Call-Off Legal Advice for Water 2020

The objective is for the Client to have a Call off Agreement in place for legal services which, together with the in house legal function, will enable the Water 2020 programme to obtain legal expertise and technical support needed in order to meet its requirements. Ofwat requires high quality relevant legal advice in an approachable, appropriate and timely manner to enable the relevant Ofwat policy teams to deal with / respond to matters within the set legal or policy time frames.

Scope of Work and Services

The Call off Agreement will support the delivery of legal advice on any aspect of the Water 2020 programme. The scope of work may include, but is not limited to, legal advice on:

• making modifications to undertakers’ licences to deliver the 2019 price controls and the new requirements arising from the Water Act 2014; • determining non household retail price controls; • making charging rules, including for wholesale charges and charges for new connections to undertakers’ systems; • determining in period adjustments to price controls for certain companies for incentives/penalties dependent on the company’s performance in delivering outcomes; • finalising aspects of adjustments for the last year of the 2014 price control based on recently submitted actual figures; • designing the methodology to determine price controls for the 2019 price review; • designing the risk based review to assess companies’ business plans ahead of the 2019 price review determinations; • designing the market architecture for upstream market reform as envisaged by Water Act 2014.

The scope of legal services is likely to involve the provision of advice in relation to:

• Regulatory law and regulatory framework; • Public law; • Competition law; • European law; • Environmental law; • Corporate and commercial law; • Outsourcing and contracting out of services; • Regulatory instruments (operation of and drafting licences, charging rules, statutory and non-statutory codes); • Internal and external publications and communications; • Litigation and dispute resolution, including CMA references relevant to Ofwat’s work.

The Contractor may also be required to provide advice on an ad hoc basis on matters relating to: freedom of information, data protection, consumer law, state aid, tax, intellectual property and information technology.

Additional information: Please note that this is a call-off contract so it is difficult to quantify exact spend.