PRIVATE WATER SUPPLIES ENFORCEMENT POLICY Contact Officer: Ian Snudden ( )

Transcription

1 PRIVATE WATER SUPPLIES ENFORCEMENT POLICY Contact Officer: Ian Snudden ( ) RECOMMENDATIONS 1. To note the new duties being placed upon the local authority in relation to the enforcement of Private Water Supplies arising from the Drinking Water Directive. 2. To delegate final approval of the adoption of the Enforcement Policy in relation to private water supplies, subject to any amendments following final ratification of Government guidance to the Head of Health and Housing in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Health, Housing and Community Safety 3. To delegate the initial setting of fees and charges to the Head of Health and Housing in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Health, Housing and Community Safety, when guidance becomes available. Relationship to Council Objectives i) Objective 1: Efficient and Effective Customer Focussed Services ii) Objective 2B: Promote healthy living, well-being and address health inequalities Implications i) Included in the Forward Plan ii) Within the Policy and Budgetary Framework Financial Implications These Regulations are likely to create an initial increase in workload and training requirements which will need to be absorbed by the Environmental Health Section and within existing budgets. This may impact on the service delivery of other duties. Although statutory charges can be made, these have yet to be finalised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and it is unclear at this stage whether these will cover the Authority s reasonable costs, incorporating officer time as part of the assessment and sampling, sampling analysis costs and the use of an external service provider to undertake the initial detailed risk assessment. Risk Implications The regulations will impose new legal duties on the Council. Failure to discharge these duties adequately may result in legal challenge from consumers and/or owners of private water supplies and regulatory sanctions

2 by the Audit Commission, DEFRA and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI). Equalities Implications None Report 1 A private water supply is any supply which is not provided by a statutory water undertaker, such as Thames Water. The water may come from a spring, a well, a bore-hole or a stream. Every home should have a supply of good clean water to be fit for people to live in. In 1991 the Private Water Supplies Regulations 1991 were enacted, making local authorities responsible for ensuring that private supplies used for human consumption or food production meet certain standards. 2 Government has advised it will bring into force new regulations under the Drinking Water Directive (980/778/EEC). The Directive relates to the quality of water intended for human consumption and lays down for the first time a set of mandatory quality standards for drinking water throughout the European Community. 3 The Directive will impose new monitoring duties and provide stronger regulatory powers for local authorities. There will be new duties for the relevant person/s responsible for private water supplies. New revised water quality standards, a risk assessment approach, and tighter monitoring of water supplies are intended. The new regulations will specifically impact on supplies for human consumption purposes which on average provide 10 or more cubic metres of water per day or serve 50 or more persons, or are supplied or used as part of a commercial or public activity. 4 The Regulations require each local authority to carry out risk assessments of all private supplies in its area and introduces a new requirement for local authorities to monitor private distribution systems. The Regulations require the following action by the local authority in relation to the following private supplies. Commercial and larger domestic supplies - a full risk assessment must be carried out within 5 years and every 5 years thereafter; Sampling and analysis of at least 13 parameters must be done twice a year Smaller domestic supplies - Applies to small domestic supplies that provide an average daily volume of less than 10m 3 per day to more than one household. a full risk assessment must be carried out within 5 years and every 5 years thereafter; Sampling and analysis of at least 5 parameters must be done once a year, plus any others required by the risk assessment. Supplies serving a single domestic dwelling - risk assessment and related monitoring at smaller domestic supplies must be undertaken at the request

