6. Private Water Supplies Regulatory Charges

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1 DE District Executive 1 st April Private Water Supplies Regulatory Charges Executive Portfolio Holder: Ric Pallister, Housing, Environmental Health, and Inclusion Strategic Director: Vega Sturgess, (Operations and Customer Focus) Assistant Director: Service Manager: Laurence Willis, Assistant Director (Environment) Alasdair Bell, Environmental Health Manager Lead Officer: Vicki Dawson, Principal Environmental Protection Officer Contact Details: Vicki.dawson@southsomerset.gov.uk or (01458) Purpose of the Report Following the introduction of new regulations relating to private water supplies, the purpose of this report is to seek agreement to a proposed set of charges to discharge the relevant duties for water sampling and assessment. Forward Plan This report has appeared on the District Executive Forward Plan with an anticipated Committee date of 1 st April Public Interest A private water supply (PWS), covered by existing regulations, is defined as any water supply that is not provided by a statutory water undertaker, i.e. is not a mains supply, with the water itself coming from a spring, well, borehole, pond or stream. The owner or the person who uses such a supply is responsible for repairing and maintaining it. A supply may serve just one property or it could be a large supply serving many properties. Households who use private water supplies do not pay water rates but may pay a fee to the owner of the private supply if they do not own it themselves. Any such fee would be in addition to any charges made for sampling by the local authority. Local authorities are required to inspect and sample such supplies to ensure they are clean and safe to drink. Existing regulations stipulate what inspection and sampling has to be carried out and also makes provision for authorities to recover the costs incurred in undertaking such duties. New regulations have recently been published introducing a new sampling regime and fee structure that allows the local authority to set new charges. This report sets out recommendations for how the new charges should be determined and what those new charges should be. Recommendations (1) To agree to the proposed charges detailed in the report to recover the costs incurred by the council in discharging the duties of the Private Water Supplies Regulations (2) To agree that increase due to inflation will be reviewed annually alongside other Environmental Health fees and charges. Background In 1991 The Private Water Supplies Regulations 1991 (the 1991 regulations ) made local authorities responsible for ensuring that private water supplies used for human Meeting: DE11A 09:10 1 Date:

2 consumption or food production met certain standards. These standards were set to eliminate adverse potential effects to health as well as adverse effects on the taste, odour and appearance of the supply. The 1991 regulations specified how often samples should have been taken and what the particular supply had to be tested for. For example, premises preparing food for sale have a higher sampling frequency than domestic premises. They made the local authority responsible for holding information on all private water supplies in it s district as well as setting out how much could be charged for the taking and testing of samples. Since these regulations were introduced officers in Environmental Health have routinely sampled PWSs and required action to be taken where failures of the standards were identified to ensure that the supplies were safe and wholesome to use. New Regulations The Private Water Supplies Regulations 2009 (the 2009 regulations ) were laid before parliament in late 2009 and came into force on 1 st January These regulations completely update the previous regulations to comply with requirements of and EU Directive by introducing a number of new requirements. There is still a requirement for local authorities to sample all supplies, with the exception of single domestic supplies, to ensure they are safe and wholesome to drink. The frequency of sampling and some of the parameters subject to testing have however changed. The key new requirements are: 1. A risk assessment must be carried out on all PWSs within 5 years of the regulations coming into force. 2. Enforcement powers are strengthened where a problem supply is identified. 3. The risk assessment and sampling of water supplied via private distribution systems (PDS) is required for the first time. These are systems where mains water is supplied to a location but then further distributed by someone other than the water undertaker. 4. Full records will need to be maintained and submitted annually to the Drinking Water Inspectorate (who oversee the implementation of all drinking water regulation in the UK). Cost recovery Regulation 21 and Schedule 5 to the 2009 regulations make provision for local authorities to make a charge for certain activities required by the regulations. The charge may only cover the reasonable cost of providing the service and is subject to maximum limits. The fee is payable by the owner or users of the water supply. Under the 1991 regulations there was a similar provision for charging for sampling and a charge of 50 per sample (the maximum allowed) was made by this authority. As the maximum limit has been revised these charges need to be reviewed. Under the 2009 regulations charges can be recovered for the following: i. risk assessment ii. sampling iii. investigation iv. granting an authorisation DE Meeting: DE11A 09:10 2 Date:

