Northern Ireland Water "should align with the best enterprises"

Northern Ireland’s Utility Regulator's newly launched Corporate Strategy 2024-2029 has declared, among its objectives, that the province’s government-owned water company should “compare favourably with the best enterprises anywhere.”

Other ambitions listed in the document include “strengthening the culture of compliance across licensed companies through greater accountability and transparency, and by taking enforcement action,” along with “a strong data focused research and evidence base that informs our policy outcomes,” and “increasing our reporting of consumer protection performance metrics”.

Chair of the Utility Regulator, Bill Emery, said: “At a time of profound challenge for the energy and water sectors, protecting consumers on the way to net zero is our ambitious new strategy for the next five years”.

The strategy document emphasises the importance of a “just transition” to net zero, listing four principles behind the objective:

• "supporting the creation of secure green jobs, and in partnership with industry and unions building pathways into green careers, with workers’ rights and health and safety at the centre;

• ensuring that workers and communities dependent on the existing high-carbon economy are supported with the transition;

• supporting the transition to a green economy with net zero carbon investment and infrastructure; and

• tackling inequality and breaking down barriers of division."