Annual Report and Financial Statements for 31 March 2019
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DOWNLOAD PRINT Annual Report and Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2019 Affinity Water Limited (Registered Number 02546950) | Contents | Affinity Water at a glance | Strategic report | Governance | Statutory financial statements | Regulatory annual performance report | DOWNLOAD PRINT Contents AFFINITY WATER AT A GLANCE STATUTORY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Where we operate 2 Independent auditor’s report 124 What we do 3 Income statement 131 Our highlights 4 Statement of comprehensive income 132 Our year at a glance 6 Statement of financial position 133 Chairman’s welcome 8 Statement of changes in equity 134 Statement of cash flows 135 STRATEGIC REPORT Accounting policies 136 Chief Executive Officer’s introduction 12 Notes to the financial statements 143 Chief Financial Officer’s review 15 Our industry 18 REGULATORY ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT Our business model 20 Statement on direction and performance 188 Our community model 21 Certificates of compliance 189 How we create value 22 Statement of risk and compliance 192 Our customers and communities 24 Independent auditor’s report 194 Our environment 28 Section 1 - Regulatory financial reporting 198 Our people 32 Section 2 - Our assets and sites 36 Price review and other segmental reporting 217 Our finances 40 Section 3 - Operational performance 44 Performance summary 225 Principal risks and uncertainties 48 Section 4 - Non-audited additional regulatory information 228 Important information Viability statement 58 Tax strategy related to the appointed business 244 GOVERNANCE Terms used in this report Data assurance summary 245 The ‘company’ or ‘Affinity Water’ means Affinity Water Limited; the ‘regulated business’ or ‘regulated activities’ means the Introduction from the Chairman 64 licensed water activities undertaken by Affinity Water Limited in the South East of England. Board leadership, transparency and governance 66 Cautionary statement Ownership and financing 91 The annual report and financial statements contain certain statements that are forward-looking. Although the company Audit Committee report 97 believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to be correct. Because these statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results Remuneration report 103 may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no Directors’ report 117 obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Integrated report We aim to continually develop our reporting in order to improve our communication with customers and stakeholders. This annual report and financial statements has been prepared using the principles of the International Integrated Reporting Framework. Our Registered Office Tamblin Way Hatfield Winner of the Gold award for Winner of the Awarded the Hertfordshire ‘Best Customer ‘Best Use of Insight ‘Best Online Customer Fair Tax Mark AL10 9EZ Insight Initiative’ and Feedback’ Experience’ affinitywater.co.uk AFFINITY WATER ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 1 | Contents | Affinity Water at a glance | Strategic report | Governance | Statutory financial statements | Regulatory annual performance report | DOWNLOAD PRINT Affinity Water at a glance Where we operate What we do Affinity Water Limited is the largest water only supply company in the United Kingdom, owning and managing the water assets and network in an area of approximately 4,515km2 split over three supply regions in the South East of England. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading community-focused water company. It reflects the importance we place on our people working within and for the communities of customers we serve. By understanding and responding We to the needs of different community groups, we are accountable to them at a local level for how well we provide operate our services. 95 water treatment We divide our supply area into eight different communities, based on our existing water resource zones and works to ensure that each named after a local river, allowing us to tailor a high quality service to customers at a local level. our water is of the highest quality Our supply area Royston Saffron Walden Hitchin We distribute our Stort Stevenage water through a Dunstable Luton network of over Lee Bishop’s Stortford Manningtree Harwich Pottersheath Horsley Cross Harpenden Welwyn 16,700km Hertford Garden City Wivenhoe of mains pipes Hatfield Harlow Brett Hemel Essendon We supply on average Frinton Hempstead St.Albans Roestock Clacton Misbourne Colne Potters Bar Epping 950 Amersham Watford Bushey MEGALITRES Rickmansworth Clay Lane Lee Edgeware Pinn Harwich per day (MI/d) to over Colchester Brett Stort 3.6m people serving Harrow Clacton- 1.5m properties Pinn Chelmsford on-Sea Uxbridge Northolt MisbourneColne Iver Pinn Romford Elham Feltham Staines LONDON Dover Egham Dour Ramsgate Sellindge Chertsey Wey Folkestone