Participation--increasing the flow: Joe Howe and Jeremy Carter report on a study of stakeholder...

THIS ARTICLE presents key findings from an Economic and Social Research Council funded project undertaken at the University of Manchester during 2004. The research built upon previous work concerning the relationship between land use planning and the European Water Framework Directive (WFD)

As a result of the increased attention that governments and international organisations are paying to the concept of sustainable development, and recent specific policy initiatives, such as the Aarhus Convention, (3) participation procedures are now firmly cemented within environmental planning and policy-making procedures across a range of geographical scales. The WFD is an example of environmental legislation that has followed this trend, and stakeholder participation is central to delivering its goals.

As the European Environment Bureau (EEB) (4, p.5) has noted: "Since the Water Framework Directive hinges on public input to and endorsement of EU water policies, Member States must invest in maximum participation.' The importance of stakeholder participation procedures in the context of the WFD has been highlighted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF): (5, p.23) 'it is highly unlikely that any RBMP can be implemented successfully if it does not meet with broad public acceptance and, in particular, if it is not supported by key stakeholder groups'.

Stakeholder participation in the preparation of RBMPs, and in other water management actions related to achieving the WFD's goals, can potentially deliver a range of benefits, including strengthening decision-making, generating resource savings, and helping to build consensus between stakeholders. Ideally, the competent authority, stakeholder groups, and the river basin itself should all benefit.

Article 14 of the WFD requires competent authorities responsible for its implementation to provide information to, and consult with, the public and relevant stakeholder groups, particularly during the preparation of RBMPs. The WFD also 'encourages' competent authorities to actively involve stakeholders during their efforts to meet the WFD's overarching goal--to achieve 'good status' in most of Europe's waters by 2015.

Article 14 effectively sets out a discretionary framework for stakeholder participation. Competent authorities must provide substance to this framework by developing participation procedures and identifying and contacting relevant stakeholder groups that should be involved in the process of preparing RBMPs. The effectiveness of the WFD's stakeholder participation procedures, and ultimately the potential success of the Directive as a whole, therefore depends on the competence of European member states.

The Ribble pilot

The Ribble, a principal river in North West England, is one of 15 river basins that collectively constitute a pilot river basin network that has been tasked by the European Commission with testing common implementation strategy (CIS) guidance designed to assist member states in delivering the WFD's requirements. The Environment Agency (EA) has been chosen as the competent authority responsible for implementing the WFD in England and Wales. As part of its preparation for this task, the EA has set up a pilot river basin project--the Ribble pilot. The EA's early stakeholder participation efforts during the Ribble pilot have focused on the development of a vision statement to guide the preparation of a prototype RBMP for the Ribble, which will be published in 2007.

The EA, supported by an environmental consultancy firm, the Mersey Basin Campaign (MBC), and the WWF, has recently designed and implemented a vision-building process which involved undertaking stakeholder participation procedures. The EA separated stakeholders into several well defined groups, each having different responsibilities and levels of involvement. A 'project board' and a 'testing group', which included EA staff and representatives of key stakeholder groups, have been responsible for defining the strategic direction of the Ribble pilot and its associated participation procedures.

The EA has also developed a 'stakeholder forum', which it sees as lying at the heart of the Ribble pilot stakeholder participation process. (6) Members of the stakeholder forum were chosen by the EA to contribute to the vision-building process and the ongoing development of the Ribble RBMP, and included around S0 individuals from key local and regional stakeholder groups. A stakeholder mapping process undertaken by MBC identified relevant stakeholders within the Ribble basin to invite to the vision-building workshops, which included individuals from local authorities, non-governmental organisations, the EA, universities, and business and industry. However, only a few members of the 'unaffiliated' public became involved as stakeholders.

The EA provided information to stakeholders during the vision-building process by three methods: a webpage dedicated to the Ribble pilot, an electronic newsletter, and presentations made to various individuals and organisations. Two surveys conducted for the EA by an independent research company--one web-based and the other involving 1,001 randomly selected individuals who were contacted by telephone--were a key method which the EA used to consult with stakeholders, particularly the 'general public'. Alongside meetings with certain stakeholders, the vision-building workshops, which were facilitated by independent consultants, were the principal vehicles the EA used to attempt to actively involve stakeholders.

The Ribble pilot has the potential to influence the nature of WFD-related participation procedures undertaken elsewhere in England and Wales, as the pilot is being undertaken concurrently with the preparation of national guidance. Moreover, through its connections with the CIS, the Ribble pilot is also likely to influence the implementation of the WFD across the European member states. Consequently, it is important to raise awareness of the key lessons learnt during the process. In the research project reported here, questionnaires, interviews, and direct observation provided insights into the effectiveness of the vision-building participation procedures.

Individuals indicated that their involvement as stakeholders during the vision-building process had generated a range of benefits. Those most frequently mentioned included:

* greater awareness of the WFD and RBMPs;

* greater appreciation of the views and concerns of other stakeholders;

* the development of networks with other stakeholders; and

* assisting the development of the prototype Ribble RBMP.

