Across the water industry, billions of pounds will continue to be invested over the coming years to serve growing communities, enhance environmental performance and improve resilience to climate change. However, our challenge is to deliver even better outcomes for every single pound that is spent. To do this we need to engage with new technology, remove waste and significantly reduce the time it takes to deliver.
Engaging early with our supply chain
In July Severn Trent announced it would be engaging with its supply chain on its £20- 25bn investment plan from 2028-2040, while it might seem early, given we’re only in the second year of our current five-year £15bn investment cycle, for me it’s the next big step of genuine change in our ambition to deliver more, efficiently and at pace.
Paul Baxter — Severn Trent Capital Delivery Director
This isn’t just about asking my team or our supply chain to work quicker. It’s about engaging early as an integrated team to speed up enough design with repeatable components, simpler incentivised commercial agreements that are focussed on outcome and value and faster construction maximising off site build and modular components.
That’s why we recently hosted a large-scale event with our suppliers. Over 300 current and prospective partners came together to listen to and then challenge our proposed delivery and commercial models. We now have the opportunity to take their feedback on board and make changes before we go to the market with our plans well before the start of the next regulatory period.
Removing old processes to make way for innovation
Waste, unnecessary detail and rework are the biggest challenges to delivering at pace, especially when it comes to getting into commercial contracts. The sector as a whole needs to make better use of the incredible changes we are all seeing in the technology landscape. AI gives us the opportunity automate upstream processes to get into contract sooner. Delivering optioneering, pricing and risk identification and allocation at pace is within reach already. We need to keep building confidence in our shared data, benchmarking and standard components.
What is clear to me is that we cannot constrain ourselves by traditional processes. Technology and innovation will be integral to how we approach investment in new assets in the future. Our ambition is to move towards repeatable solutions that make delivery faster, safer and more predictable with lower carbon impact.
Innovation must move quickly with significantly quicker cycle times. Modular and standardised solutions, shared data, automated workflows, AI-enabled tools and new construction techniques, the focus should be on ideas that improve productivity, quality, cost and long-term asset performance.
Construction work on a large combined storm overflow structure in Stroud, illustrating the scale of Severn Trent’s water infrastructure projects.
We’ve already introduced new Plug and Play technology that will enable us to have ready to use solutions on capital projects, rather than starting each of them from scratch. In the end we will have a library of standard designs that project teams will be able to use to speed up the design process.
We’ve got to create the culture…
Accountability rests on all of our shoulders both within Severn Trent and our supply chain. We will be aiming to create the conditions to innovate and evolve together. Visibility of and commitment to the work pipeline, timely decisions and clear expectations will hopefully give partners the confidence to invest in the people and technology we need so that together we can create the right environment for collaboration and successful partnerships.
We will also invest in our own teams and create a lasting skills legacy for people in the Midlands. Investment will create jobs and opportunities for young people starting their careers, we take on over 100 apprentices a year and also had our biggest intake of graduates, and those joining us now will be leading on these projects with new skills learnt through experience within our business and through working in integrated project teams with our supply chain.
Improvements in time, cost and quality will not come from clients or the supply chain acting alone. It will come from working together involving expertise earlier, reaching commercial choices sooner, standardising and scaling what works, building the skills the sector needs and holding one another accountable for the outcomes that matter. We will be investing billions over the next decade and by working together we can maximise the value of that to our customers and our region.
Paul Baxter is Severn Trent’s Capital Delivery Director and is accountable for delivering the Severn Trent capital programme of £7bn between 2025 and 2030. Having spent 36 years at the company in various senior roles, Paul now leads the Severn Trent capital delivery team of 1000 people and a supply chain of many times that to deliver the outcomes for customers.
