The Water Services Sector Group (WSSG) provides an important forum for water utilities to come together to share knowledge and develop capability in the areas of security, business continuity, incident and emergency management and critical infrastructure resilience for the Australian water industry.

The WSSG is different to other WSAA networks because although it comprises of representatives from WSAA members, the group is run by the Attorney General's Department in Canberra. The executive team comprises of individuals from utilities across Australia; it was recently re-elected, and WSAA is working with this new team in developing and promoting initiatives of the group.

The WSSG is one of the sector groups that fall under the Australian Government’s Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) for Critical Infrastructure Resilience. The TISN shares information on current and medium to long-term aspects of critical infrastructure resilience. It focuses particularly on sharing information relating to generic threats, vulnerabilities, cross-sector interdependencies, regulatory impediments, organisational resilience and research at the sector level. Through the TISN, business is also able to bring issues to government that are seen as impediments to achieving critical infrastructure resilience.

The WSSG is currently looking at issues around cyber security and a critical assessment tool. 

How to get involved
Membership of the group is via application to the Attorney General's Department rather than to WSAA. If you are interested in joining the WSSG, WSAA can provide details regarding the AG application process. Your utility may already have a representative; please contact Sarah Mahar for more information. The online group in WSAA's community area of the website will contain publically available documents as they are produced by the group. 
 

17 Jul 2017

Sarah Mahar

Sarah Mahar

Specialist Service Planner