Further written evidence submitted by
the Local Government Association
INTRODUCTION
1. The LGA welcomes the opportunity to submit
additional evidence to this EFRA Committee Inquiry.
LGA PROPOSAL FOR
A SUSTAINABLE
DRAINAGE FUNDING
MODEL
Summary
To support the desired expansion in SUDs, we
need a sustainable funding mechanism that will increase revenue
for maintenance as the number of SUDs increases. The LGA proposes
that the current surface water drainage charge is passed to the
Lead Local Flood Authority which will be responsible for adopting
and maintaining all new SUDs schemes. Our proposal uses money
that is already in the system.
The preferred Government model—that local
authorities are paid to deliver this function from grant or taxation
or private sewers transfer "savings":
— Is not sustainable ("savings"
from private sewers will run out after eight years).
— It is unfair—tax payers draining
surface water to sewers would subsidise customers which drain
surface water to SUDS.
— It is not a secure and expanding funding
stream and therefore, it does not provide incentives to authorities
to expand the number of SUDs and it might encourage the cheapest
rather than the most appropriate, innovative or highest quality
solutions.
Should SUDS maintenance go to Water and Sewerage
Companies?
— This would undermine the core agenda
for flood risk management that lead local authorities develop
the local strategy, are responsible for this function and are
held to account through the scrutiny process.
— As a key part of local management of
surface water, it could undermine local authorities ability to
deliver on a range of agendas.
— In line with the Pitt report, surface
water management should be managed within the planning environment.
— The Act allows for local authorities
to delegate maintenance of SUDs to other operating authorities
(including WASCs) where appropriate—this offers choice without
taking away the maintenance responsibility and allows authorities
to delegate this function as a short or long term measure (eg
to overcome capacity issues).
LGA PROPOSAL IN
DETAIL
To support the desired expansion of SUDs, it
is essential that we have a sustainable funding mechanism for
long term maintenance and replacement. We need an income stream
that expands with the number of SUDs schemes developed. The LGA
has proposed that the drainage charge for all properties drained
sustainably is used to fund long term maintenance. This is the
only way to ensure a secure, fair and affordable funding stream.
Our proposal in detail:
1. All customers of a surface water drainage
service pay an annual bill to the Water and Sewerage Company (WASC).
2. For customers draining surface water to public
sewers directly: the WASC retains the full amount as per current
practice.
3. For customers draining surface water to free-standing
SUDS: the WASC passes on the whole amount to the Lead Local Flood
Authority (LLFA), less an admin charge(on receipt of a payment
request from the LLFA detailing all such properties in the LLFA
area). If the LLFA has delegated this function to the WASC they
would retain the drainage charge.
4. For customers draining surface water to adopted
SUDS (managed by LLFA) but which in turn discharge to an existing
public sewer (managed by a WASC): As 3 above but where WASC retains
a higher % of receipt to reflect the fact that they still receive
some residual flow. (NOTE: This could be introduced later, if
it is felt to be too complicated at this stage.)
5. For customers draining solely to their own
private SUDS: no charge is payable to the WASC for surface water
as per current practice.
Surface drainage charges average around £50
pa. LGA advisers believe this is enough to fund maintenance of
SUDs. This money is already in the system. If properties drained
to SUDs can get a rebate of the surface water drainage charge,
as proposed by Defra, they will not be paying anything towards
the maintenance of the SUDs, instead this will be paid for out
of grant or assumed "savings" from private sewers transfer
in the first eight years, and then out of local taxation over
the long term.
It is important that where a property is sustainably
drained, the occupiers pay a surface water drainage charge, in
the same way that those occupying properties drained conventionally
do so. The current Defra proposal does not meet this fundamental
test of equity. Tax payers draining surface water to sewers would
subsidise customers which drain surface water to SUDS.
To overcome any Treasury objections to surface
water drainage charges being passed directly to the Lead Local
Flood Authority responsible for SUDs maintenance, LGA is keen
to discuss options for overcoming objections. This could include
setting up an arms length management organisation to manage maintenance,
in a similar way to that proposed for local authorities acting
as Green Deal providers, under the Government's Green Deal on
Energy Efficiency scheme, whereby they are reimbursed for their
work through an element in the utility bill.
In conclusion, the LGA proposal has the following
advantages:
— It uses existing practice.
— Is based on "polluter pays"
and standard utility bill payment culture.
— It fully funds the Lead Local Flood Authority
for maintenance.
— It does not cause "pain" to
any customer.
LGA EVIDENCE FROM
MEMBER AUTHORITIES
ON PRIVATE
SEWERS COSTS
Background
Defra's Impact Assessment for the draft Bill
and subsequent Act calculated that local authorities spend over
£50 million pa on private sewers across Environmental Health,
Technical Services, Building Control, Engineering, Housing and
Planning. This was based on a 2002 survey of 12% of authorities,
who supplied mainly estimated figures, which even Defra advised
should only be used as a guide. LGA cannot find any local authority
that recognises the figures that have been used in Defra's calculations
or agrees that their authority is spending anything like the assumed
costs. There is very little clarity about Defra's base data or
the methodology used to assess current costs.
