Southern Water's open data strategy

The Open Data Institute (ODI) is working with Southern Water, the key provider of water and wastewater services for Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, on an ambitious new project to support the development of its open data strategy.

Southern Water has 2.7 million water customers and 4.7 million wastewater customers in the region. The company serves a diverse customer base, including households, businesses and public sector organisations. The ODI will support the company to develop and implement an open data strategy, setting out its ambition and plan for implementing open data, and becoming an open data leader in the water sector.

In June 2023, Ofwat – the Water Services Regulation Authority in the UK – published the Open data in the water industry: making the change report, which shares the findings from their review of water company progress on delivering open data and their recommended next steps. The report outlines a set of recommendations on both publishing open data and the need to “continue to deliver open data enablers in a balanced and integrated way”. One of these enablers is around developing “comprehensive open data strategies” with “clear roadmaps for delivery”, which we will fulfil as part of this project.

Southern Water is already taking strides towards building the foundations for open data infrastructure, including:

• Developing open data capabilities within the team, through targeted recruitment of key roles such as data architects, data engineers, data modellers, data governance specialists and data scientists.
• Improving knowledge management by creating a data catalogue, to support adopting common definitions, demonstrate data lineage and curate reusable data.
• Ensuring that data users inform which data is prioritised for open data publication.
• A successful and open data application known as Rivers and Seas Watch (Beachbuoy), with near real time data about bathing waters.

Southern Water sees the potential in how open data can support the company and their wider community of stakeholders to address long-term challenges in new ways, such as combating drought, reducing leakage and improving water quality. These challenges and opportunities are brought on by factors such as climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, as well as the need to protect the environment.

Beyond these factors, there is also a need to address the changing expectations of customers, to deliver more efficient and effective services while maintaining bill affordability.

This involves ensuring that data is accessible across the organisation, to support informed decision-making and improve the efficiency of how Southern Water responds to these challenges, as well as enabling others to access data to create innovative new solutions for the water sector.

Working closely with Southern Water, the ODI will convene a range of internal stakeholders, from data practitioners to executive leadership, to develop a shared understanding of the opportunities made possible by publishing open data. We will also engage with Southern Water’s wider community, to understand their needs as current or potential users of open data, to inform priorities for the open data strategy, and to support the development of use cases.

Southern Water is also a partner and a strong advocate of the Stream collaboration project. Their open data strategy will complement and support this initiative while delivering value in the short to medium term in key areas.