As part of our 2014 price review process, on 2 December 2013 water companies submitted business plans for the services they plan to deliver for 2015-20. We are now carrying out a risk-based review of their business plans. In March 2014, any company that pass our tests for costs, outcomes, affordability and Board assurance will pre-qualify for enhanced status. The Board of this company will then have to decide whether to accept our risk and reward guidance and in doing so gain enhanced status benefit from additional financial incentives for outperformance.
We said that we would require pre-qualifying companies to send us updated tables to allow us to model their updated business plans. We have provided new templates for pre-qualifying companies to complete. We have also provided guidance explaining how these tables have changed from the original business plan requirements.
It is essential for pre-qualifying companies to use these new tables, as there are minor differences from the original tables – in some cases asking for more detail in order to allow us to better understand plans or calculations. These tables also include validation checks so that we can assess revised plans quickly and reduce need for queries to companies.
- Guidance on revised data tables
- Revised data table requirements for pre-qualifying companies (updated on 28 February 2014)
We will announce pre-qualifying companies on Monday 10 March 2014. Those who wish to accept our risk and reward guidance must then submit revised tables by Monday 17 March 2014.
Note that the data tables are in an xlsm spreadsheet. If you are having problems opening it, we suggest you try downloading the file, and renaming it with a .xlsm file extension, and then opening it in Excel. Please note that it needs to be xlsm, not xlsx.