back to article UK utility Thames Water splashes cash as host of IT consultancies appointed to handle £100m worth of deals

Thames Water has turned on the project taps, awarding contracts that could be worth up to £100m to a group of 13 IT consultancies in the UK. In deals expected to cover the water utility's five-year "Amp 7" capital investment programme, the basket of IT consultancy and services firms are named on a framework agreement expected …

  1. rg287
    Joke

    "Amp 7"?

    Shurely shome mishtake? Thames Water of all people should know to keep water and electricity firmly separated!

  2. Real Ale is Best

    Leaks

    To be honest, I'd be much happier if they spent a bit more cash and attention on reducing the huge number of leaks in their ageing pipes, especially in London.

    1. Snowy Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Leaks

      I agree they need to fix the leaks like the rest of the Industry. It is bad when some companies are losing more in leaks than their customers are using?

      1. Snowy Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Leaks

        Not quite so bad they only losing about 595 Million litres per day with them supplying around 2.6 Billion litres per day.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Leaks

      Why bother fixing leaks when they can just apply hosepipe bans etc???

    3. BigSLitleP

      Re: Leaks

      You have to find the leaks first, then you have to work out how to repair them. It's not like fixing a tap! If you've never worked in the water industry, then you have no clue how much of a pain it is. A lot of the money Thames is spending should (In theory) help them find and fix leaks.

      1. Caver_Dave Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Leaks

        As a youth (1980's) I worked for a guy who was called in by Anglian Water to find leaks when they couldn't and he travelled all over their vast area.

        It was all cash in hand and off the books, as he was a dowser!

        He used to tell them how deep the pipe was, its diameter and construction, which way the water was flowing and the type of leak. Basically everything they needed to know and without having to break the surface.

        I remember him telling the AW manager who used to call him in, that a particular broken clay sewerage pipe would pollute a pond 60 feet higher and 400 yards away and being roundly laughed at. AW decided not to apply any urgency to the fix and nearly 3 weeks later the pollution started! (He could 'feel' the type of soil and rocks and knew that capillary action (although he didn't know the name) would have a significant effect.)

        ICON : ironic, as there is no scientific reason for dowsing to work - except that it does in the hands of one of the very few people who still 'knows' how. (Not me - I could follow an underground structure, but not know the difference between a dry mole drain and a large mains water pipe!)

  3. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    It's that bizarre situation where...

    Similar to the Gas and Electricity industries it's that bizarre situation where OfWat threaten the water suppliers subsidies if they don't make more financial and operational efficiencies. So £100 mil, gets spent on a programme of works which realises benefits or efficiencies of nowhere near that amount, but then the regulators get to trumpet that they are doing their jobs properly.

    All the while the actual pipes are still majorly leaky, no opportunities (no matter how tenuous) are missed to dump more and more raw sewerage into the rivers and seas... and "customer" bills still go up.

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: It's that bizarre situation where...

      £100m of consultancy and supply split over 13 different companies.

      What could go wrong !?

      Just spend the money in-house and a single supplier for most of your hosting/infrastructure and analytics like Microsoft or AWS.

  4. JimC

    But look on the bright side

    Most leaks go straight back into the water table anyway. They're probably all that's keeping your houses from subsiding...

  5. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Liquid Fluid Diversification ....... for Virtual River Course Management

    The initial contract notice put the maximum anticipated price on the deals at £100m. The money is split between eight contract "lots" covering digital product teams; tooling to develop new data-driven analytical models, algorithms, dashboards and visualisations; and implementation of new business applications, services and associated processes, to undertake major changes to current and legacy applications and deliver associated infrastructure solutions.

    And whenever all of that is already delivering product and services covering all of those disciplines ...... Assisting Support Programs Supplying Future Provisions for Advanced Virtual Product Realisation ....... Creative Media ProgramMING Presentation?

    What realistic empowering sum would be granted to explore and expand upon the workings with the prime novel source lodes* of that subcontractor? More than just quite quiet pretty penny, methinks. And worth every darned farthing too, methinks also reasonably fair.

    * Virgin Ware Fare is surely Almighty Immaculate Sourcing.

  6. Lee D Silver badge

    Digital Thirst

    I never get why anyone would think that a water supplier cares about people reducing water usage.

    It's like when electricity companies try to give you a free energy-saving bulb. The cost of that bulb is spent in about a day by the average household. And why would they want you to cut consumption while they are charging you FOR that consumption.

    It's entirely the wrong way to go about it. The company who wants your business isn't going to be bothered about you using more of their products and paying them more money.

    If you want to reduce electricity usage, you put up the tax on the energy supply. Problem solved. (And other problems introduced).

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Digital Thirst

      "If you want to reduce electricity usage, you put up the tax on the energy supply. "

      Yes that will stop me leaving the oven on 24/7

  7. NeilPost Silver badge

    Tax Dodging

    Have Thames Water completed their shut down of Thames Water (Cayman Is) subsidiary that they were funnelling Tax Dodging through??

    It’s not just Amazon/Google/Apple/Microsoft doing this.

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