Dr. Matthew Crowe:

I am looking at some of our more detailed recommendations. We have a set of recommendations on governance and local authorities, which deal with enforcement and compliance. It is recommended that every local authority appoint a water framework directive officer. There is a bit about transparency and accountability there as well. One of the problems is that the local authorities probably have been under-resourced for water protection for a long time.

Nearly 20 years ago local authorities implemented a set of regulations called the phosphorous regulations which even preceded the water framework directive. Some local authorities took advantage of that at the time. Some local authorities are better resourced than others. LAWPRO was established as part of the second river basin management plan as a shared service for local government to deal with water quality in a much more targeted way. It focuses all its efforts on the areas for action which were identified in the plan and working with ASSAP and various others to do that. The gap that is left is the rest. Another part of the jigsaw that needs to be put together for the third river basin management plan is to address the gap in local authority resourcing for the water framework directive. Local authorities carry most of the responsibility for overall water management and water protection.