Focus on Veolia

Jan. 11, 2018, 6 a.m. by HelenMcNally

Helen McNally

Waste, water and energy specialist Veolia has contracts throughout the UK public sector, mainly for waste management and utilities, including a recent long term contract with Croydon, Sutton, Kingston and Merton councils in London.¹

We investigated all public sector spending with Veolia and Veolia owned companies, including Affinity Water. This has growth by 61% from 2012 to 2016 with the greatest change between 2013 and 2014 of 40%.

Although annual growth appears to slowing, with only a 2% change from 2015 to 2016, looking at the monthly spend reveals that growth is generally steady, with two months of high spend in March and May 2015 mainly responsible for the high overall spend in that year.

The high spending in March 2015 was caused by several high payments, possibly due to the end of the financial year, whereas the May 2015 high spend was caused by £45.5m of spending from Essex County Council, which comprised 61% of the month’s total spend.

92% of the total spend was in local government, which also saw 62% growth from 2012 to 2016, in contrast to 11% growth in central government. The biggest growth was in the NHS, growing by 88%, although the NHS only made up 4% of the total.

Of that 92%, 61% was in London. Seven of the top ten biggest buyers are in London.

Veolia’s new contracts mean it is in a strong position to continue growing in the public sector. We will continue to monitor spend to see whether these contracts change the top buyers and whether growth in the NHS affects the overall trends in spend.