The only professional body solely dedicated to supporting the careers of people working in the UK water industry.

Scottish Area NewsletterWinter 2019

Latest update from our Scottish Area Rising StarRebecca Skuce gives us all an update on what she and her fellow Rising Stars have been up to over the past few months…I am now over half way through the Institute of Water’s Rising Stars Programme and what ajourney it has been. The Programme has surpassed my expectations and there is still muchmore to come!!

Over the past 8 months I have participated in a range of events; from the Institute of Water’sAnnual Conference in Belfast, to learning about the vital work that Water Aid do across the globeat their Head Quarters in London. In addition to the first-rate programme organised by theInstitute, each of this year’s Rising Stars have had the opportunity to host events within theirown organisations. Having exclusively worked in Scottish Water, this has given me an invaluableinsight into the workings of other utilities across the UK. It has been fascinating to learn abouthow the English and Welsh regulatory models operate, differing ownership models work andhow the regional challenges impact decision making within organisations.

Rising Stars with Northern Ireland Water CE Sara Venning at the IW Annual Conference in Belfast in June

However, it has become abundantly clear to me that there is much more that brings ustogether than separates us. Common themes have emerged through discussions with seniorleaders throughout each of our organisations, such as how do we meet the challenge ofincreasing customer expectations with tightening consents and reducing budgets? Where doesasset intelligence fit within our industry? How is climate change going to impact our industry?The list goes on.

However, one theme has stood out above the rest; the lack of diversity within our industry. Thiswas a focal point of the Institute of Water’s National Conference entitled “Disrupt or beDisrupted – How Disruption is Transforming the Water Sector”, as well as the Institute’sEngineering Conference entitled ‘Back to the Future - building on our engineering heritage toshape the future of the water industry’. This was a conference first for me, in that it was thefirst conference where every presenter was female. Our very own Rising Star, HayleyWakeford of Portsmouth Water was also one of the presenters. She delivered a hard hittingpresentation entitled “Are you proud to be an engineer?” where she discussed her experienceof being the only female engineer in her organisation. She delivered some hard hitting factswhich demonstrate the lack of diversity within the water sector. For example, within the waterindustry, just 20% of the workforce are female and 5% from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic(BAME) background compared to all sectors where these figures stand for 47% and 15%respectively. There are many more statistics published on the Energy and Utility Skills website.

Rebecca during one of the panel sessions at the Annual Conference

The 62nd AGM of the Scottish Area was held on 18February 2017 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow. Awine reception was held prior to business starting and 19people attended.

Why has diversity and inclusion become such a hot topic recently? Of course it is the morallyright thing to do and a nice to have. But the real issue is that we as a sector are facing a majorskills shortage and if we continue with our current demographics we are further limiting the talentpool available to us. Organisations are realising the benefits that diverse workforces bring suchas better decision making, increased productivity, improved mental health and wellbeing and itdrives improved customer experiences.

However, organisations can’t have diversity without inclusion. The two are intrinsically linked andare often used together, but what does it mean? For me, diversity is the demographics of whowe are, whilst inclusion is how people feel. Inclusion is the culture created within an organisationthat values the perspectives that diversity brings. And so if you don’t have an inclusive culturethat embraces those values and differences the far reaching benefits that diversity brings willnever be realised.

Through my visits to meet the leaders within the industry it is clear that change has and ishappening, but with an increasingly competitive environment for attracting and retaining talent, ischange happening fast enough?

Please note that applications for the 2020 Rising Star Programme are nowclosed. Thank you to everyone who applied.

Environmental Management SystemAs a responsible organisation, the Institute of Water is committed to reducing our negativeenvironmental impact where possible. In line with this strategy, the Scottish Area Committee willbe introducing a new Environmental Management System (EMS) to encourage the rightbehaviours. We would like to remind you of the following:

• For events such as guest speaker presentations, we aim to host webinars as often as we canand would encourage attendees to dial in or make use of public transport where possible;

• Please remember to bring your refillable water bottle or coffee cup along to our events (weaim to provide water in glass jugs at the majority of larger events);

• Be assured that when we select the location for events we always consider the environmentalcredentials of that venue including proximity to public transport, recycling facilities and plasticconsumption for catered events;

• We always strive to reduce food waste as much as possible by closely monitoring the numberof bookings for catered events;

• We would encourage you to open windows rather than turning on the air conditioning systemwhen attending our events;

• We ask that you support us in our endeavour to reduce paper consumption by only printingwhere necessary. Going forward, the Scottish Area will be moving towards app-basedsystems and exclusively online event advertising.

Thank you for your co-operation!