Stakeholders were generally positive about the openness and transparency of the EA during the vision-building process, and also usually agreed that a comfortable environment had been provided to enable them to voice their key concerns regarding the future of the Ribble basin. Furthermore, the principle of using individuals external to the competent authority to facilitate the workshops was welcomed. However, stakeholders also identified various weaknesses associated with the participation procedures employed by the EA:

* Although a small group of stakeholders were involved from an early stage in the Ribble pilot, the majority had their first contact with the EA at the vision-building workshops, almost one year after the project commenced.

* Stakeholders were unclear about how inputs that they made during the workshops would be used during the preparation of the vision statement.

* Using the internet as the principal medium to disseminate information was believed to have been inadequate.

* The information offered to stakeholders prior to the workshops was not sufficient to enable some to meaningfully contribute to the vision-building process.

* Business and industry and the public were thought to have been poorly represented during the workshops, while it was often noted that environmental groups were too prominent.

* The vision-building process was 'water-centric' and failed to integrate and exploit potential synergies with participation procedures undertaken during the preparation of other actions that influence water quality--for example land use plans and catchment abstraction management strategies.

Stakeholder participation procedures undertaken during the Ribble pilot have provided a range of useful insights into meeting the requirements of Article 14 of the WFD in practice. The commitment and support of a significant number of stakeholders during the Ribble pilot over a number of months is a commendable achievement. It is difficult to say, however, whether this was due to the participation procedures undertaken by the EA, which were effective in certain respects, or the level of interest generated by the WED amongst stakeholders. However, it is clear that the Ribble pilot did exhibit weaknesses in terms of the participation approach applied during the vision-building process. Nevertheless, it must be remembered the vision-building process was part of a pilot, and it should therefore not be unsurprising or unwelcome that there were difficulties as the experience provides a platform to improve practice in the future.

Involving stakeholders

Strengthened decision-making and consensus-building are among the potential benefits that enhance the significance of involving stakeholders during the implementation of the WFD, and throughout policy-making procedures more generally. As Cuff (7) has noted: 'It is becoming, less politically acceptable not to involve people at an early stage of decision-making.' Crucially, stakeholder participation represents a means of enforcing the WFD through the public domain. The exposure of competent authorities to greater scrutiny is likely to encourage them to comprehensively meet the Directive's requirements. Furthermore, the European Commission will take measures to enforce the WFD if its requirements are not met. It is therefore in the interest of competent authorities to actively involve stakeholders during the preparation of RBMPs in order to enhance their ability, to meet the WFD's requirements.

Despite being well funded and conducted by an enthusiastic and professional competent authority, the Ribble pilot has provided evidence to suggest that undertaking effective RBMP stakeholder participation procedures will be a challenging task. Moreover, it cannot be guaranteed that stakeholder participation procedures, however reflective of good practice, will always influence the process of preparing the RBMP.

The WWF (5, P.24) has observed that 'consultation may be conducted in a manner that provides little or no opportunity for those consulted to have teal involvement/influence in planning or decision-making processes'. In other words, there is the danger that participation procedures may be tokenistic. It is possible that this is symptomatic of participation procedures undertaken in the public sector more generally: (4,p.4) 'Unfortunately, many civil servants still regard public information and consultation as a mere legal necessity, and even as a constraint on their duties."

Although effective participation procedures that are a meaningful and influential addition to policy-making procedures may currently be an aspirational goal, this should not detract from efforts to involve stakeholders during the implementation of the WFD.

Notes

(1) J. Howe and I. White: "Planning and the European Union Water Framework Directive'. Journal of Environmental Planning & Management, 2003, 46, pp. 621-631

(2) Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council Establishing a Framework for Community Action in the Field of Water Policy. European Commission, Brussels, 2000. Official Journal of the European Communities L327, 1-73

(3) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva, 1998. Available online at http://www.unece.org/ env/pp/documents/cep43e.pdf

(4) Making the EU Water Framework Directive Work: Ten Actions for Implementing a Better European Water Policy. European Environmental Bureau, Brussels, 2001

(5) Elements of Good Practice in Integrated River Basin Management: A Practical Resource for Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive. World Wildlife Fund, Brussels, Belgium, 2001

(6) P. Fox, D. Bond, P. Orr, N. Madeira, C. Riley, Y. Rees, and M. Davis: Ribble Pilot River Basin: Public Participation and River Basin Planning--Early Experiences. Environment Agency, Preston, 2004

(7) J. Cuff: Participatory Processes: A Tool to Assist the Wise Use of Catchments. Report for the EU LIFE-Environment 'Wise Use of Floodplains" project, 2001. Available online at http://www.floodplains.org/pdf/ technical_reports/Participatory%20Processes% 20Report.pdf, p.13

Joe Howe and Jeremy Carter are with Planning and Landscape in the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. The authors wish to thank the Economic and Social Research Council for funding the project reported here [Grant Award Ref: RES-000-22-0601].