This morning the Wellington Water Committee met to receive and discuss the external review Wellington Water Limited: capital programme estimating and budget systems.

The report is damning, and includes commentary, themes and recommendations covering accountability frameworks, structure, systems, processes, relationships and culture leading to the serious error in budget figures provided to shareholding Councils for their Long Term Plans.

The Committee has passed recommendations at their meeting directing the Wellington Water Board to approve an improvement plan and assurance framework to address the recommendations in the report.

"This report has raised serious questions about culture, accountability, and processes within Wellington Water. This helps explain the unacceptable budget error that occurred, but it also raises serious questions well beyond that error," Wellington Water Committee Chair Campbell Barry says.

"We have been clear that the Wellington Water Board must act now to implement a plan to address the recommendations and hold management to account on that plan."

The Committee resolved that the board’s implementation plan should be provided to the Water Committee Chair within four weeks, noting this should not preclude immediate steps the Board can take to remedy the issues presented.

"Wellington Water staff and contractors continue to make significant strides in addressing the water infrastructure challenges we have in our region," Mayor Barry says.

"And while good progress is being made, we must deal with the cultural and systemic issues that have been raised in this report as quickly as possible to avoid the types of errors that have occurred from happening again.

"It’s also important to recognise that the work of Wellington Water and its shareholder councils has been disrupted due to changing governments and evolving water reform. This has contributed to a challenging operating environment"

"While we want to avoid duplicating efforts that will be addressed by a new entity, the report highlights issues that cannot be delayed."

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