Benchmarking of the observatories of water supply and collective sanitation utilities
OIEau is a stakeholder in the "Assises de l'Eau" within the "Technical and Financial Diagnosis of Water and Sanitation Management" working group, part of whose work consists in assessing the performance of water utilities in France in relation with SISPEA.
The governance and efficient management of water and sanitation services require the collection and analysis of data necessary for the calculation of performance indicators. These allow a comparison between water utilities; they are also a means of informing the public and improving acceptance of the costs related to these services; and finally, they can be a management tool enabling the entities in charge of these services to direct their improvement actions.
In most European countries, there is an initiative to benchmark the performance of water and sanitation services, an activity which is all the more important in the current context of climate change. Benchmarking practices in different countries is an essential tool to increase knowledge on this topic and to identify good practices that can enable policies to take action to ensure a continuous improvement of public services.
The objective of the work is:
- on the one hand to carry out a comparative analysis of initiatives to benchmark the performance of water and sanitation services in several European countries; these observatories/regulators being placed in their national context of water and sanitation service management.
- The aim is to be able, thanks to this publication in French and English, to initiate a discussion with these countries on their interest in the creation of a European network allowing all the entities in charge of the observatories to exchange on their difficulties and successes.
The study covers 6 countries:
- France ;
- Germany;
- England and Wales;
- Denmark;
- Portugal;
- Spain.
