We are committed to ensuring the data and information provided to our customers is reliable, trusted, robust and complete.
In order to achieve this we have an assurance structure that is split into three levels to ensure that the level of scrutiny is appropriate. Further details can be found in our company monitoring framework (CMF).
Our assurance is: internal, incorporating oversight by the board and scrutiny by the audit and risk committee following reviews by the executive directors, and the requirement for heads of department and/or manager level sign off; and external, through our assurance partners.
Atkins is our independent assurance partner whose role is to assist the board to ensure, completeness of the annual reporting, compliance with relevant duties and obligations, and to ensure that the information we provide to demonstrate compliance with our relevant duties and obligations is consistent, comparable, reliable and robust. Atkins presented its report and findings to the audit and risk committee which reports into the board.
The findings from annual audits for 2022/23 will be incorporated into the process of updating our risk assessments and assurance plans.
Ofwat set out that they no longer required companies to fulfil any of the requirements of the CMF. Companies are allowed to choose to continue with some of the specific mechanisms which they employed under the CMF, for example the use of risks, strengths and weaknesses statements. However, Ofwat have no expectation that companies must do so and it will be for boards to determine the approaches which best work for their individual company.
We find the CMF provides transparency of reporting and have therefore chosen to continue publishing the final framework, the most recent of which was published in March 2023.
Our Board takes full ownership of our approach to the submission and publication of accurate and complete information, and this is outlined in our data assurance summary.
Full details of our data assurance summary can be found here.