A government-commissioned independent review of environmental regulation has called for a broad overhaul of existing enforcement, sanctions and permit mechanisms in areas such as waste management.
Among the core recommendations of the findings by Dan Corry – a former government policy advisor under prime minister Gordon Brown – is for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to review its approach to upholding environmental regulations. This review should be used to ensure a more consistent approach to penalising offences, said the review.
It stated: “This review should consider where changes to legislation might be needed and aim to create tougher penalties for deliberate non-compliance and persistent offenders, for example in the waste sector, with regulators able to issue speedy fines for minor offences without going through the court system.”
The so-called Corry review was launched last October to determine the effectiveness of existing regulatory bodies overseen by the Defra that includes the Environment Agency and Natural England. Its launch followed some criticism raised by the Office for Environment Protection (OEP) about the ability of regulators to uphold legislative requirements.
Corry’s report said multiple organisations providing feedback and evidence to the review had provided examples of inconsistencies in how Defra was providing licensing. Concerns were alro raised on its capability for delivering monitoring and enforcement functions, along with issuing sanctions for different industries.
The review argued that Defra was seen to be too slow around issuing licenses and permits. Significant issues were raised about managing and addressing waste crime or poor behaviours.
The review stated: “The scale of waste criminality, including illegal dumping, waste sites and misdescription of waste, causes significant cost to the economy and undermines the economic activity of those who are compliant and trust in the system from customers. Defra needs to significantly sharpen the approach to how it issues licenses and permits, and how it then monitors and enforces compliance.”
“Any system of regulation requires public trust. At present, the complexity of the regulations contributes to failures in delivery and to gaining and retaining the public’s trust.”
A call to ‘simplify’
A call was made in the review to simplify and provide improved understanding by organisations looking to ensure compliance with regulations critical to their business. This call is intended to support a move towards a system of ‘self-regulation’ so that organisations involved in enforcement could focus their resources on areas or organisations that were a higher concern for failing to meet their obligations.
Among the reforms suggested in the review to achieve this system include allowing bodies or organisations with “good track records” to have more autonomy in meeting their obligations, such as by entering a memoranda of understanding (MOU) or obtaining so called ‘class license’.
These licenses could ensure a company’s compliance without them having to seek multiple different permissions.
The review accepted that a criteria would need to be developed for trusted partners that could be based on previous performance and permit application. The review added: “ Some monitoring will be needed and the MOU quickly and publicly rescinded if compliance is found wanting.”
Defra was also urged to undertake a rapid review and rewriting of its existing compliance guidance with the aim to address potential duplication, inconsistency or “ambiguity” to create more streamlined and easier to understand information for different sectors.
This work would need to be backed with more frequent monitoring by regulators, with up-to-date data that should also be available to the public, said the review.
Corry said he was also calling for Defra to assess the chargeable services it provides in order to recover costs in order to ensure the ‘polluter pays’ principle is employed and used to support more effective digital services.
Defra was urged in the findings to ensure it reviews its ability to enforce environmental regulations and deliver improved consistency across different offences when looking at issues such as waste management.
Another recommendation was to look at how the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) can effectively offer independent scrutiny of the government’s work.
The review cited recent findings from the OEP looking at its role in scrutinising the government’s work to implement the Environment Act.
Corry’s review stated: “Consideration should be given as to how the OEP can increase focus on the outcomes that are desired and support regulators to take more risk to achieve those goals within the Government’s wider objectives.”
Updating regulations
Corry used the forward of the review to note that existing environmental regulations were introduced in “good faith”, but had not been updated and revised to address a range of issues concerning case law, the impact of Brexit, and a drive towards climate mitigation in policy making.
He added: “The system is also now inefficient and difficult for customers to navigate. It needs to work in a fundamentally different way, to become a system focused on delivering positive outcomes for nature and the environment and to be an aid not an impediment to sustainable growth.”
In calling for a more streamlined regulatory system, Corry also accepted potential concerns about reforms serving to pose dangers and undermine safety and good practice. He argued that there was a pressing need to transform the existing approaches to avoid stifling or penalising innovative practices and good practice.
Corry stated: “Understandably, environmental groups may be nervous about whether some of the recommendations – giving regulators more discretion, focusing more on value for money and growth, and considering changes to important regulations – could, if badly used, cause the environment and nature to suffer.”
“But everything I have heard and learned during this review suggests that the current system does not work as well as it could for nature and the environment, let alone for growth.”
