Guideline on Self-reporting Non-compliance with the Water Industry Standards

On 1 April 2024, the Water Industry Standards introduced new obligations on water businesses relating to self-reporting of non-compliance with the Water Industry Standards. Under the self-reporting obligation, a water business must report to the commission potential or actual non-compliances that may have a material adverse impact. 

To assist water businesses in meeting their reporting obligation, we have published a guideline under section 13 of the Essential Services Commission Act 2001. The guideline provides context and includes detail and examples of key terms from the reporting obligation in the Water Industry Standards. The key terms addressed in the guideline are: 

• potential and actual non-compliance 
• material adverse impact 
• timeliness (of reporting) 
• the requirement for reports to be in writing 

This guideline does not create any additional obligations on water businesses or legally alter the obligations in the Water Industry Standards.

This paper sets out the commission's final decision to introduce a self-reporting of non-compliance guideline for Victorian water businesses. 

The guideline aims to assist water businesses to understand and comply with the self-reporting obligation in the Water Industry Standards. 

The guideline comes into effect on 25 October 2024.

Along with the guideline, we have also released two reporting templates. The templates are designed to provide practical assistance to a water business for meeting its self-reporting obligation and to identify relevant information relating to the potential or actual non-compliance and the remediation it is undertaking. 

We received six submissions from Victorian water businesses and one from Financial Counselling Victoria. 

On 3 September 2024, we also held a workshop with stakeholders from the water sector and sought feedback on the draft guideline and draft reporting template. 

Submissions were generally supportive of the draft reporting guideline and draft reporting template. 

We consider all submissions and feedback in making our final decision.

We received six submissions from Victorian water businesses and one from Financial Counselling Victoria.

Submissions were generally supportive of the draft reporting guideline and draft reporting template.