WATER QUALITY REGULATION UNDER LOCKDOWN
The Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland (DWQR) is open for business, although as with all of us – under very different conditions than we were used to. by Moira Malcolm
Drinking Water Specialist, DWQR DWQR is the title of the Regulator herself: Sue Petch, who is independent of Scottish Ministers and is responsible for the scrutiny of the water company in Scotland, Scottish Water, with respect to drinking water quality; and the supervision of local authorities in their regulation of private water supplies. There are ten of us in the Drinking Water Quality team authorised to work for Sue; covering operations, policy and support functions (we also use the term ‘DWQR’ to apply to the whole of Sue’s team). The Operations Team are primarily involved with the regulation of Scottish Water, and assisting with the supervision of local authorities who regulate private water supplies. The Regulatory Team are responsible for developing and implementing legislation, guidance and other policies with respect to drinking
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water quality in Scotland, as well as managing all of our data. Lately we have been setting up and leading a steering group to advance and overhaul private water supplies legislation; and are also trying to make sense of the recast Drinking Water Directive.
developed and adapted our working practices to accommodate the necessary changes required by our current circumstances so we can continue to provide the necessary direction to Scottish Water and local authorities in a fastchanging situation.
To achieve all of this we are usually busy attending meetings with a variety of stakeholders; visiting water treatment works for investment sign-off, audits and incident investigation; contributing to training and conferences; and researching innovation. We are rarely all in the office at the same time and each week is different and brings its own challenges.
The backbone to regulation is the sampling and analysis of drinking water from consumers’ taps at a frequency set by legislation. Back in February we could see the potential for Covid-19 to make a significant change to the practices of regulatory sampling if it became an issue in Scotland, so after discussion with Scottish Water we developed and issued alternative sampling guidance so that samplers did not have to cold call consumers and to take account of potential staff absence. We were also aware that the households sampled were often elderly as these people were more likely to be at home during the day (pre-lockdown), and both Scottish Water and DWQR did not wish to risk their
However at time of writing we are under lockdown in Scotland, and we anticipate that even when restrictions are eased things will not return to ‘normal’ for some time to come – either for us in DWQR or Scottish Water. Over the last few months we have
