Statistical profile and performance benchmarking of water supply services in 32 major Australian towns 1999/2000

This report is a product of the Office of Water Regulation's (OWR) analysis and evaluation of 1999-2000 data submitted by the Water Corporation of Western Australia and the Bunbury and Busselton Water Boards as required under their respective licences. The report presents pertinent statistics on water supply services in thirty-two major towns served by the three licensees and benchmarks (compares) key aspects of performance. From the performance indicators provided by the raw and derived data, four (4) were selected (two for each of water quality and supply continuity) to enable the internal and competitive benchmarking of performance by towns and providers. The OWR standardised performance data to formulate an (unweighted) aggregate score for each town against: number of water quality complaints per 1000 served properties (water quality); microbiological compliance (water quality); average duration of supply interruptions (supply continuity); services not experiencing drinking water supply interruptions lasting longer than 1 hour (supply continuity). The resulting score considers the four indicators taken together and compares the relative performance of the benchmarked towns. In summary, a high level of performance is apparent with 23 towns scoring more than 95 (out of 100), 7 towns scoring between 90 and 95, and just 2 towns scoring less than 90.