Water Management Alliance
About us
The WMA is a group of like minded Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) who share vision, values and standards, and have chosen to jointly administer their affairs in order to reduce costs, strengthen their own organisations and increase influence at both a national and regional level, without losing an unacceptable degree of autonomy.
What does the WMA do for its members?
The WMA and its predecessor - the King’s Lynn Consortium of Internal Drainage Boards have been providing services for the benefit of their members since 1967.
The nature and extent of these services has evolved over the years: from sharing just about everything in the early days incidental to the functions of a number of smaller Boards with limited resources; to sharing ancillary and strategic services today, as larger Boards with greater resources better placed to independently fulfil the expectations of public bodies.
The services provided by the WMA today still vary according to the needs of each Member Board but they are largely administrative and strategic in nature.
Who controls the WMA?
The WMA is controlled by its Member Boards and run for the benefit of those Member Boards. The WMA is not about centralising delivery of the drainage service and taking away control from its members. The Boards themselves are ideally placed to control delivery and are democratically accountable to those that pay for the service in their Drainage Districts. Today each Member Board is therefore encouraged to employ its own Engineer, Operations Manager and Operatives where they can afford to, as per DEFRA guidelines. Hence operations have not been centralised and are directly controlled by the Member Boards. It is crucial that this continues; otherwise we could go the same way as some others have done and lose the ability to operate, undertake work and respond!
As a Service Provider the WMA simply provides shared administrative and support services to its constituent Member Boards, which allows those Member Boards to concentrate on delivery within their Drainage Districts, where it matters! All back office functions are handled by the WMA at the behest of the Member Boards, and, as a result, each Member Board is able to use more of its resources and energy supporting the public and providing quality front line services. For more information please check out our Governance webpage.
Contact details
During office hours (between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm) :
Tel: +44(0)1553 819600
Fax: +44(0)1553 819639
Email: info@wlma.org.uk
Out of hours
Please contact the Duty Officer on +44(0)7881 581521. Otherwise if you know who you need to contact in an emergency, please refer to the Member Board’s ‘Contact us’ webpage on this site for their out of hours contact details.
© Water Management Alliance
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