Southern Water has won the top prize for Risk Management Programme of the year at the CIR Risk Awards held in London on 6 November.

The team were also shortlisted for two other categories, Risk Team of the Year and Best Use of Technology.

The team is made up of Southern Water and Stantec (Donna Festorazzi, Pawel Garnett and Simon Motley) and led by Siobhan Crawford, Southern Water’s Project Management Office (PMO) risk team manager.

The PMO risk team transformed the systems and processes to manage threats and opportunities on the company’s multi-billion pound construction projects.

The improvements involved designing and deploying a new risk system integrated with project controls systems, creating a new risk reporting structure, aligning process to industry best practice and developing a comprehensive training plan that was delivered to more than 280 members of the company’s Engineering and Construction division.

The team's risk transformation project delivered a 170% improvement as part of an external assessment, making Southern Water a leader in risk management in the utilities industry.

The second phase of risk transformation hopes to deliver further improvements to support efficiency targets. The companysaid is determined to deliver a £1.2 billion saving in total expenditure through increased efficiency in the completion of the current five year plan and in the next five year Asset Management Period starting in April 2020.

Commenting on the award, Neil Colman, Southern Water’s director of engineering and construction said:

“Siobhan and her team have delivered a truly world class programme which is already delivering benefits to our teams delivering complex projects.”

“Beating competition from global names such as Barclays and BT underlines the quality the judges identified in this programme.”