Water industry regulator Ofwat has published new guidance and deadlines for the water companies regulatory reporting requirements.

The guidance reflects Ofwat’s recent decision to abandon collecting the annual June returns from the utilities and replace it with a requirement that each company should instead prepare a risk and compliance statement which sets out how it has met with statutory and regulatory obligations. The companies will also have to publish their performance against a range of key indicators, which will be developed by the companies on an individual basis, at least once a year.

Ofwat says that it is open to the companies to update their indicators more frequently and it “would encourage them to do so.” However, the regulator does not appear to have issued any formal guidance about what the indicators should consist of or how they should be measured. This appears to be a reflection of Ofwat’s intention to employ a more “hands-off approach” to how it regulates the industry.

The KPIs are likely to be of particular interest to the supply chain and whether they will provide any new opportunities to win business in the sector. However, whether the water companies will ultimately develop a common standard set of KPIs which will allow straightforward comparisons and benchmarking of company performance against their peers, or opt instead to pursue significantly different individual approaches, remains to be seen.

Deadline for publication of the KPIs, together with submission of risk and compliance statements to Ofwat, which must also be published by the water companies on their websites, is 15^th July 2012.