Sector reels from "bang up bosses" call from watchdog after environmental performances wane

The water sector last week was left reeling and pondering its response after a scathing attack on company leaders and directors by Environment Agency chair, Emma Howard Boyd, in her foreword to the 2021 Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) report.

Howard Boyd called the industry’s performance “the worst we have seen for years” amounting to “a breach of trust”. Against that backdrop, she turned her guns on water company executives and investors – for taking handsome rewards “while the environment pays the price” and for wilful disregard of the environment: “The water companies are behaving like this for a simple reason: because they can. We intend to make it too painful for them to continue as they are.”

She called for:

• prison sentences for chief executives and board members whose companies are responsible for the most serious incidents;

• company directors to be struck off “so they cannot simply delete illegal environmental damage from their CVs and move on to their next role”; and

• courts to impose much higher fines for serious and deliberate pollution incidents.

The 2021 EPA results (see table) for the nine English water and sewerage companies (WASCs) were:

4* (industry leading) – Northumbrian, Severn Trent, United Utilities;

2* (requires improvement) – Anglian, Thames, Wessex, Yorkshire; and

1* (poor) – Southern and South West.

Notable among the six individual metrics was that serious pollution incidents (category 1 and 2) increased to 62, the highest since 2013 – with six water companies performing significantly below target.

The 2021 metrics were stricter and more stretching than those applied in the past, following a five-yearly review of the EPA process. The EA commented: “Not only did most companies fail to meet these new higher standards, most of them saw their performance deteriorate against the previous standards.”

In 2020, five of the nine WASCs scored 4*; two scored 3*; and two scored 2*. Welsh Water also scored 4*.