Visit to Hydro Generating SiteClaire Chapman reflects on the recent Scottish Area site visit which took members along to Firrhill New Service Reservoir…

On Thursday 19th September, a group of 20 folk met at Fairmilehead offices for bacon rolls andto learn about Scottish Water’s renewable programme. This was very timeous, in that ScottishWater’s CEO had just announced that Scottish Water will be aiming for net zero Carbonemissions by 2040, and self-generation is a key way to hit this target.

Scottish Water currently generates approximately 35 GWh/annum, offsetting over 70 works withself-generation. We heard discussions from Scottish Water’s renewable generation manager,Claire Chapman, and from Gordon Laughlin, who is the operations team leader for some siteswhere renewables have been installed. The energy team sits in Customer Service Delivery(Operations), to ensure a close relationship between the various parties.

Attendees pose for a photograph before the tour

Afterwards, we went out to visit Firrhill New Service Reservoir, which is convenientlylocated very close to the office. It was commissioned in 2014, and generates 0.86GWh/annum, right in the heart of Edinburgh city, and adjacent to a high school. ScottishWater have recently put up signage around the site, to increase awareness of the greenenergy being generated on the site.

Thanks to all for coming along.

Look out for further events in the Scottish Area calendar!

Innovation Awards Winner Lunch ByteA huge thank you to Kenny Dallas and his colleague Kevin from A&L Mechanical Installationsfor delivering a Lunch Byte on Thursday 3rd October in Fairmilehead, Scottish Water. Thisevent was open to members and non-members and was also offered as a webinar. Here, thewinning innovation (Remote Hydraulic Valve Actuation) and its benefits were discussed.

Thank you to those who attended and congratulations once again to Kenny and his team!

Details for the Innovation Awards 2020 will be released soon…

Scottish Area Annual Fishing CompetitionA highlight in our Events Calendar, Kathy Auld provides a summary of this annual trip to Oban….The Scottish Area fishing competition took place on 31st August on Loch Etive, near Oban. Afterweeks of sunny weather, the weekend turned for the event! However, that did not stop the groupthat left the pier, split between 2 boats, MV Creagallan and Laura Dawn.

The journey out to Loch Etive was thrilling and exciting for those on the MV Creagallan as it hadto venture further from shore. Sea-legs definitely needed. Once we got into the Loch it was calm,although rather wet. The rain didn’t stop us from fishing and as it eased off after lunch thingsbrightened up.

The winner was Kenny Spiers with 10 landed, runner up with 7 was Alistair McKenzie andheaviest catch was won by Alan Dick. Adam also picked up the Junior trophy and a prize of abottle of Vodka, donated by Alan (Dad Scott was very happy!).

Thank you to our sponsors, WGM and MorrisonConstruction and to the skippers, Jack andRonnie for another fantastic trip.

Thank you to Robbie Vennard for the usualdonation of brandy for our morning toast, eventhough he couldn’t be there.

Looking forward to next year and hopefullybetter weather!

Scottish Area Autumn SeminarHere, Lisa McKenzie (Veolia and IW Committee Member) gives a summary of our annual Autumn Seminar…

Over 80 delegates and speakers were welcomed to this year’s Autumn Seminar whichshowcased “Delivering Sustainable Efficiencies” - two buzz words often seen alone, thatbecome even more powerful when paired. Sustainability was also evident in the event planning.From the Glasgow city centre venue to maximise public transport accessibility, to the eventbeing almost entirely paperless, with delegates asked beforehand to use mobile devices ratherthan printing the programme.

Our speakers came from academia, industry, consulting, construction and utility backgrounds,and offered equally diverse perspectives whilst looking at efficiency through 4 distinct lenses.

The first lens focused on the role of digital and data applications Drew Mackie (MorrisonConstruction) kicked off the day and demonstrated some of the latest digital constructiontechnology, including virtual reality inductions, remote asset support through Microsoft’s hololens,the developing role of robotics in below ground working, and using digital tools to drive behaviourchange. Tom May (Veolia Retail) presented a case study of their Edinburgh Airport operation,where sub-metering and data management has been used to reduce unaccounted for water by43% against a 25% increase in passenger numbers over the past 3 years. Tom explained acontinuing journey, showing that even with the same passenger numbers the energy consumptionhas also been reduced. Nisarg Hirani, General Manager of Transformation at Scottish Watershowcased various transformation projects, taking inspiration from the tech sector where ‘try smalland fail fast’ approaches are embraced for new ideas. Nisarg showed how Scottish Water haveturned around the mains water connection service, where developers must upload a series ofphotos and compare them to stock photos, allowing customers to self correct and reducing wastedsite visits.

