About the program
The Town Water Risk Reduction Program started in 2020 in response to growing concerns about the resilience, safety, and sustainability of regional water services across New South Wales. The Program was designed to address systemic risks in town water supply, including ageing infrastructure, workforce shortages, and ineffective regulatory and governance settings in the LWU sector.
From 2020 to 2025, the program laid the groundwork for sector-wide improvements through targeted support, and collaborative reform efforts. Now in its third phase, the program has been extended to 2028.
Our vision for town water
The department’s overarching goal for this program is to work collaboratively with stakeholders to build a town water sector where:
- stakeholders, including the department, work together, sharing data and knowledge, consulting and collaborating with one another, and supporting each other where applicable
- local water utilities are supported to manage safe, secure and sustainable water supply and sewerage services in an efficient and customer-focused manner
- the regulation of local water utilities is focused on outcomes, based on risk and the maturity of local water utilities, and is fair and transparent. Regulators are accountable and well-coordinated.
Stakeholder engagement
We are committed to effective and genuine communication and engagement with stakeholders and the broader community. The department recognises that engaging with stakeholders and the community leads to better public policy outcomes, improved service delivery and enhanced customer satisfaction.
The program continues to provide opportunities for stakeholders to contribute to projects development through a wide range of engagement mechanisms, including:
- advisory panels
- focus groups
- working groups
- webinars
- workshops
- engagement with key stakeholders
- public consultations.
Program phases
Phase 3 of the Town Water Risk Reduction Program is investing $15 million into regional and remote towns from 2025 until 2028. It will:
- deliver $2 million in funding through Advanced Operational Support to enable 20 Local Water Utilities to carry out critical infrastructure upgrades that will lock-in a more secure, top quality water supply.
- take a holistic approach to workforce development through attraction and recruitment strategies and resources, fostering career growth, supporting existing employees, strengthening industry specific training programs to ensure a skilled and capable workforce, while encouraging industry wide collaboration
- develop critical reforms in response to the Productivity and Equality Commission’s Review of Funding Models for Local Water Utilities, enabling the sector to deliver more efficient town water services to regional NSW communities
- support local water utilities to identify upstream risks and equip councils with practical tools to manage them before they reach treatment systems.
Phase 2 of the Program activities aimed to:
- address critical skills shortages and boost water operations training and employment opportunities in regional NSW for school leavers, Aboriginal and First Nations students and existing water operators, in partnership with Training Services NSW. Key deliverables included a new competency benchmark for water operators and a workforce development roadmap for local water utilities
- deliver a new program in partnership with NSW Health to help optimise the performance of high-risk water treatment infrastructure using innovative technology so that more regional towns have reliable, resilient and safe water services
- enable local water utilities to accelerate responses to audits to improve local dam safety and address water quality risks, leveraging the systems and expertise of WaterNSW.
Read: Evaluation of Phase 2 Town Water Risk Reduction Program report
Phase 1 of the Program activities aimed to:
- improve the regulatory and support framework or local water utilities
- improve access to skills and training
- encourage greater collaboration
- facilitate greater state government support
- investigate alternative funding models
Read: Evaluation of Phase 1 Town Water Risk Reduction Program
Contact us
For more information call us on 1300 081 047 or email us at water.enquiries@dcceew.nsw.gov.au