3 DE v. analysis The cost of each of these will vary in terms of officer time and resources required. It is therefore proposed to set the charges based on the officer costs per full hour plus any extra analysis/resource costs. For sampling however, the time involved is roughly the same in most cases and to be equitable to all supply owners it is proposed to set this as a fixed fee. If, however a sample is taken at the same time as a risk assessment is carried out then the sampling time will form part of the overall risk assessment time and be charged accordingly i.e. a separate sampling charge will not be made. The analysis costs are set by the laboratory. The amount charged to the customer will simply be the charge that the laboratory makes for undertaking the analysis. This is a constant charge dependant upon the parameters sampled for. A set of analysis charges will be agreed with a designated lab. Recommended charges The 2009 regulations create additional duties for local authorities to discharge. No extra resources have been provided to do this and so full cost recovery is considered appropriate. The regulations make provision for costs to be recovered for the activities undertaken by local authorities in ensuring that private water supplies are suitable for use. In public supplies the costs of the statutory water undertakers are passed on through water rates and bills and so it is considered equitable that charges are made for private supplies as well. It is therefore recommended that the following charges are set: Activity Charge Notes Hourly rate for risk assessments, investigations, granting of authorisations Sample charge-this is the cost of taking the sample only. The water analysis costs are extra Analysis costs 25 per hour 60 per sample As charged by the laboratory, to be passed on in full to the customer A minimum of 50 for risk assessments will be charged to cover 2 hours administration and travel. 25 per hour thereafter will be charged for all additional time. Where a sample is taken at the same time as a risk assessment visit, then the sampling time will be added to that for the risk assessment, and a total charge based on the hourly rate only will be made. Meeting: DE11A 09:10 3 Date:

4 The maximum charges that can be recovered are set by the 2009 regulations as follows: Risk assessments 500 Sampling (each visit) 100 Investigation 100 Granting an authorisation 100 Analysis under reg Analysis during check monitoring 100 Analysis during audit monitoring 500 Impact on users of Private Water Supplies The table below indicates the cost of sampling five different category water supplies in 2009 under the 1991 regulations, and the equivalent five supplies under the 2009 regulations. Small domestic supplies (old Cat 1-E) are only sampled once every five years and so are allocated 0.2 sampling visits a year. The table shows the cost to the supply owner for the sample visit only, which is the local authority proportion of the total charge. It also shows the full cost including analysis. The analysis charges are set by the laboratories and have been passed on in full. The analysis costs for the 2009 regulations are an estimate at this time as laboratories are still calculating their charges for the new requirements. Under the 2009 regulations analysis will also vary from supply to supply based on risk, and in the highest risk supplies analysis costs could be several hundred pounds more than listed here. These costs are therefore based on a typical set of analysis costs for comparison purposes but actual charges may vary. DE Commercial >100m3 (Cat 2-2 large commercial supplies) Commercial >10m3 (Cat 2-4 small commercial supplies) Commercial <10m3 (Cat 2-5 Dairies, B&Bs ) Domestic >10m3 (Cat 1-D larger domestic supplies more than 50 people ) Domestic <10m3 (Cat 1-D & 1-E small domestic supplies - less than 50 people ) Sampling element (SSDC) 1991 regs 50 per visit 2009 regs 60 per visit Sampling and analysis 1991 regs 2009 regs , It can be seen from this table that using the proposed sampling charges there will be an increase in charges to all but the larger commercial supplies. Most of this increase, however, is due to the increased analysis that is required by the regulations and is outside of our control. It should also be borne in mind that the domestic supplies will supply more than one property (routine sampling is not required for single supplies), and whilst payment arrangements vary, usually these costs will be divided between several households. Meeting: DE11A 09:10 4 Date:

