12 May 2006
The Public Accounts Committee has called for the Environment Agency to tighten up its regulations to preserve water resources and safeguard the environment.
The agency regulates the amount of water taken from rivers, lakes and reservoirs by water companies, farmers and industry, and which amounts to 36 million litres each day.
But the MPs said that data failures meant the agency had incorrectly apportioned between £650,000 and £1.7m of its flood risk management activity costs each year to water resource management.
Committee chair Edward Leigh said: 'There is not enough focus at present on the regular checking of those sites where water shortages and other problems are really likely to occur.
'The agency has dragged its heels in introducing better information systems. [It] needs to streamline its water resource management activities.'
In its report Efficiency in water resource management, published on May 9, the PAC says that the need for better management information was identified by the agency in 2001.
'But progress has been slow, and full activity-based costing data are unlikely to be available until 2007/08,' it says. Its asset management strategy will not be implemented until April 2006, partly due to the time taken by the agency to acquire the necessary expertise to oversee the project.
Agency staff undertake 147,000 site visits a year to retrieve data on water levels, and to maintain monitoring instruments. The agency said it now intends to appoint area environment managers to oversee the network and the costs charged to water resource management.
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