Council defends expenditure on clean drinking water in public buildings

Herefordshire Council confirms that its annual bill on branded bottled mineral water, which is the subject of a BBC Panorama programme tonight (Monday 18 February), is too small to be measured using its internal account systems. The council does not encourage the use of bottled mineral water in its public buildings and for staff consumption because of the adverse environmental impact.

However, like all employers, including the BBC, the council has by law to ensure that its employees have access to clean and safe drinking water during office hours. The council spent a maximum of £25,000 in the last year on supply and maintenance agreements for mains-fed water dispensers or dispensers of locally sourced water using recyclable 20-litre containers.

The council works from around 70 different buildings around the county, many of which have old or limited plumbing systems, some of them are leased too and so plumbing systems cannot be modernised, and neither does the council have modern central headquarters where water could be provided straight out of the tap.

"Clean water is not only a basic human right, it is also a biological need and the council has a legal responsibility to provide water to workers, like social and care workers or customer service staff who need to be able to operate effectively to give a good service", said a council spokesperson.

Herefordshire Council is working hard to rationalise its costs in this area but compares very favourably with other county councils around the country where expenditure in this area is much higher. The BBC originally put Herefordshire as number 14 a list of expenditure on water services, which was based on earlier figures that did not identify areas of expenditure that could be compared with other local authority figures. The true position, based on figures issued today, puts Herefordshire at number 77 in the list.