Log in
Customer engagement journey – talk to us
Our Water, Our Voice
Let's talk about water. Together we can shape the future of water services for you and your community to create a thriving, liveable and sustainable city.
Our Water, Our Voice is a journey we’re taking with you, our customer, to understand what really matters to you through 6 phases of customer engagement over one year.
Your voice matters
In July 2022 we began a dialogue with our customers through Our Water, Our Voice, an intensive customer-led engagement program. We're engaging with customers on a wide range of topics and asking questions about water and water services to give you a direct line to tell us what your priorities are.
Through this journey, we are gaining insight into what's most important to you and what you want us to deliver until the end of this decade and beyond. In our 135-year history, this is the most important opportunity to influence so much of what we will do in the future.
With your help, we will plan, invest in, and shape our future to meet your needs and the needs of your community. What you tell us will have a direct impact on our water services, waterways and communities, now and for future generations. Here's a snapshot of the program that explains the main highlights, Our Water, Our Voice Highlights Brochure.
You can also find a comprehensive Our Water, Our Voice FAQ drawn from the questions asked by participating customers in the Our Water, Our Voice customer engagement program.
For a more comprehensive look at the program please see Our Water, Our Voice Customer Engagement Strategy.
Talk to us
Throughout our customer engagement journey, we have welcomed your participation. Thank you to the customers who have taken part in every phase and form of engagement to date.
In particular, thank you to the participants of the validation surveys we have posted here. While we have now closed the Phase 4 survey, please note that we will be posting more surveys here in the near future.
We want to hear from you in every phase of our customer engagement journey
Why are we engaging now?
We're in a period of change. As our population grows and temperatures rise, so will the demand for water. We’ll need to continue to deliver a safe, reliable and sustainable water supply for our customers, as well as provide safe and reliable wastewater and stormwater services.
We'll also need to consider alternate water supplies, protect the health of our waterways and communities and meet changing customer needs.
We understand the pressures of a rising cost of living, too. So, we're committed to providing opportunities for you to tell us what's important to help shape the way we respond to the challenges facing Greater Sydney.
The 3 major factors that require us to change include growing cities, climate change and customer expectations.
Price proposal for 2025–30
Our Water, Our Voice is gathering valuable insights into what is important to you before our next price proposal and Operating Licence submission to our regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) in 2024.
Our current pricing period ends in 2025. Next year, we'll submit a new price proposal to IPART for review. The findings from Our Water, Our Voice will guide what we tell IPART about the services and service levels we'll provide, and what you, our customers, are willing to pay for those services and service levels in the 2025–30 period.
Where will the insights go and what will they influence?
Long-term planning
We have committed to using the Our Water, Our Voice insights to influence and build our long-term strategy and our business plan. The insights from Our Water, Our Voice will directly impact Sydney Water’s investments to maintain and improve our services into the future. We'll keep you updated with the findings and our strategic plans for each step we make.
Water services and service levels
The insights we gain from Our Water, Our Voice will guide our price proposal to IPART. This way, bills in the 2025–30 period will reflect what’s important to you, because you've told us.
Our Water, Our Voice will also directly impact:
our Operating Licence and Customer Contract to IPART
our Long-Term Capital and Operational Plan (LTCOP).
Six phases of customer engagement
This important journey is capturing the priorities and outcomes that you, our customer, expect us to deliver in the future and your willingness to pay for these outcomes. The Our Water, Our Voice program is divided into 6 distinct phases:
- Phase 1 Capturing insights on customer priorities
- Phase 2 Capturing insights on customer service and service levels
- Phase 3 Customer insights for better business planning
- Phase 4 Service levels and investments for the future
- Phase 5 Customer recommended price proposal
- Phase 6 Collaborating with customers to develop our next price proposal focussing on Tariffs and Price Control.
Timeline
An inclusive journey
We are ensuring that all our customers can have a say through proper representation across Greater Sydney (including the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains). We're speaking to diverse audience groups covering:
- Age
- Gender
- Region
- CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse)
- First Nations peoples
- People with disability
- Financially vulnerable
- Developers
- Business customers – small, medium and large
- Valuemakers, e.g. plumbers, managing agents
- Government stakeholders
An open and transparent journey
Sydney Water is conducting this customer engagement journey, Our Water, Our Voice, with research, economic and cultural partners. Our partners are helping us ask the questions, collate the feedback and assess the insights.
We’re also in collaboration with a Customer and Community Reference Group (CCRG). The CCRG are independently chaired with members representing different views and interests from across the community and our customer base. The CCRG is working alongside Sydney Water as an independent voice, assisting us to ensure that our strategic plans, investment decisions and regulatory submissions are in the best long-term interests of customers and the community.
