Watchdogs and industry share regulation wishlists at British Water conference

“The strategy is missing,” chief drinking water inspector Marcus Rink told British Water’s annual conference last week when asked by the membership body’s chief executive Lila Thompson what he would like to see change in how the water sector is regulated.

Rink reflected that different parties currently have different views on what good performance looks like, and we as a sector are “losing our direction” on making balanced decisions on where we need to go.

He argued the sector needs to be more strategic, planned and paced in its approach as there is “no point trying to solve everything all at once” – plus the UK sector performs strongly in a lot of areas against international comparators, on the wastewater side as well as on drinking water quality. “Let’s calm down a bit,” he urged, and be more strategic.

Thompson posed the question at the conference to a panel on regulation, in light of the Cunliffe Review. Environment Agency chief executive Philip Duffy highlighted his three priorities for the review: that the regime needs to have longer term vision, taking in issues such as pharmaceuticals and sludge destinations as well as today’s matters; that complexity is an issue and the cost of regulation is too high; and that more attention should be given to stakeholders beyond the water industry in catchments, a task he likened to “unscrambling an omelette”. 

Water UK chief executive David Henderson said he wanted to see “faster, cheaper and simpler” regulation. Asked by Thompson whether regulation was broken, Henderson said it is, citing the government’s view, public outrage over sewage in rivers, complex regulation with clashing duties, and Moody’s downgrade of the whole sector. He said the Cunliffe Review was “not before time”.

Rink’s view was that regulation is not fundamentally broken, but it could work better. He highlighted specifically that “we need to think about how it’s run”. Rink cited timings within the framework and the behaviours of regulators. “We shouldn’t be competing against each other as regulators,” he said, advocating more consistency and collective outcomes.

Duffy said some elements of regulation work well; others less well.