Published 1/02/2024
Wellington Water's Response to Wellington City Council's Review
Wellington City Council has today released a report that they commissioned into Wellington Water as part of an additional funding boost in mid-2023 for Wellington Water to fix more leaks.
“The review was a condition of around $2M of additional funding that would enable us to fix more leaks,” says Wellington Water CE, Tonia Haskell. “At a time where the region is losing around 45% of water to leaks and dealing with the risk of a water shortage, we will always do what we can to secure more funding for fixing leaks.”
The objective of the review agreed by Wellington City Councillors was to improve efficiency, identify potential cost savings, and improve transparency/reporting.
The report released by Wellington City Council however recommends changes that impact the service we provide to our other shareholding councils.
“Some of the findings and observations in the report are valid and where possible we have already made improvements to the way we work. Unfortunately, we cannot address all the findings as we don’t have the mandate to agree to these on behalf of our other shareholding councils,” explains Tonia.
“The report findings into the Wellington Water model are not unexpected. We’ve known for a long time that the agreed model we operate with our shareholding councils is not perfect. Further investment is needed, not only in the water assets themselves, but also in our systems, processes, and reporting.
“We believe that reform of the water sector remains the best way to achieve the transformational change needed for water services in the region.
“In the meantime, I know that every layer of our organisation works very hard, including those in our alliance with Fulton Hogan and our wider network of contractors and consultants. We will continue to focus on supporting the region to get through this tricky summer, finding and fixing as many leaks as we can, as well as all the other essential services we provide our councils on a daily basis.”
You can read Wellington Water's full response to Wellington City's Council's report here.
Editor notes
Wellington Water is owned and fully funded by Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council, and Upper Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and South Wairarapa District Council. All six councils are equal shareholders.
Our councils own the water infrastructure in the region, and they task us to manage the infrastructure and deliver water services to our communities.
Wellington Water is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board and our organisation receive overall leadership and direction from the Wellington Water Committee, which are also responsible for appointing members to the Board.
The Wellington Water Committee is made up of representatives from our council owners and mana whenua.