3 of the householder. Council s discretion. Additional sampling will be undertaken at the 5 The authority will be required to consider the whole supply system from catchment (borehole, spring, watercourse, lake) to tap. To identify risks from, amongst other things, livestock, wildlife, agriculture, neighboring sewage treatment plant, topography, state of storage tanks, pipe work and consider the effectiveness of any current treatment. 6 Identifying potential risks will enable owners and managers of private supplies to take steps to prevent or minimise the risk of those supplies becoming contaminated and help to reduce the amount of monitoring that would otherwise be required. Monitoring 7 The proposed Regulations set out minimum annual frequencies for the monitoring of private supplies by local authorities dependant upon the volume of water used and the number of people served. Monitoring is differentiated between check monitoring and audit monitoring. Check monitoring samples are taken at least once a year for certain parameters to determine whether or not water intended for human consumption is wholesome; and if disinfection treatment is used, to verify the efficiency of disinfection. With audit monitoring, additional parameters are sampled to provide information necessary to determine whether or not the private supply satisfies each concentration, in the schedule and, if disinfection is used, to check that disinfection by-products are as low as possible without compromising the disinfection. Investigations and remedial action 8 The Regulations require the local authority to investigate and establish the cause of a failure to meet a standard for any parameter and to negotiate with the person responsible for the private supply to try to solve a problem informally. However, if unsuccessful, the local authority must take formal action to ensure that a failure is remedied and that any risk to health is removed or minimised. Formal action may include one of the three following options: Restriction Notice - to prohibit or restrict the use of the supply that is a risk to health and if serving a Restriction Notice will not create a greater risk to health. It is an offence to breach a Restriction Notice or fail to comply with it. There is a right of appeal to the Magistrates Court. Authorisations - if a private supply is unwholesome but does not present a risk to health, an authorisation can be granted for different standards for chemical parameters. This would apply as a temporary measure until such time as the responsible person has carried out the necessary remedial action and must be for no more than three years.

4 Improvement Notice - where drinking water fails to meet a standard of wholesomeness or an indicator parameter value or specification. If a problem cannot be resolved informally and an authorisation is not granted the local authority is required to serve an Improvement Notice on one or more of the responsible persons The improvement notice will specify the works or measures necessary to remedy the failure and the period allowed to comply with the Notice. The local authority has a power to carry out the works and to recover the costs. It will be an offence to fail to comply with an Improvement Notice. There is a right of appeal to the Magistrates Court. Enforcement Policy 9 In order to ensure uniformity of enforcement and informal action, it is necessary for the authority to formally adopt an enforcement policy (Appendix 10.1). The policy is designed to ensure that the Council fulfils its statutory duties as regards to enforcement whilst at all times having regard to the needs of business, the public and the degree of risk to public health. Enforcement will be informed by the principles of proportionality in applying the law and securing compliance; consistency of approach; targeting of enforcement action, openness about how we operate and what consumers may expect and helpfulness in providing advice and assisting with compliance. Central government guidance, the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the Regulator s Compliance Code will support the policy. Public awareness about private supplies 10 Where a local authority considers that a private supply in its area is a risk to health it must take steps to ensure that consumers are informed that the supply is a risk and the measures that should be taken for the protection of health. If the supply does not meet the standard, in the first instance advice will be given on various improvements which can be made. Records of private supplies 11 Records of all private supplies in its area must be kept for up to 30 years, and local authorities will be required to report data annually to the Secretary of State. Fees 12 A local authority may charge for activities such as carrying out risk assessments, monitoring (sampling and analysis), making investigations and carrying out inspections, for example in connection with failures to meet standards and assessing the need for remedial action. It cannot charge for serving an improvement notice or a restriction notice. When an authority carries out works or measures that an owner has failed to carry out in accordance with an improvement notice, the works or measures will be at the owner s expense.

5 13 A local authority may reduce a fee if the cost of providing a service is less than the prescribed fee. The fees for check monitoring and audit monitoring are available to allow a local authority to recover the charges made by the analysing laboratory. The range of parameters examined (and therefore the cost) can be reduced in light of the findings of the risk assessment. 14 The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) expects the financial impact on local authorities to be minimised because of the power to recover their costs from the owners and users of the supplies. However, the original draft guidance underestimated the cost of the risk assessments and sampling. Although charging remains a discretionary power, Members are recommended to agree in principle to charging the maximum statutory fee as specified within the proposed guidance for all elements of private water supply regime, and on a cost recovery basis for those who are outside the scope of the Regulations. 15 In summary, Members are asked to note the implications of the Private Water Supplies Directive, to consider and agree to the Enforcement Policy and the delegations within it (Appendix 10.1) and to agree to set the fees at the proposed maximum statutory level and for those outside the scope of the Regulations, on a cost recovery basis. Background papers: None