Six Londonderry NI Water jobs were not affected by Ballymena shake-up

Foyle SDLP MLA Mark H. Durkan challenged the Minister to explain the shake-up by tabling an Assembly Question and asking why NI Water “restructured its services in the Ballymena area, which resulted in six job losses in the Derry area; and moved the Craigavon managed metering services to Ballymena.”

The Minister said the company shake-up did not affect staff in Londonderry as no customer connections work was undertaken here previous to the move.

He stated: “I have been advised by Northern Ireland Water (NIW) that following an efficiency review of its customer connections function, the work was streamlined and centralised in Ballymena to improve service delivery to developers.

“None of the customer connections work was undertaken in Londonderry, so there was no loss of jobs in that area as a result of the review.”

He also advised that the transfer of the manager of metering services role from Craigavon to Ballymena was the result of a successful job applicant’s stated preference.

“With regard to the manager role for metering services, formerly based in Craigavon, became vacant in 2009 and the post was advertised internally as being available at one of a number of NIW locations in order to attract a wider pool of eligible applicants.

“The successful applicant’s preferred location, and one that could organisationally be accommodated by NIW, was Ballymena,” stated Mr Kennedy.