In May, we brought together Stream’s Advisory Group 1 (Market & User Needs) which comprises subject matter experts from 16 water companies and other industry stakeholders. Co-chaired by Icebreaker One and Northumbrian Water, this group advises and supports the project partners as they commence work on Stream’s Implementation Phase. 

Date: 22nd May 2025 10:00-11:30 BST

Location: online

Co-Chairs: Melissa Tallack (NWL); Charlotte Hillenbrand (IB1)

Secretariat: IB1

Summary:

  • Members were given an OKR update and it was noted that:
    • The use cases and datasets pillar has everything in progress and moving nicely
    • The ecosystem pillar has all objectives in progress
  • It was noted that members were given an introduction to the license sharing scenarios with a view to having a more standardized approach
  • It was noted that the Legal and Data Governance working group requires some input in terms of scope 
    • Members of the AG were asked for real life examples of data sharing scenarios to be included in this scope 
      • Credo, Climate Resilience Demonstrator, was noted as an example of an energy company, telecoms company and water company sharing data with a third-party company in a bi-directional relay of data and then insight
      • Data sharing surrounding leakage was noted in the long-term pipeline, with restrictions of what data can be published, a group-based access preemptive arrangement with a many-to-many sharing scenario would be needed 
      • With companies not currently sharing full EDM activations history data or water quality sampling related to activations data, the potential in expanding the scope of the National Storm Overflow Hub was noted
  • It was noted that the subject of drinking water quality was prioritised for a data triage workshop held April 30th. Members discussed recommendations to take to the Steering Group:
    • The outcome of the workshop was that drinking water quality data is sensitive and would require mitigation which may result in it becoming a hindrance rather than a helpful data source 
    • It was, however, noted that a benefit would be the promotion of transparency in the industry and that would in turn raise public awareness of water treatment and the challenges that the industry faces 
    • The recommendation was that a new data set wouldn’t be released but rather it was agreed that existing content will be signposted to inform users of how water is treated and why
    • It was suggested that the Product Team speak to the EIR group regarding where they signpost people who have ‘what’s in my water?’ requests.
      • Additionally, there was a suggestion that more could be done with the metadata for this dataset, which could be reviewed with the EIR group.
    • Members were asked – ‘Is there anything that you would add or take away from this recommendation, and do you have any other advice that you can give us in this space, given that it’s the first one to come up that’s like this.’
      • It was noted that the recommendations are similar to work already being done by individual water companies, for example, the postcode search tool linking to water quality reports, and that this could be linked onto the Stream page
  •  It was noted that Stream is trialling an outcome-focused approach for this quarter 
    •  It was noted that metrics should be included to measure progress 
  • The Miro board was used to discuss use case prioritisation, with 3 questions posed, and a view to take a recommendation to Steering Group: 
    • Do you have any advice for the prioritisation of the use cases?
    • Can you provide any advice on the use cases? 
    • Is there anything you think’s missing in there?
      • For the use case focusing on proof of concept, there was discussion surrounding the sharing of customer data between bordering water companies, for non-billed customers. It was noted that communication is an important aspect of this use case, and also needs to be explored from a policy perspective. 
      • It was agreed that Stream should continue to explore this work and proof of concept to understand this further 
      • It was noted that the use case focusing on lead would be valuable to proceed with due to the fact it affects all companies and there is the potential to get ahead of the problem as an industry
      • It was discussed that asset data is a very large data domain with further exploration needed to assess whether a use case focussing on a particular asset class would be a better way to proceed 

Formal records, including attendees, are maintained by the secretariat, and are confidential to the Advisory Group members.