WATER NEW ZEALAND UPFRONT
The evolving evidence base of water service delivery Lessons and reflections from the 2020/21 National Performance Review, by Lesley Smith, insights and sustainability advisor, Water New Zealand When the National Performance Review was first launched in 2008, the national picture of water service provision was largely opaque. Little was known about the number of assets, their contribution to the workforce and economy. The review launched with the goal of establishing, “a valuable building block for asset owners and managers alike to be able to publicly confirm the standing of the industry and the value delivered from public investment in the three waters assets”. The knowledge gap was repeatedly thrown up as a roadblock to meaningful reforms of the sector, with various commissions and working groups concluding that too little was known about the performance of service delivery, either to make the case for change, or to catalyse it. Fast forward to today and the situation is very different. In
broad brush strokes we now know a lot about our sector. Main messages from this year’s National Performance Review tell a story of a sector that is big, and getting bigger – both in terms of economic activity, employment and the contribution to the lives and well-being of our public health and the environment. The 2020/21 National Performance Review collated information from 38 of the country’s 64 drinking water, wastewater and stormwater service providers, with jurisdictions covering 87 percent of the population.
The water sector is large and makes a large contribution Collectively, these entities manage assets worth over $40 billion and annually expend more than $3 billion in their ongoing
National Performance Review 2020 2021 6 www.waternz.org.nz
