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Performance Recovery

Structured recovery for underperforming water infrastructure programmes — supporting both utilities managing contractor performance failure and contractors addressing delivery challenges, with evidence-based recovery plans that protect PR29 compliance records.

When Projects Lose Trajectory

Capital projects in the water sector can lose trajectory for many reasons — inadequate scope definition, poor supply chain performance, unanticipated ground conditions, MEICA commissioning failures, or breakdowns in client-contractor relationships. Whatever the cause, the cost of delayed recovery typically compounds with each passing week.

Aqua Assurance Consulting provides structured performance recovery services to clients and contractors who need an experienced external perspective — and a credible recovery plan — at the point when internal resource has exhausted its options or lost the confidence of stakeholders.

Experience tells us that most project failures have identifiable root causes — and that structured recovery is achievable in the majority of cases when the right disciplines are applied early enough.

Recovery Intervention Services

  • Independent project health assessment and root cause analysis
  • Recovery plan development with achievable baseline, milestones and resource requirements
  • Programme re-sequencing and critical path analysis
  • Cost-to-complete assessment and EAC (Estimate at Completion) modelling
  • Supply chain performance management and re-procurement where required
  • Contractual position review and NEC compensation event management
  • Stakeholder and client confidence recovery — reporting, communication and governance
  • Commissioning recovery planning for delayed MEICA programmes
  • Civil scope review and re-baselining against CESWI 8 specification requirements

Recovery Framework

Our approach to performance recovery is structured rather than reactive. We begin with a rapid diagnostic phase — typically 2–4 weeks — producing a clear statement of where the project stands, what has driven it there, and what the realistic options are for recovery. This diagnostic forms the basis of the recovery plan, agreed with the client and delivery team before implementation begins.

Crucially, the recovery plan distinguishes between what is recoverable within the original scope and contract — including whether civil works were correctly specified to CESWI 8 standards at the outset, what requires renegotiation with the client, and what constitutes genuine scope change — allowing informed decisions to be made at board level before commitments are made on the ground. For regulated utilities, our recovery plans are structured with Ofwat's PCD reporting requirements in mind, ensuring that delayed or remediated works are documented in a manner consistent with AMP8 compliance obligations and future PR29 evidence requirements.

Relevant Experience

Recovery engagements draw directly on experience spanning AMP framework delivery across the South of England, where programme and commercial interventions were required to arrest cost overruns and programme slippage on multi-disciplinary water infrastructure schemes. Structured recovery baselines, supply chain re-procurement and client confidence restoration were each deployed at different stages across treatment works and pumping station programmes — building a practical recovery toolkit that is applied directly in assignments today.

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