Two years ago, the Environment Agency created the Chief Regulator's Group to provide strategic leadership for regulation. We’re helping create a more consistent, effective and proportionate regulatory system and strengthening the connection between strategy, policy and delivery.
Since then, my team and I have been driving that transformation. Meaningful change can take time. But we have made good strides forward as we move from improving individual parts of regulation towards creating a more joined-up and consistent regulatory system.
Improving transparency and access
For the first time, the public can read Compliance Assessment Report (CAR) forms without raising an information request. We've now shared thousands of water quality, waste, installations, and intensive pig and poultry forms on the Public Register Online.
At the same time, improved training and assurance have raised the quality of information available to the public on permit holder performance. We're building on this momentum, with more sectors to follow.
Faster, smarter permitting
Permitting is at the centre of our improvement work, and the Accelerated Permitting Transformation Programme is already delivering results. Queue times are at a three-year low, and the backlog has been reduced by over three-quarters. Enhanced validation has also cut determination times for complex applications by up to 100 days.
We’ve also introduced a Priority Tracked Service for complex multi-permit and Nationally Significant Infrastructure (NSIP) sites, currently supporting over 60 developments in housing, energy, infrastructure, mining and technology with strong customer feedback.
Our Regulatory Services Programme is powering our digital transformation by delivering smarter online journeys for our customers. Several types of permit applications are now fully digital, including Paper, Cardboard, and Plastic (PCP), Healthcare Waste (HCW), Waste Mattresses (WM), and Materials Recycling Facilities (MRF). Alongside this, an expansion of GOV.UK Pay for permit applications under £5,000 has saved a significant amount of processing time.
Driving forward sector improvements
We support responsible businesses to thrive sustainably while acting firmly when standards fall short.
Two priority areas have been water quality and waste crime. In March, we published our 10-point plan on waste crime to strengthen and accelerate action in this growing area of concern. It focuses on earlier intervention and stronger enforcement against poor performers, while tightening controls and accountability across the waste supply chain.
For the first time, our water regulation teams completed more than 10,000 inspections of water company assets in a single year, identifying permit breaches in 22% of cases. This has built a clear, evidence-based picture of non-compliance which will shape our future regulation.
By equipping our regulatory teams with better tools, we are enabling them to make stronger use of data and insights. One example is a new digital system that will make it easier for our officers to record, track and manage noncompliance, improving follow up on actions from previous inspections. This Regulatory Compliance Service (RCS) is already in use across our Water Quality inspections and will soon roll out to other sectors including waste.
Across all sectors, we are also developing new regulation plans that focus on the real-world outcomes we want our regulation to achieve.
We are striving to provide clear, proportionate and predictable regulation. That means reducing uncertainty and enabling investment by stepping back where risks are low, taking an evidence-based approach where they’re higher, and acting firmly when needed. For example, in waste, we are setting new minimum inspection frequencies for different types of sites, focusing our effort on poor performers and high‑risk sites whilst reducing routine regulatory activity at consistently well performing sites.
Strengthening our regulatory profession
Whilst we are accelerating our use of digital, data and AI, I firmly believe that people remain at the heart of good regulation. That’s why we are strengthening regulation across the Environment Agency by establishing a Regulation Profession and investing in the learning, development and infrastructure needed to support them.
Through accredited training and new pathways with industry and academia, we are building a confident, skilled workforce supported by cutting-edge digital tools. In the waste sector for example, we are using AI and machine learning to strengthen compliance analytics, detect waste related risks and optimise assessments.
New approaches to drive progress
New approaches are key to driving progress. We’ve recently taken up the Lead Environmental Regulator position on four pilot projects – East West Rail, Lighthouse Green Fuels, Sizewell C and the Trelavour Lithium Project. This is providing developers with clearer, earlier, and more coordinated environmental guidance across environmental regulators, while maintaining robust protections.
We are also supporting innovation in areas like decarbonisation. Notable regulatory milestones include issuing the first UK refinery carbon capture and storage (CCS) permit and securing the VPI Immingham carbon capture permit - both enabling significant industrial decarbonisation.
Through our commitment to proportionate regulation and delivering environmental outcomes, we’re taking firm action where risks are high while exploring opportunities to step back where risks are low.
The Earned Autonomy programme is one example. We're working with trusted partners such as the Rivers Trust, National Trust and Forestry Commission to deliver nature recovery projects faster and more efficiently, while developing new standard rule permits, increasing exemptions, and working towards a Nature Recovery Regulatory Position Statement. A recent Regulatory Position Statement (RPS) for low-risk abstraction for nature recovery actions and fish or eel passage builds on an earlier low-risk impounding works RPS, allowing a more proportionate, risk-based approach that removes unnecessary barriers to habitat restoration, nature recovery and natural flood management projects.
Looking ahead
Our ambition is a regulatory system that is digitally enabled, risk-driven, transparent and easier to navigate. By combining better data, stronger regulatory capability and smarter technology, we can target our efforts where they achieve the greatest environmental outcomes while providing greater certainty for those we regulate.
While our transformation is by no means complete, action is underway. We have a clear understanding of what needs to be done. Independent reviews by important bodies such as the Office for Environmental Protection and the National Audit Office, alongside recommendations from Dan Corry and John Fingleton, continue to act as catalysts for change.
Lasting change cannot be delivered by the Environment Agency alone. It depends on Government setting new policies and reforming legislation and on those we regulate working with us towards a shared ambition of better environmental outcomes.
There is far more happening than I can cover in one blog. In the coming months, I will publish my next Chief Regulator report, providing a detailed overview of progress against our EA2030 strategy and the vision I outlined in my previous report.
Please follow the Chief Regulator’s LinkedIn page for further updates.
Leave a comment