A/HRC/36/45 3. Regulatory bodies 78. Compared to other areas of regulation, water and sanitation regulation is characterized by the fact that the regulated services relate directly to the fulfilment of human rights. While water and sanitation regulatory bodies are well positioned to contribute to the progressive realization of the rights to water and sanitation, their activities, whether through their regulations and decisions or through failure to live up to their mandate, can also potentially result in breaches of these rights. In their plans and activity reports, regulatory bodies should provide clear and relevant information on their policies, procedures and activities and indicate how they contribute to meeting human rights standards progressively. 79. Regulatory bodies’ activities should be controlled and monitored by different entities, such as user councils, parliamentary committees or courts of auditors. For example, in early 2014, the Portuguese Court of Auditors released a report on the audit of the regulation and management of water service concessions and public-private partnerships. The Court’s audit examined the activity of the Water and Waste Services Regulatory Authority as the regulator of such concessions, identified the processes of contract revision, identified public spending involved in each concession and examined the effectiveness of concessions in terms of the quality of services (see A/HRC/36/45/Add.1, para. 39). Its main conclusions show that the majority of concessions consistently benefited the private sector to the detriment of municipal budgets and of affordability of services for users (see A/HRC/36/45/Add.1, paras. 39 and 40). C. Ensuring accountability 80. Accountability at the national level can be achieved through administrative, quasijudicial and judicial mechanisms. Mechanisms can be based at the level of the service provider or at the level of the State. For example, when a complaint is not resolved at the level of the service provider, individuals should have the right to address their complaint to an administrative mechanism such as a regulatory body. 81. Regulatory actors play a key role in ensuring service providers’ accountability for non-compliance with the human rights to water and sanitation. To ensure accountability, regulatory frameworks must clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved in service provision and provide clear and accessible information on the complaint mechanisms available at different levels. A growing number of independent regulatory bodies have complaint mechanisms for the resolution of disputes between service providers and users. 82. In the resolution of complaints against services providers, regulatory actors must ensure that any action that interferes with an individual’s enjoyment of the rights to water and sanitation is preceded by an opportunity for genuine consultation with the individual affected, the timely and full disclosure of information on the proposed measures, reasonable notice of proposed actions, legal recourse and remedies for the individual affected, and legal assistance for obtaining legal remedies. 39 83. The regulatory body must also be endowed with the power to enforce existing regulations and contractual agreements. Mechanisms for contract enforcement must include adequate incentives, penalties for non-compliance, such as fines, and the possibility of revocation of the contract (see A/HRC/15/31, para. 52). 84. In countries where no separate regulatory mechanism exists, but where national human rights institutions or ombudspersons’ offices are present, individuals may resort to these independent bodies for redress when their human rights to water and sanitation have been compromised by a service provider. Accountability can be provided by these quasijudicial bodies, whose mandate often includes handling human rights complaints. 39 18 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 15, para. 56.