At a 2005 Foresight Research Partnership Underground Assets workshop, UK Water Industry needs with respect to deterioration, performance indicators and risk assessment for buried infrastructure assets were identified and defined. A 'road map' was drawn up that defines a route towards achieving an effective risk management strategy for sewer systems.
In 2004 the National Audit Office published a report Out of sight - not out of mind.
Into the impact of Ofwat's regulatory activites on the public sewer system. The report highlighted the need for longer term assessments of future demand within the sewerage serrvices. It also identified a need for sewerage utiilities to develop an understanding of the rate of deterioration of their sewerage assets. It strongly supported the use of risk based asset management adn the use of cost benefit approaches to evaluate schemes.
In looking to take this forward with programmes of work it was identified that a significant number of the needs identified at the workshop, and the defined outcomes in the road map with respect tosewers, could be achieved by exploiting the existing risk based approach embodied in the Sewerage Rehabilitation Manual. This could be done by updating the approach to ensure that it provided the industry, in time to be of use in PR09 planning, with a risk management approach to sewerage services. This then was how the new SRM website was started, with the focus strongly on Sewerage Risk Management (SRM), the new definition of the SRM acronym.
The finally agreed programme of work to be incorporated in the SRM was subsequently influenced by further workshop discussions and related developments stated in July 2006, and is the response to a number of important drivers for change.
Updated: 4/12/2012