ICS Consulting

A significant proportion of our work is supporting clients with their longer-term thinking and planning, in particular through 5-year regulated price review processes. Whilst it is crucial to get these plans right for customers, investors and the environment, actually delivering them over the subsequent years is just as important. During this delivery there are sometimes events which disrupt the supply to customers, often due to factors outside of their control such as extreme weather events or third-party damage. At the time they are often stressful for customers and companies alike as everyone pushes to return to normal as quickly as possible. However, these events are also opportunities to learn lessons in incident prevention, organisational response and customer communication, which can have lasting positive effects. At ICS, we regularly support clients across the regulated utility industries to review and learn from these events. Here is a guide to best practice based on our experience. Please get in touch if you’d like to learn more from when things go wrong rather than risk repeating mistakes and missing opportunities to improve customer outcomes. #utilities #insight #regulation #learning

Here at ICS Consulting we have been busy reviewing Ofwat's PR24 Final Determination that arrived on 19th December. We are delighted share our observations and thoughts. Amanda Markwardt Scot Reid Melinda Acutt #Ofwat #Water #PR24 #Regulation

Martin Baker looks at the affordability of water bills and addresses key questions facing the sector... What is the role of social tariffs? How are they perceived by the public? How can we fairly reflect usage in charges? Can water companies do more to reduce unaffordability? #regulatoryanalysis #watersector #PR24 #insight

Following our recent trip to the Highways UK 2024 conference, Martin Baker explores the lessons that can be learned by Local Authorities from how the Strategic Road Network is managed. #highways #regulation #assetmanagement #strategicroadnetwork

We are delighted to publish our report setting out how customer views can be clearly and directly embedded in regulatory incentives to ensure that companies deliver required Outcomes. It is clear from companies’ published responses to Ofwat’s PR24 Draft Determination that unrealistic performance targets and the skewed risk from Ofwat’s Outcome Delivery Incentives (ODIs) are top company concerns. In this think-piece developed with South West Water we argue that embedding the citizen voice in the heart of designing the structure of ODIs and setting ODI rates is absolutely vital in order to ensure that companies’ focus is directed to what matters most in their local area. Incentives that do not fully reflect customer views drive a wedge between customers’ preferences and companies’ incentives. We have developed with South West Water a robust way to meaningfully understand and embed the customer voice into the heart of ODIs.  We show that customers do want their views to be used to shape ODIs and that, despite their complexity, customers can make meaningful contributions. Customers can understand how these incentives affect the level of their bill and can provide meaningful feedback on how ODIs should be designed and structured. Our report highlights key customer preference datasets that can be used, alongside the evidence already collated by Ofwat, to inform how ODIs are set for PR24 and at future price reviews. This includes a nationally representative survey with 1,001 customers undertaken by South West Water covering England and Wales. We call on Ofwat to fully take account of this evidence in their PR24 Final Determination. Ofwat South West Water Iain McGuffog Alex Smethurst Amanda Markwardt Oliver Worsfold #PR24 #ODIs #Water #Regulation

We’re thrilled to announce the detailed breakdown of our four-stage approach to customer and stakeholder engagement is now available. This has been instrumental in helping our clients navigate regulatory challenges and better align their investment plans with customer priorities. By implementing this approach effectively, you can ensure that customer and stakeholder engagement does not become just a box-ticking exercise, but rather a strategic tool that drives meaningful business outcomes and ultimately - transforms customer insights into actionable strategies that hits the regulatory mark for best practice.   For those who are passionate about putting the customer voice at the heart of your strategy and want to move beyond the ad-hoc approach of traditional agencies which can fail to deliver a clear line of sight between customer insights and business planning, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Research Director, Oliver Worsfold at olly@icsconsulting.co.uk to carry on the conversation.   #CustomerEngagement #RegulatoryStrategy #ICSConsulting #UtilitiesSector #ActionableInsight

We regularly support clients from across the utilities sectors to engage meaningfully with customers, and deploy the insight gained in regulatory decision making and investment planning.   We have developed a four-stage approach to achieve this consistently. Unlike traditional research agencies that deliver standalone projects, we spend just as much time focusing on the ‘Discovery’ and ‘Action’ phases, which map out the insight needs before engaging customers and translate the insight gained into evidence for decision making. Our engagement experts are also on-hand to support clients with conducting research projects through the 'Define' and 'Understand' phases.   We’ll be unveiling our approach in more detail later this month, but here is a brief overview of it.   If you’d like to know more, please get in touch with Oliver Worsfold, our Research Director – olly@icsconsulting.co.uk #Customerengagement #Marketresearch #utilities #water #energy

The new UK government has made a commitment to growth central to their agenda. Provision of infrastructure will be vital to this mission as infrastructure investment brings the double benefit of both providing jobs directly and enabling wider economic growth - without adequate infrastructure, UK growth will remain constrained.   In our latest milestone report, Our Infrastructure, Our Future, ICS Consulting’s customer and regulation experts explore public perceptions of the water, energy and telecoms sectors – what they want from government, regulators and companies and where they want to see these organisations focusing their efforts to deliver the infrastructure the public want and need for the future at the prices they can afford.   This report draws on evidence gathered via our nationally representative survey of the public combined with our expertise advising utility companies, regulators and government departments for nearly 25 years to identify insight and actions required to deliver Our Infrastructure, Our Future. #infrastructure #regulation #policy #research

Read our early take-aways on Ofwat's PR24 Draft Determinations. How has Ofwat squared the circle of record investment and lower bill increases? Has the right balance been struck? #Water #PR24 #AMP8 #Ofwat #RegulatoryEconomics #Regulation