communications with customers.

Comment

We have a strong commitment to our ‘Be easy to deal with’ outcome. On the back of a consistently positive performance across the first four years of this reporting period, we rated our performance in 2021-22 as green having achieved three of four targets this year.

We consistently provide a positive customer experience by responding to customer correspondence quickly, and by resolving the majority of our customer enquiries at the first point of contact.

Very few customer complaints escalate to an investigation by the Energy and Water Ombudsman. This year we had two complaints investigated, both due to customer impacts resulting from a wet weather event. This equates to 0.027 complaints per 1000 customers, and therefore within our target parameters.

We narrowly missed one of our targets in this outcome area in 2021-22. For two of our planned interruptions we failed to provide five days notification period, impacting a total of 36 customers. In line with our guaranteed service commitments, impacted customers received a $50 credit on their bill. We are always looking for ways to improve our future communications with customers, and in June 2022 we implemented SMS functionality to better facilitate contact with our customers.

Comment

We rated our performance against our ‘Be affordable and fair’ outcome in 2021-22 as amber.

Importantly, we have delivered a positive pricing outcome in the context of a much higher than expected CPI increase for 2022-23. Prices are important to our customers, particularly in challenging economic times. A higher than anticipated CPI increase (5.09%) was advised for the year commencing 1 July 2022. Primarily to lessen the impact on vulnerable customers, we identified savings that will keep customer prices stable or falling throughout this period. This has enabled us to partially absorb the currently high inflation rate of 5.09% and only pass on 3.14% and 4.4% through our fixed and variable tariffs respectively.

We didn‘t meet two of the targets for this outcome, which is why we’ve rated our performance as amber.

We have a high proportion of customers on instalment plans (more than 1 in 10 customers) when compared to other Victorian Water Corporations. With this in mind, our Customer Care team reaches out early to customers that have outstanding accounts. This allows us to discuss financial support options, including payment by instalments.

This year, particularly in the final quarter of the 2021-22 year, the proportion of hardship customers paying by instalments (on payment plans) has decreased, as has the proportion of customers over 120 days paying by instalments. We attribute this decrease to cost of living pressures being felt by the community, and customers wanting funds readily available in their accounts rather than committing to payment plans.

During the period where we saw a reduction in payment plans our capacity to respond was restricted due to unplanned absences within our Customer Care team. These unplanned absences include two staff being on extended leave and the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) where over half the team were directly affected.

Proactive measures have been put in place to promote payment plans via our subscriber email newsletter, social media, newspaper advertisement and direct letterbox drops to targeted areas.

To further support customers, we have plans to add an additional Customer Care resource (FTE) to assist customers with their financial options.

Comment

We rated our performance against our ‘Prepare and protect’ outcome in 2021-22 as green having achieved all of our targets this year.

Our pledge is to reduce our carbon footprint by 24% by 2025 as part of a pathway to become neutral by 2030. Due to the timing of projects our actual results will ebb and flow over the measurement period.

This year our net emissions decreased marginally by 109 tCO 2-e from the previous financial year to total 35,276 tCO 2-e. This result is -16.09% from our 2018 baseline number of 42,021.4 tCO2-e, and we remain ahead of the targets we set for the 2018-23 period.

This year some large renewable energy projects (Gippsland Water Factory Solar and Biogas expansion) have been impacted by shipping and construction delays. With the Gippsland Water Factory renewables now due to come online in 2022-23, and a large drop in grid emissions factors, we expect electricity emissions in 2022-2023 to level off or potentially drop modestly from this year’s figure.

This year we’ve made significant progress in the delivery of actions in our 2017 Urban Water Strategy, and we are ‘on track’ with all actions that are in our control. One of our actions, the long term assessment of the Boisdale aquifer that supplies Sale, is subject to DELWP and Southern Rural Water timeframes and has been delayed.

In a significant outcome for our customers, the rapidly growing Warragul and Drouin water supply system is to be secured in the short-medium term by a transfer of 3.33 GL/y of water entitlement in the Greater Yarra System – Thomson River pool, which includes the Tarago Reservoir. This outcome is a direct result of our Urban Water Strategy action to assess options for the Warragul-Drouin water system, and is supported by the Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy (SWS), and our 2022 Urban Water Strategy (approved by the Minister in June).

We met our performance target of at least 95% water supply reliability and no water restrictions imposed during 2021-22. All of our water supply systems are currently still meeting our target supply reliability of 95%. In developing our 2022 Urban Water Strategy we set out commitments to ensure we continue to provide a supply reliability that meets our target. Our water system yields have been re-estimated through this process, embedding contemporary climate change guidance from government research as well as ongoing streamflow records, changes to system infrastructure and other factors.

We have received no penalties for incidents or licence breaches from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) over the 21-22 financial year, and no penalties relating to drinking water quality. One positive E. coli result was recorded at Briagolong; however, this result was deemed by the Department of Health and Human Services to be a false positive and, as such, there was no penalty or further action required.

Comment

We rated our performance as green against our ‘Be involved’ outcome having successfully achieved both of our target measures.

We track our operating (including our 300+ employee labour cost) and capital expenditure across our service area. This year over 60% of our expenditure contributed to the local economy, with our Drouin Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade project contributing 7% of our total expenditure.

We also spent $49,898 on community benefit projects this year, exceeding our target of $30,000. This year, our focus was on installing water fountains to increase access to tap water in Gippsland. We donated 14 drinking water fountains to local councils to install throughout our service area.

We continued to support other community-focused initiatives including opening up environmentally important sites for recreational access; delivering community and school education programs; providing in-kind support to community groups and events; and providing in-kind communications support to the Gippsland Emergency Relief Fund.