Water Commission announcement reaction

CIWEM welcomes the government’s announcement of an independent water commission, and review, chaired by Sir John Cunliffe today. But there are fundamentals missing from the review’s scope that will jeopardise its impact from the outset says CIWEM policy director Alastair Chisholm.

Back in January this year, CIWEM published A Fresh Water Future – an independent assessment of water sector performance and governance and a co-created expert, stakeholder and public vision for future water management in the UK.

At the launch of the review, attended by the now water minister Emma Hardy MP, CIWEM’s policy director Alastair Chisholm said:

“We need the next government – whoever they may be – to deliver a fresh water future. And so: After 30 years of privatised water, agricultural intensification, climate change, light touch regulation, and policy drift: A full, independent review of water management and regulation… reflecting how central water is to so many aspects of our wellbeing and prosperity.”

“Reporting inside the first year allowing time for real action across the remainder of the next government’s term in office.

"This will need to review the water regulators. Whilst it may be simplistic to pin all regulatory and enforcement challenges on resource, resoundingly practitioners pointed at this as a fundamental root cause. Bigger pressures need stronger regulators to protect an environment that cannot protect itself. And that we as a society rely on.”

We are delighted that the government has announced it is going to deliver an independent commission on water, to report just before this government finishes its first year in office. Very little in relation to the water industry is off the table – from ownership models to regulators. This is as it should be for a serious review, which should rightly look at how water management should best serve the needs of customers and the environment.

It is pleasing that strategic planning – particularly at the catchment level – is high on the list of objectives for the commission. But this points also to where the government has got it wrong with this review. It is focused almost entirely on the water industry. Agriculture, urban and transport infrastructure runoff pollution, the impacts of development (which hugely impacts on sewage pollution and water abstraction pressure, as well as flood risk) on water resilience are barely visible in the mix.

If there’s one thing that rigid water regulation and engineering, urbanisation and agricultural intensification have taught us over the past few decades, it’s that failure to manage water – which falls across our entire landscape – as close to its source as possible misses the opportunity to minimise resilience risks and maximise value from it in the most sustainable and cost-effective way. This should be the starting point for government’s consideration of water and how it can contribute to Labour’s growth agenda.

The closest the review appears to get to this, is on catchment planning and delivery – the way in which everything going on in our river catchments is understood and dealt with in a systematic way. This will need to become a crucial strand of the review for it to stand a hope of being able to consider water properly. But it risks leaving a catchment model separated from the distinct agriculture, housing and transport policy siloes that inform their priorities and their impact on water.

Nevertheless, this is a review of serious import and represents a generational opportunity to lift performance in a key area of water management. We hope the review’s Chair recognises the integrated nature of water systems and that looking at the water industry almost in isolation is hitting only a small part of the target.

For further comment contact alastair.chisholm@ciwem.org