Weybridge Addlestone Hythe Wey Ashford Dour Woking Crawley Dover Lydd Brighton Lydd Dungeness 2 AFFINITY WATER ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AFFINITY WATER ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 3 | Contents | Affinity Water at a glance | Strategic report | Governance | Statutory financial statements | Regulatory annual performance report | DOWNLOAD PRINT Affinity Water at a glance continued Our highlights Net cash inflow Operating profit: before tax and financing1: £58.6m £42.3m Leaving Supplying high quality 2017/18: £72.3m Target: £48.8m; 2017/18: £56.3m more water in the drinking water environment Our operating profit for 2018/19 Our net cash inflow was lower than the We have failed to meet Mean zonal was lower than the prior year prior year, primarily due to receiving £27.0m our leakage targets for 1 mainly due to £18.0m higher proceeds on disposal of the non-household compliance (‘MZC’) of 2017/18 and 2018/19, but are operating costs partially offset by retail business in the prior year, as well as taking action to ensure we meet £3.6m higher revenue £20.0m lower cash generated from the industry’s largest leakage operations in 2018/19 offset by percentage reduction target for % £33.0m lower net capital 99.96 2015-20. Since 2015 we have reduced expenditure our abstraction of water from for the 2018 calendar year, environmentally sensitive sites by compared to a target of 99.95% Since 2014/15 we and actual performance in 2017 of 99.96% Post tax return on have revised our 42.1Ml/d strategy and improvement plan regulated capital value: to focus on a number of safety The latest actuarial valuation of our and health initiatives. Pension Plan was completed in the In 2018/19, recoreded year and concluded that it was fully funded on a 3.9% 2017/18: 6.1% 0.23 self-sufficiency lost time injuries per Our post tax return on regulated basis capital value was lower than the 100,000 prior year due to profit from the hours worked, as at 31 December 2017 sale of the non-household retail compared to actual performance business included within our of 1.02 in 2014/15 return in the prior year Gearing: Minimising disruption to our customers Providing a value for money service We experienced Credit rating: Improvements have been seen in our customer 78.3% service metrics, including a 31 March 2018: 78.6% We experienced 309 Our gearing at 31 March 2019 was Baa1 2017/18: Baa1 unplanned interruptions and a slightly lower than the prior year, over 12 hours 2,530 22% 41% and remained below our internal During the year, we continued bursts reduction reduction to maintain an investment compared to a target of 320 threshold of 80.0% of regulatory compared to in complaints in escalated capital value at 31 March 2019 and grade corporate family and actual performance of complaints throughout the financial year. This credit rating in line with our 7,890 in 2017/18 our target of allows sufficient headroom within peers in the water sector, 3,100 and actual our financial covenants being two notches above performance in investment grade 2017/18 of 2,923 1 This “non-GAAP” measure is calculated as the total of the following line items per the statement of cash flows (refer to page 135): cash generated 1 MZC is the average of the ‘mean zonal compliance’ performance of 39 water quality parameters and is an important measure of the quality of the from operations; purchases of property, plant and equipment; capital contributions; proceeds on disposal of property, plant and equipment; and water supplied to customers. It is measured over a calendar year. The individual results for each parameter are taken from the company’s compliance purchase of intangible assets. sampling programme and are reported to the Drinking Water Inspectorate (‘DWI’). 4 AFFINITY WATER ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AFFINITY WATER ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 5 | Contents | Affinity Water at a glance | Strategic report | Governance | Statutory financial statements | Regulatory annual performance report | DOWNLOAD PRINT Affinity Water at a glance continued Our year at a glance April May June October November December In April 2018 we published our first Pauline Walsh joined as The rollout of our fieldwork On 28 October 2018, we hosted our In November 2018 we were announced In December 2018 we launched Gender Pay Report for April 2017, Chief Executive Officer and was management system, Maximo, 35th annual Ricky Road Run, a 10 mile as the winner of the Best Customer our ‘Beat the Chill’ campaign, which showed a mean gender pay appointed to the Board on 1 May was completed in June 2018. All of road race around Chorleywood and Insight Initiative Award at the providing our customers with gap of 24.8%. For April 2018, this gap 2018. Please refer to page 12 for her our operational engineers have access Rickmansworth in our Misbourne European Contact Centre and Customer top tips to get their home ready had reduced to 22.5%. We have reflections on her first year.