5 Additional to the sampling and analysis charges above is the cost of risk assessing the supply. This can range from the proposed minimum fee of 50, to cover administration and travel, up to the maximum fee of 500, with a risk assessment being required once every five years. A sampling visit can be carried out at the same time as a risk assessment, with the cost of the sampling visit being incorporated within the cost of the risk assessment. We have made contact with the owners of private water supplies in the district to make them aware of the changing regulations including during the consultation process to draw to their attention possible implications and their ability to take part in the consultation. Cost of mains water for comparison purposes The average domestic water rate (not including sewerages charges) charged by Wessex Water for the period is 187. Wessex Water provides water to commercial businesses at a rate of 1.71 per cubic metre. Therefore a commercial premise using on average ten cubic metres of water per day would spend approximately per year on water. Financial Implications The 2009 regulations create additional duties for local authorities to discharge in relation to private water supplies. The new requirement to risk assess all supplies and those relating to private distribution systems will have most impact in terms of officer time. The additional time for risk assessments will be met through a combination of reduced sampling requirements and time freed up due to fewer inspections required under other legislation enforced by the Environmental Protection Team. The work required on private distribution systems is as yet an unknown quantity. Further guidance is expected from the DWI in April. For the time being it is expected that the requirements will be managed within existing resources, but until the further guidance is available, and further work undertaken to establish the extent of these supplies in the district this cannot be confirmed. Currently charges are made (up to the maximum allowed) for recovering costs associated with the sampling of private water supplies under the existing 1991 regulations. The total income for 2009, based on 144 sample 50 per visit, was 7,200. Income and expenditure relating to the analysis element will cancel each other out as the charges are passed on to the customer in full. For the same supplies under the 2009 regulations, the number of sample visits will reduce to 98. If the sample fee is increased to 60 per visit as proposed, this will result in total income of 5,880, a net loss to the budget of 1,320. In addition to this, however, under the 2009 regulations there will also be income from the risk assessments. It is projected that 27 risk assessments will be carried out each year. There is a proposed minimum administration charge to these of 50. Assuming an average site visit time of 3 hours on top of this would result in an average risk assessment charge of 125. This would result in further income of 1,755 ( 3,375 less 1,620 reduction in sampling fees for these 27 supplies). This would therefore balance the loss of sampling income. As the charges will be based on an hourly rate it is difficult to quantify precisely how much the income will be at this time, however, the revised charging structure proposed in this report gives confidence that there will be no detriment to the Environmental Health budget whilst recovering the reasonable cost incurred with this work. DE Meeting: DE11A 09:10 5 Date:

6 DE Risk Matrix Impact F R,CY,CP,CpP Likelihood Key Categories R = Reputation CpP = Corporate Plan Priorities CP = Community Priorities CY = Capacity F = Financial Colours (for further detail please refer to Risk management strategy) Red = High impact and high probability Orange = Major impact and major probability Yellow = Moderate impact and moderate probability Green = Minor impact and minor probability Blue = Insignificant impact and insignificant probability Corporate Priority Implications There are little if any implications for any corporate Priorities. The requirements to inspect and sample private water supplies are mandatory. Carbon Emissions & Adapting to Climate Change Implications (NI188) There are no direct implications for carbon emissions in this report however, with fewer sampling visits required it is expected that travel will be slightly reduced. Equality and Diversity Implications Private water supplies are found mostly in rural communities. For the majority of the supplies there will be an increase in annual costs and this will therefore impact mostly on those rural communities. Other communities will, however, be subject to water rates which tend to exceed the average sampling and analysis fee. Background Papers: Private Water Supplies Regulations 2009 Meeting: DE11A 09:10 6 Date: