Water company
Incidents and Prosecutions

    Incidents

    Prosecutions

Events and Incidents affecting drinking water quality

The Water Undertakers (Information) Direction 2004 requires water companies to inform the Inspectorate of all events that have affected, or are likely to affect drinking water quality, or sufficiency of supplies and, where as a result, there may be arisk to consumers' health.  When notified, Inspectors assess the water company's provisional information to determine whether the event is an incident.  If the event is deemed to be an incident a full report from the company may also be required.  The Inspector assesses all the information available to determine:

• what caused the problem and whether or not it was avoidable;
• what the company did in response and how it handled the incident;
• what lessons can be learned to prevent similar incidents in the future;
• if there were any breaches of enforceable regulations; and
• whether the company supplied water that was unfit for human consumption.

There are several typical outcomes of an incident assessment by an Inspector:

• A letter sent to the company, copied to other relevant parties;
• A letter sent to the company, coped to other relevant parties, making recommendations for action which the company must take to address deficiencies revealed by the incident;
• Enforcement action initiated against the company: a legal process to ensure the company takes all the necessary action to prevent further breaches of either a regulatory duty or a drinking water standard; other relevant parties are informed; and
• Initiation of prosection proceedings against the company or the issue of a formal caution for a criminal offence; other relevant parties are informed.

    List of  Incidents  in England and Wales 2006  (Adobe 231KB)   as reported in the latest Chief Inspectors report

DWI's Prosecution policy towards incidents

The Inspectorate will recommend to the Secretary of State that a prosecution be brought for an alleged offence under section 70 of the Water Industry Act 1991 of supplying water which was unfit for human consumption when:

1. it has evidence to demonstrate that:
   1. illness or other health effect was experienced by normally at least two consumers which was associated with the quality of the water supplied; or
   2. the quality of the water supplied was such that normally at least two consumers rejected it for drinking or cooking or food production on aesthetic grounds; or
   3. the concentration of a substance in, or the value of a property of, the water supplied was at a level at which illness or other health effect may be epected in the long term even though none was manifest in the community at the time: and
2. the Inspectorate considers that the water company does not have a defence that it took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence for securing that the water was fit on leaving its pipes or was not used for human consumption: and
3. such a prosection is regarded as being in the public interest.

For those incidents that do not justify full Court proceedings the Inspectorate may issue a caution which the Court could take into account in any future offences.

    A full list of all Prosections and Cautions can be viewed here in Adobe Acrobat ®.

Summary of Incidents and Prosecutions 2002- 2005

The table below gives the number of prosecutions and cautions, the investigation of which were concluded between 2002 and 2005.  In studying the table it is important to take into account the following:

• The number of incidents occurring can be expected to be approximately proportional to the size of the water company, and particularly the length of the distribution system.
• Companies with no incidents in the categories specified are not included in the table
• Many are minor incidents affecting only a few consumers
• Many of the incidents occur for reasons outside the control of water companies e.g. burst main
• Prosecution cases can take at least a year to get to court so they do not necessarily reflect the position today.