Water briefing: The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has published its second catchment partnerships report for the period 2014-15.
Defra delegated the powers to provide financial assistance to the Environment Agency in order to support the establishment and maintenance of partnerships across all 87 (and 6 crossborder) water management catchments in England. The Environment Agency has administered the funding to charitable, benevolent or philanthropic institutions through the Catchment Partnership Fund (CPF). The aim of CPF is to deliver improved water quality to meet the objectives under the Water Framework Directive by establishing local partnerships within communities to identify the problems; agree priorities; and, elicit paid and voluntary action that supplements action by the Environment Agency to tackle the problems. In the 2014/15 financial year, £2.2m funds were made available by Defra of which £1.8 million were used to support the role of catchment partnership ‘hosts’ to engage local communities and establish and maintain partnerships. This is the second year in which CPF grants have been provided to organisations to carry out their role as hosts. To read the report go to: