Outcomes
- Regulatory penalties had escalated from £6.3m in AMP7 Year 1 to £17.8m in Year 3 (equating to £19k per second over a 3-hour repair window)
- Established a 10% year-on-year performance improvement trajectory with a clear plan to reduce £18m of annual penalties to zero within three years
- Client was able to articulate its transformation journey credibly to regulators, investors, and executive leadership
- Restored public confidence, reflected in improved CMEX scores
Background
Prolonged drought conditions caused a spike in pipe bursts, pushing I2S performance into a steep decline. Penalties escalated rapidly. The regulator tracked and published performance data publicly, compounding reputational damage alongside financial loss.
The root causes ran deep: local knowledge was held in individuals rather than systems; telemetry was poorly deployed with no central data lake or predictive capability; 75% of interruption events and 80% of ODI penalties originated in just four urban areas, yet resources were spread evenly across three regions. The organisation had no defined “to be” event management process, no post-event learning mechanism, and change initiatives were repeatedly stalled by bureaucratic governance. Decision-makers at the centre lacked access to critical real-time information.
Curzon Approach
Curzon conducted a deep-dive analysis of the highest-impact interruption events, identifying performance patterns and trends at partner, regional, and national level. A cultural study diagnosed why performance improvement initiatives consistently failed to take hold.
We then:
- Designed a root cause analysis framework and learning cycle, including workshop formats and an action tracking system
- Defined a stretching vision for I2S performance running into the next regulatory period
- Built an aligned transformation programme plan, enabling the Water directorate to focus resources coherently
- Established traffic light performance dashboards to drive continuous improvement
- Aligned partners and suppliers around a commonly understood set of service levels
- Stood up a central change programme management office with trained, dedicated resource and a coherent tracking mechanism
