Analysis of existing standards for installation and maintenance of river water quality monitoring equipment

Descriptions

Issue: In the Environment Act 2021, Government placed a legal requirement on sewerage undertakers to monitor the water quality impacts of their assets (storm overflows and wastewater treatment works discharges). We are in the process of bringing these duties into force. Without Government requiring some kind of assurance, it is likely that some water companies will install sub-standard monitoring equipment. Naturally this will lead to sub-standard data, which (at best) will lead to a national patchwork of data quality, or (at worst) could render the monitoring programme useless. The Environment Agency has advised they are not currently resourced in terms of capacity & specialist assurance capability to assure installation or data quality themselves. Government not requiring assurance potentially places the motoring programme at risk of failure. We therefore should require work be carried out to a specific delivery standard, with associated certification scheme(s) to deliver assurance on this standard being met correctly. However, there are a several different certification schemes suggested by industry as appropriate, including MCert, ISO, CEN or another (potentially as yet undesigned) bespoke standard. The EA have developed their own delivery standard which may act as a useful reference for a new bespoke standard for this programme. Per the below, neither Defra nor EA currently have the resource available or depth of technical expertise to assess which standard would both assure quality data and remain cost effective, or to build this into a coherent delivery package. Proposal: That Defra commissions an external partner agency, through an established framework, to research, assess and make a recommendation on the options for certification standards and assurance. These options include applying an existing standard, a bespoke standard (potentially to be designed by the external partner), or applying no certification standards for each part. The project should cover at least the following and the Tenderer is welcome to include other factors: a. Standards currently available or parameters for a bespoke approach; b. Minimum equipment standards; c. Installation standards; d. Acceptable down-time; e. Maintenance and calibration standards; f. Data validation standards (when can you exclude data and when can't you); and g. Models of implementing the standards (e.g- who runs it, and at what cost) These standards should be used to develop an overarching delivery framework which brings these standards together and recommend an assurance framework. Outputs: The Authority expects the contractor to produce a report with recommendations which comprehensively describe the benefits and drawbacks of any relevant accreditation scheme, or (if none are suitable) what a bespoke accreditation scheme would look like.