Stephen Timms – 2000 Speech at the Treasury Watermark Event

The speech made by Stephen Timms, the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on 19 October 2000.

I am very pleased to be here today at the launch of the watermark project. Watermark is a valuable step in many areas of Government policy, and demonstrates very well our approach to projects. The system will be a valuable tool to departments and agencies in monitoring their water use, the first step towards using water more efficiently. But this does not just mean Government will spend less on water, it will also bring environmental benefits.

And the way in which we are achieving this is also a step forward. The project is being taken forward as a partnership with the private sector, after a tough tendering process where the Office of Government Commerce and The Buying Agency have demonstrated the value they can add by joining-up procurement across Government departments. So the Watermark project represents a step forwards for both evidence-based policymaking and for joined-up Government.

I would like to talk today about how Watermark affects both the environment and value for money, and about the benefits it will bring for both the Government and the Water industry.

Environment

This Government is rightly very concerned about the environment. The accelerating pace of social and economic change puts more pressure on both global and local environment than ever before, and minimising the adverse impact we make is a huge challenge for all of us: Government, companies, and individuals.

So this Government has put the environment at the heart of its’ policymaking, and at the heart of our operations. Governments’ role is not just to set the framework within which companies and individuals can work to reduce their impact on the environment, it is also for Government to lead from the front in our own operations, and to set an example of how it is possible to reduce our environmental impact in the way we do our business.

And our commitment to the environment is not just within Britain. The UK has signed up to integrated environmental protection policy in Europe, and we have signed up to the Rio declaration on Environment and Development, which requires us to reduce or eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. And we have not only signed up to the Kyoto agreement to reduce climate-changing emissions, but have set ourselves the target of exceeding the Kyoto requirements.

So to meet both these commitments, and to meet our objective of  identifying significant environmental impacts of their departments, and develop strategies to reduce them, we have introduced the Greening Government campaign. We want Government to operate sustainably, and to make sure this happens, we have put in place a system of targets for Government departments. Every department has a ‘Green Minister’, and as the green minister for the Treasury, I am  responsible for sustainability within the department. Through the Green Ministers, every Government department has been set challenging targets to deliver sustainability in key policy areas. There are a large number of work programmes underway across Government to deliver on these priorities, and Reducing water consumption is a particular priority within those programmes. To monitor our performance against these targets, we are developing integrated systems and appraisal tools.

Value for Money

The Government is one of the largest water users in Britain, with over 5 million public sector workers, and 33,000 schools in UK. There are also Over 4,700 properties the government estate of varying size and age, which makes managing the use of water in them a very complex exercise.

The public sector spends in the region of £600m on water and effluent services each year, so managing the Governments? use of water is a concern for the taxpayer as well as an important issue for the environment. And we believe Government can make significant savings in the amount of water it uses.  Assessment has shown we have inefficiency in our management and performance, by maybe as much as 10%. If this is true, we could save £60 million a year throughout Government, and significantly reduce pressure on the environment.

An added bonus to the enormous water saving potential is the reduction in the energy required to process and deliver water to the end user, reducing both the energy costs of the public sector, and carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

So we are considering the feasibility of Government- wide, or even public sector- wide targets for water consumption. But there is currently a huge knowledge gap across the public sector in how it uses water. The public sector needs to have a better insight into such usage to understand how better to manage consumption. And so before we can set any target, or even assess the scale of what we could achieve, we need a reliable measure of our water consumption across the Government, and detailed benchmarking and management information for the whole of the public sector.

Invest to Save

So because of the benefits which could come from better management of public sector water consumption, both for the environment and for the taxpayer, Government has awarded The Buying Agency, now a part of the Office of Government Commerce, funds from the Invest to Save budget, to develop and introduce a centralised electronic monitoring system for water services. The pilot project, named Watermark, is now up and running and will produce its first benchmarks by end of January 2001. This contract is the first step towards providing a computerised database which will allow quick and easy data analysis of the water consumption.  This will provide departments with meaningful management information to allow better control and planning of expenditure.

Once target performance indicators have been set using the data from the Watermark scheme, participating departments and agencies will be able to validate their water bills and consumption rates against the best in their class and then take action if variances are found. Watermark will be a powerful tool for identifying and spreading best practise in water management across Government.

It is already a good example of joined-up government, with many different departments and agencies participating.

And in the longer-term, once deregulation of the water industry takes place,  OGC will be in a much stronger position with this information to hand to enter into strategic partnerships with suppliers to reduce costs for the public sector and bring a better deal for the taxpayer.

The Water Industry

The data gathered by Watermark will not only be valuable to Government, it will also be very useful to the water companies. The system will capture a large amount of data, and this data will be available to water companies through the website.

While it is true that Watermark will help the public sector to reduce consumption, it will still be a valuable tool for water companies. It will help reduce water waste in the public sector, and that will reduce pressure on our water resources, though given the weather of the past few weeks, we seem to have more than we can use.

The data Watermark produces will allow better management of water at both ends of the pipe, it will allow the industry to identify high-consumption users and develop better customer profiles, so as to better plan for demand, and it will make it easier to identify leaks.

Over the last few years, Government has been working closely with the water industry to help it to be more efficient, and to develop assessment of the environmental consequences of its activities. And as a result of this work, OFWAT have set targets to reduce leakage in 2001-2002 by a further 4% from their 2000-2001 levels.

And effective management of water will become more important to water companies as the industry becomes more competitive, so the Watermark project has a great deal to offer both sides, and I hope water companies will support and participate in the scheme, so we are all able to use the data it gathers more effectively.

Conclusion

We all have a lot to gain from the success of the Watermark project: Government, taxpayers, and water companies alike, and it is important that we work in partnership to make the project a success.