Mark Wilson, IW Scottish Area President, opens the event

The second lens focused on the role of Innovation in the water industry. The first speaker AlisonBradley (Arup and Scottish Government Hydro Nation) showed that support is available throughthe Hydronation Water Innovation Service (HNWIS). The service provides both technicalcoaching to guide innovators through the complex stage-and-gate processes, and financialsupport, demonstrating the Scottish Government’s will to drive our sector into a smart future.Jim Panton (Panton McLead) was second to speak on the topic and he started with anintroduction into the world of Iron Man, including 7 hour weekend training sessions and theimportance of the right underwear! The link here is focus. Jim described the focus of watercompanies as the ‘Eye of Sauron’, with the industry needing to have solutions to problems at theexact time they become hot topics, which can sometimes block innovation for longer termissues. Despite some great examples in evidence Jim challenged the procurement systems ofthe sector as having no defined entry point for new innovations.

After lunch, delegates were re-energised by Scott McCrae from McCrae Training with a ‘speedmentoring’ development session. We were given an introduction into what mentoring is, how toget a mentor through the IW and then split into small groups for mentoring debates. AfterwardsScott shared a powerful video by Miles Hilton-Barber, the ‘blind adventurer’ who lost his sight inhis twenties and then learned to fly. It’s really worth looking him up on YouTube - watch thisbefore you set your objectives and you’ll be inspired to think big!

Lens number three was on circular thinking, kicked off with an insight into the world of industrialwater by Naeem Hafeez (Veolia). Naeem told us about distillery operations and how the linearprocess has been transformed into a circular system by using the waste products as resources.The biomass waste from the distillery process is now being used as fuel in boiler CHP’s toprovide power and heat for the whisky making process. Another example was how Veolia havereduced water usage in salad washing factories, by treating the used washwater to such a highstandard it can be re-used on site. Dr Ania Escudero from Glasgow Caledonian University thenconcluded the session by explaining Phos4you’s mission to solve the ‘P Challenge’. They’velooked into a number of methods of recovering phosphorous at waste water treatment worksand are currently working with a particularly resilient type of microalgae. These algae maintainhigh phosphorous and nitrogen uptake even in low light conditions (like Scotland!), and can beharvested as a biomass and used directly as a fertiliser.

Speed Mentoring session led by McCrae Training

The fourth and final lens of the day was about operational excellence. Tony McKenna talked usthrough Veolia’s approach to optimising asset performance and how important it is to engage withthe people who keep the sites running and to use comparisons with proven benchmarks. Fullengagement with the “superheroes” of operations and maintenance was seen as key tosustaining any improvements made through interventions.

The optimisation process was described in terms of what a plant may be doing, should be doingand could be doing. Kes Juskowiak, Water Operational General Manager delivered anengaging presentation adding filters of the past, present and future to the operationalexcellence lens. Kes explained the journey that Scottish Water are on - specifically the movefrom the current 20% automatic, to a future of 80% automatic operation. Kes explained the roleof mass digital communications in enabling far greater connectivity between site observationsand management systems and decision making to improve speed of response and increaseright first time interventions. Steve McGeoch of Ross-Shire closed the final session by showingthe journey from traditional to modular construction and the challenges and benefits it brings;reduced cost, site time and risk to name a few.

In summing up, our chair for the day and Area President, Mark Wilson, drew analogies from theworld of sport to capture some key messages from the day. To rise to the challenge ofdelivering sustainable efficiencies; think differently, embrace incremental improvement, put inthe hard miles and above all - Believe…

Here are some of the upcoming events organised by the Scottish Area to look outfor. All bookings should be made via the Institute of Water website:www.instituteofwater.org.uk

2020 dates for your diary - upcoming events

Thursday 16th January, 12pm, Dunfermline“The Benefits of Mentoring” Lunch Byte

Wednesday 22nd January, 9am, Glasgow“What it means to be a rising star” Breakfast Byte

Wednesday 19th February, 9am, Stirling“Low Carbon Energy” Presentation and Site Visit

The Scottish Area hope you had a lovely

Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year!

Meet your Scottish Area Committee…

Scott Kerr – Area Treasurerskerr@utilitecservices.com

Michelle Calder – Area SecretaryMichelle.Calder@scottishwater.co.uk

Belinda Oldfield – Area ChairBelinda.Oldfield@scottishwater.co.uk

James Sommerville – Area Forum Representativejames.sommerville@wgmengineering.co.uk

Committee Members – Kathy Auld, Richard Anderson, Vivienne Dell, Kerry Relf, Lisa McKenzie,Rachael Picken, David Laurie and Rebecca Skuce.

Rob Bradley – Area Vice Chairrob.i.bradley@gmail.com

Kirstin Watt – Publicity Co-ordinatorkirstin.watt@scottishwater.co.uk

We are always interested to hear what our members are involved in. Ifyou have any news or articles which you would like to share with theScottish Area, please send to kirstin.watt@scottishwater.co.uk (PublicityCo-ordinator and Newsletter Editor). Thank you very much!

Mark Wilson – Area Presidentmarka.wilson@veolia.com

Mark McEwen – Area Past PresidentMark.McEwen@scottishwater.co.uk