Responsibility for private sewers will transfer
to water companies in 2011. Those private sewers draining to watercourses
or septic tanks will not transfer. Under s.43 of the FWM Act,
lead authorities must now investigate all flooding incidents,
so they will still be called out to private sewer flooding incidents.
LGA do not think enough analysis has been done
on either the current costs of dealing with private sewers or
the future cost implications of dealing with those private sewers
not being transferred.
We refute Defra's argument that it is now impossible
to get accurate information on private sewers costs. We are willing
to support a new survey on private sewers costs and would ask
authorities to provide accurate information on current spend.
EVIDENCE ON
SPEND FROM
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
We asked local authorities to tell us what they
think they spend on private sewers. These are some of their direct
responses:
Lincolnshire County Council
The County spends nothing on private sewers.
Lincolnshire's districts cannot disaggregate
what they spend on private sewers from more general costs relating
to housing stock. This suggests that the sums involved must be
small. Evidence from some Lincolnshire DCs:
Have informally estimated an annual spend of
around £10,000.
Per annum spend £20k per annum:
Environmental Health: £15k
On schemes where there are works carried out
by the Council all costs are recovered. Colleagues estimated the
net cost of providing this service is £28k pa.
Once Private Sewers are transferred to Water
Companies, the costs to the Council are unlikely to be less than
£28k that we currently spend and because of the increased
duty for us to investigate it may well increase!
The suggested savings for Leeds City Council
with regard to Private Sewers is around £760k, this is ridiculous
and is about what Yorkshire Water spend on maintenance for the
adopted sewers within the District!
Costs for dealing with Private Sewers over the
last three years:
All of these costs are recovered by the council.
Additional to this, the council's Environmental Health Team have
a budget of £30,000 to deal with a Private Sewerage system
inherited at reorganisation of Local Government in 1996. Of this
£30,000, the council spends £25,000 looking after a
Private Sewerage system that will not transfer to the Water Company
under the proposed Bill and £5,000 of staff time dealing
with residents concerns over Private Sewer issues, which could
be targeted to be transferred to the Water Company. Therefore,
this council will only save £5,000 pa.
The WODC revenue budget for Public health—sewerage
has an overall cost to WODC of £30,700. This has a salary
element of £10,800 and a services (practical works) element
of only £1,900. The balance of the budget is corporate overheads.
Due to an annual under-spend on this budget, WODC will either
be removing this budget code or considerably reducing the size
of the sum allocated. We do not expect to spend more than we currently
are, as future responsibility will be transferred to LLFAs and
the water companies.
Oxfordshire County Council
Have no private sewers at all and therefore we
spend nothing on any private sewers.
Over the last three years we have responded to
10 incidents of blocked drains (sewage). Assuming four hours per
incident and £37 per hour officer time a rough estimate would
be a cost of £15,300.
South Gloucestershire Council
Budget of £5,020 (2009-10) used for private
drainage work. This includes non-private sewers, eg drains and
cesspits etc. Expenditure of £4,335 (08/09) on private sewer
work; this related to 124 jobs.
Whilst a few cases can be time consuming, overall
this is a small proportion of our work. As a team Environmental
Protection deal with over 6,000 service requests per year in addition
to programmed inspections and project based work. For 2008-09,
2,364 jobs were "EP" cases (not including pest control)
and of that 176 were drainage jobs: 124 private sewers and 52
other drainage ie 5% of the EP jobs were private sewer related.
This is only a small resource allocation and this saving would
not compare with the additional resource requirement to become
a SUDs Approval Body.
Housing stock transfer impact on private sewer
spend
Some authorities declared all of the sewers associated
with their council housing stock to be public sewers in 1974.
This effectively moved the problem in this area to the (then)
water authorities. These authorities would thereafter have been
left with only the private sewer problems associated with private
housing.
Since 2002, very large numbers of council houses
have gone out of local authority control. Across the country there
has been a 37% reduction, with up to 60% reductions in some areas
(eg the NW). Although authority spend on private sewers as social
landlords (even though there were no reliable statistics) was
factored into Defra's calculation in assuming over £50 million
pa spend, the reduction in social housing since 2002 has not resulted
in a reassessment of the calculation. Defra argue that this is
because it is impossible to calculate whether responsibility for
sewers was also transferred so the figures might not be accurate.
LGA think this exemplifies the lack of robustness or fairness
in the Impact Assessment. Below are two examples of the transfer
of social housing and possible impact on private sewers costs.
A stock transfer transferred all council housing
to a social housing landlord in 2007. The vast majority of the
infrastructure transferred either to right to buy ownership or
the RSL. This included pumping stations which also transferred
to the RSL.
This authority disposed of its social housing
in 2007. This consisted of the transfer of approximately 8,300
dwellings to Merlin Housing Society Ltd (MHSL). The sewers within
the curtilage of these estates are now maintained by MHSL. Outside
these estate boundaries (within retained public open space, on
public highway or on private land) the sewer repair or replacement
maintenance responsibility was retained by this Council, although
under the transfer agreement the council is permitted to recharge
MHSL a contribution towards the cost of any repair. This charge
would be proportional to the split of MHSL/Right to Buy Housing
Act properties. The council is able to also recover costs from
the right to buy owners should there be an appropriate property
drainage conveyance clause to allow this.
25 October 2010
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