Independent Water Commission: Our call to restore rivers

In response to public pressure and concerns about the state of our water environment the Government set up an Independent Water Commission chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe; you can read the full terms of reference for the Commission available here. Essentially, Government has asked the Commission to undertake a wide-scale review of the water sector in England and Wales, and make recommendations on how structures and governance may be improved to make sure that the sector is fit for the future – particularly around financial resilience, environmental performance and customer service.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to change the way we manage our water environment, so we have been busily gathering evidence to feed into the Commission. We have taken part in workshops, roundtables and meetings, and we have convened experts to gather consensus wherever possible, to present a united voice to the Commission on a few key topics. The Commission has been gathering evidence throughout the year and launched a public Call for Evidence, which closed to written submissions on 23 April. The Commission is due to make its recommendations to the Government in June.

Rivers Trusts across the country deliver huge benefits to our river catchments. Our approach to working in partnership, collaborating at the local level to restore our rivers for people and wildlife, has proven to be extremely effective, but is being severely hampered by lack of investment, regulatory failures, poor governance and data gaps. Therefore, our evidence to the Commission, supported by numerous Rivers Trusts, has focussed on presenting solutions around improved catchment governance and integrated catchment monitoring. If taken forward by Government, these solutions would enable us to deliver evidence-based actions at the pace and scale required to revive our rivers and catchments, for the benefit of people and nature, as we face a rapidly changing climate.

Throughout our evidence, we highlight several key elements that would enable the water system to deliver more effectively for customers, the environment, and wider society. These key elements are:

• A new integrated catchment governance framework – that joins up decision making across sectors and between local, regional and national levels to drive the recovery of our rivers and catchments at the pace and scale necessary. To help achieve this, we recommend making a virtue of existing structures, e.g. strengthening the role and resourcing of Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) Catchment Partnerships. Critically, this framework must fill the “missing middle” of regional governance, by establishing regional bodies to coordinate planning and funding for integrated water management.
• A unified catchment monitoring framework – that brings together data from a variety of sources, including regulatory and research monitoring as well as our engaged network of citizen scientists, to build a more comprehensive picture of our water environment. This will help drive evidence-based and effective action.
• Appropriately funded, firm but fair regulation – with regulators given clear direction to carry out regulatory activities across all sectors. To support this more active regulatory approach, regulators should be released from conflicting planning and partnership-delivery responsibilities. Regulators should be directed to take a more outcomes-focused approach, which drives improved environmental outcomes.
• National targets with clear delivery pathways – that drive meaningful progress towards reviving our rivers, their catchments, and the wider environment, while enabling cross-sector collaboration towards these shared outcomes.
• Coordinated funding and investment in multi-benefit solutions – bringing together different funding streams from various sectors to tackle issues in a coordinated way, thereby attracting private sector finance and scaling up actions for greater impact.