Legal Advice in relation to Ofwat's Finance and Governance Programme

The Finance and Governance programme is undertaking a range of work to explore the scope of companies' responsibilities in relation to resilience in the round, therefore across operational, corporate and financial resilience. External legal support is likely to be required on discrete legal questions or discrete areas of support in the following areas as well as on strands of project work to support the development of policy positions, consultations with stakeholders and decision-making.

Our aim is to appoint a single firm or company to provide external legal support on this range of issues. We intend to commence the contract no later than 1 March 2018 and therefore the successful firm will need to hit the ground running. We expect the call off contract to run through to end September 2018 (7 months with the option of a 2 month extension). However, the bulk of the work is likely to be required in March 2018 and no commitment is made to specific elements of work after end March 2018.

Details of specific tasks will be developed on appointment and as policy thinking develops.

Panel Services required include but are not limited to:

Within that we may need support in relation to the operation of and drafting of licence conditions; and internal and external publications and communications.

Ad hoc advice may be needed in other areas under the set of mandatory services under the General Legal Services Framework (RM3786), including without limitation: tax, employment law, EU law, and pension's law.

The areas of work relate to the following broad workstreams or projects being undertaken within the Finance and Governance programme. The specific tasks and deliverables will be determined in parallel with the evolving policy development.

Financial and corporate resilience

We are exploring a range of issues here in considering risks to resilience in both the short and the long term. We expect to require legal support in the following range of areas, but this is not ex

Board leadership, transparency and governance

Ofwat put in place principles on Board Leadership, Transparency and Governance in 2014, and compliance with such principles is included as a condition in a small number of undertakers' licences.

We intend to revise and update these principles in 2018 to reflect best practice and ensure they remain fit for purpose.

Change of control

Ofwat is considering a number of issues prompted by changes of control within the sector. Ofwat is looking for support to explore lessons to be learned as well as potentially to support on any new transactions.

General

Within the above, in terms of the specific legal work required, some of the advice we seek will be strategic advice by reference to Ofwat's functions and duties, but we also intend to ask for some short and discrete pieces of comparative analysis, for example, by reference to other regulatory regimes.