Interim Report of the Independent Commission on Water
Independent Commission on Water Interim Report
The Independent Commission on Water, led by former Bank of England Deputy Governor Sir Jon Cunliffe, released its Interim Findings on Tuesday 3rd June after a wide-scale public consultation which the Test & Itchen Association responded to. The Final Report is expected in the summer.
The Report addresses some complex issues around the regulation and management of the water sector. You can read the full Independent Commission on Water Interim Report here.
Report Findings
Unsurprisingly, the Commission found that the water sector in England and Wales is broken and has lost public trust. It says the sector needs clearer direction from Government and stronger regulation to better protect the public and the environment. The sector should be more focused on long term investment in infrastructure and making sure our water system can cope with increasing pressure from climate change and increasing demand.
Key Points
The Interim Report makes a number of points that are encouraging:
- Improving the condition of our water can’t be done by the water industry alone. Other sectors, such as agriculture, can have as important an impact on, for example, pollution and the Government needs to address these too.
- Historically too much emphasis has been placed on short term savings rather than doing what is needed to protect the environment and longer term environmental targets have been left to drift.
- Much more needs to be done to manage the increasing pressures on the water supply – such as tackling leaks, saving water and greater use of water reuse and recycling measures.
- There should be greater regional and local involvement in decisions about management of water, with a strong role for local authorities.
- That the legal framework surrounding water is complex and often contradictory and requires rationalisation. The Commission questions whether the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017 (WFD) is sufficiently broad in the scope of its protection.
- The law is over-prescriptive and needs updating to enable water companies to invest in innovations and solutions with wider benefits such as nature-based solutions.
- There is a need for greater clarity on the benefits that environmental investment provides to people and the economy.
- The need to end siloed policymaking and make sure that plans for water, nature recovery and land management are joined up.
- The Commission is exploring the principle of ‘extended producer responsibility’ to tackle pollutants from multiple sources that find their way into our rivers.
- It will make recommendations in the final report about reform of Ofwat and the Environment Agency and recognises that a lack of resources has hampered environmental regulators. The report does recognise the need for a stronger role for regulators.
Gaps & Omissions
However, the Report does not address a number of issues such as:
- Extra protection for irreplaceable habitats such as chalk streams
- Planning reforms such as ending the automatic right of connection for developers irrespective of its impact on the local infrastructure
- Whether water company fines should be ring fenced for environmental restoration.
- A role for catchment partnerships in the future arrangements is mentioned, but the Report does not give more clarity on that role
- Poor incentives on pollution targets that drive water companies to concentrate on the larger urban waste water treatment plants over smaller rural plants
- It references River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) as a vehicle to deliver improvements but does not reference the need for Programmes of Measures required to put things right as advocated by the Angling Trust in their consultation response.
Our View
Our view is that the Commission’s direction of travel is encouraging and addresses some of the systemic problems of the water system. However, there didn’t seem to be a recognition of the scale and pace of reform needed to prevent further decline of the condition of our rivers, let alone their restoration to health.
We would like to see a clearer and more ambitious agenda set for progress on the environment from the report and would hope the Commission will produce clearer signposting to the reforms required, including the omissions listed above, so that government are clear on the scale of the legislative and policy work required by them to fulfill the public mandate to restore our rivers to health. We will continue to work with other NGOs to influence the debate and the work to come.
