1. Watercare ServiceLimited New Zealand Working with Water
Authority of Fiji
From 25 to 29 May 2015 we received a visit from two of our counterparts from
Watercare Services Limited (Watercare) in Auckland New Zealand. Watercare is the
biggest water and wastewater organisation in New Zealand and provides services to
1.4 million people across the Auckland region. While Watercare is regional whereas
Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) has a national role, staff from both organisation’s face
many of the same challenges and issues.
This visit was as a result of partnership contract with NZ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and Trade to help WAF carryout risk assessment survey of water and waste-water
treatment plants, identifying risk in the treatment process that needs attention and
prepare a risk management plan for action.
The two visitors from Watercare were Nigel Toms (Corporate Risk Manager) and
Tuan Hawke (Water Supply Manager).
Nigel Toms (right) and Tuan Hawke (middle) pictured with kamal Singh (left) at the
Waila Treatment Plant assessing risk involved in the water treatment process.

2. The purpose of their visit was to:
 Give an overview of the ISO 31000 risk management standard.
 Provide risk management training to the operational water and wastewater
teams.
 Work with the water and wastewater teams to develop risk assessment
criteria for treatment plants.
 Use Risk Heatmap criteria and supporting tools to provide overall
assessments to identify the highest risk plants, see an example below.
 Provide a number of approaches to enable detailed risk assessments of
operational plants.
 Consider where development of business continuity plans should be
considered in order to ensure continued provision of critical services.
To complete this work, water and wastewater teams completed a number of on-site
reviews and workshops to establish site risk profiles.
While teams were not surprised by the final results as they accorded with their
detailed knowledge of the plants, the formalised approach allows for the level of risk
to be explained simply and the detailed risk registers will assist with development
and monitoring progress towards completion of mitigation actions.
In addition, this approach can be used to:
 Explain the position and challenges to government in support of requests for
funding.
 Demonstrate the progress that is being made.
The next steps for WAF include:
 Completing the risk assessments for all operational water and wastewater
sites.
 Developing key business continuity plans.
 Extending this approach to all areas of the organisation, culminating in the
development of an Enterprise Wide Risk Framework which will enable the
identification and prioritisation of all key organisational risks and effective
assignment of resources.
The work ended in a presentation of the outcomes to WAF CEO Opetaia Ravai
which was followed by wide ranging discussions on next steps by the management
teams.
WAF, CEO Opetaia Ravai thanked the team from the Water Care Services Limited
for helping WAF to mitigate the risk involved in the water and waste-water treatment
plants through risk assessment program and looks forward for continued relationship

3. with Water Care Services Limited for the developments in other areas of our
operations.
Nigel and Tuan stated how much they had enjoyed the opportunity to work with their
counterparts in WAF and hoped that this alliance would continue with further work in
support of an Enterprise Risk Framework and that this would then be extended to
other Watercare and WAF teams.
The one (1) weeks program was coordinated by the Training Team and according to
Learning & Development Supervisor, Mr Salesh Kumar, this capacity building
program will enhance risk management skills of staff working in the water and
wastewater treatment plants and brings efficiency and productivity to the Authority.