Tackling Today's Top Management Challenges

Utilities have traditionally faced challenges in achieving best practice in utility management. Some of these challenges are internal and at times related to traditional public sector approaches while others are external related to the aspirations of elected officials, the requirements of regulators and customer expectations.The paper provides an outline of what has been achieved in over a decade of the application of Total Management Planning (TMP) concepts in Queensland, and how this aligns with the EUM framework. Total Management Planning was seen as one means to address the wide range of issues being faced by over 125 water utilities in the State, ranging from small remote communities to large urban centers. The Queensland State Government continues to encourage Total Management Planning for all water utilities and as at 2010, many of its elements have been incorporated in legislation.The results presented in this paper are based on the authors' collective experience which has included the development of guidelines, tools and programs for improving utility management planning including work with over 50 water agencies and numerous State regulators. The paper identifies how these plans have addressed most, if not all, of the keys, attributes and building blocks of the Effective Utility Management (EUM) framework released by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (June 2008) in association with national water and wastewater associations.