The NSW Office of Water has released the Performance Monitoring Report for NSW water utilities for 2009-10, providing an overview of the current status and future water supply and sewerage needs of NSW.

 

The report presents the key performance indicators for all NSW urban water utilities. This enables each utility to monitor and improve its performance through benchmarking against similar utilities. The Report also highlights the overall statewide performance of the NSW non-metropolitan local water utilities and compares that performance with interstate utilities.

 

The report adopts a triple bottom line accounting focus, with performance reported on the basis of social, environmental and economic performance indicators. These indicators include the typical residential bill, compliance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines 2004, compliance with sewage treatment works licences, the volume of water used and recycled, the operating cost, whether each utility has achieved full cost recovery and its level of compliance with the Best-Practice Management Guidelines.

 

It finds that local water utilities in non-metropolitan NSW have been severely affected by drought and now face the possibility of major flooding, both of which have had a major effect on their financial performance. In addition, they continue to face significant challenges from issues such as climate change, the effect of water sharing plans on water availability, population changes (growth along coastal NSW and a decline in some inland areas), together with the projected shortage of skills and resources in water engineering.

 

To overcome such challenges, the report  recommended that utilities undertake sound strategic business planning and financial planning in accordance with the NSW Government’s Best-Practice Management of Water Supply and Sewerage Framework.

 

It found that currently, 91 per cent of utilities have asound strategic business and financial plan and implementation of these plans should ensure the long term sustainability of these services. In addition, 98 per cent of the utilities are achieving full cost recovery for water supply and 96 per cent for sewerage. The overall level of compliance with the 19 requirements of the framework is 85 per cent (86 per cent for water supply and 83 per cent for sewerage).

 

The report acknolwedged the efforts by NSW local water utilities to minimise the typical residential bill (TRB), achieving a slight real reduction in the water supply median TRB of $430 over the past 15 years. The median water and sewerage TRB is $960, which involves a real increase of 4% over this period. At the same time, 99% of all 20,700 samples tested for E. coli comply with the 2004 Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, with 89% of NSW utilities complying with these Guidelines.

 

Average annual residential water supplied is  175 kilolitres (kL) per property, which is 47% lower than in 1991. This reduction is mainly due to strong pay-for-use water pricing signals with a median water usage charge of 163 cents per kilolitre (c/kL) together with implementation of water conservation and demand management measures by the utilities. In addition, water restrictions imposed by 60% of utilities as a result of severe drought conditions have contributed to this outcome.

 

The full report is available here.