By MICHELLE HERBISON
BARWON Water will consider outsourcing some operations to further save costs for customers, according to its chairman.
But Michael King said it was “too early to say” whether the organisation would cut jobs.
Barwon Water was expecting to receive expressions of interest from businesses regarding tasks within maintenance, building management, nursery work, printing and IT services in the next three to four months.
“The tasks will still exist but will they be done internally? Will they be done externally? We don’t really know,” Mr King said.
“We’ll need to look at those business cases when they come to the board and make decisions from there.
“We’ve got some great employees and it’s a challenging time globally and regionally. We’re focussed on communicating with our employees in these areas.”
Mr King said Barwon Water had saved $10 million in operational costs since starting an “efficiency and effectiveness review”.
The Independent reported in March that the organisation had engaged accounting and advisory firm BDO to conduct the review.
Mr King said “a whole myriad of things” had achieved the cost-cuts so far, including a decreased marketing budget and extended use of vehicles before turnover.
The organisation had also halved its capital expenditure for the next five years to about $330 million, he said.
“But we’re still doing an enormous amount of work – we’re probably spending $80 million a year on mains replacement, renewals, upgrading water storage basins, focus on planning and designing at Colac and work around the Black Rock Reclamation Plant.”
This week the Essential Services Commission announced a water price decrease of 7.6 per cent, excluding CPI, between 2013 and 2018.
The CPI-adjusted figure for the financial year starting 1 July, 2013, will be a .9 per cent increase for residential and non-residential bills.
Mr King said the price increase of 17 cents for the average customer using 153 kilolitres a year almost represented “a rate freeze for five years”.
“It’s actually a really good news story because if you look at the past five years, we’ve had double-digit price rises each year, year-on-year. For the next five years, there’s no more of that.”
