Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
Government has “widespread and systemic” problems meeting requirements of environmental law, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has found.
The OEP said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had failed to complete legally required post-implementation reviews (PIRs) to evaluate laws.
In a report the OEP catalogued implemented laws Defra was due to review, but found 49 out of 56 had not been achieved on time. Some were completed past the deadline – one was reviewed four years late.
“We recognise that government has faced exceptional challenges in recent years,” the OEP said. “However, our research suggests a more longstanding problem. That problem appears to be widespread and systemic within Defra and across other government departments in respect of the requirements in environmental law.”
Reviews are required to be carried out within a set period after new legislation is introduced.
These included nitrate pollution prevention regulations, and rules relating to the reduction and prevention of agricultural diffuse pollution, where Defra missed the deadline.
Reviews of regulations around bathing waters introduced in 2013 are due every five years, with the first review conducted belatedly and the next due this year.
Defra did not carry out the required review of water resources environmental impact assessment, which was due in May last year. Its review of the urban waste water treatment regulations were reviewed belatedly in 2022, and are due to be re-examined by the end of 2024.
“Government should monitor and evaluate how environmental and other relevant laws are working. It is important for Parliamentary accountability and wider scrutiny,” Glenys Stacey, chair of the OEP, said. “And it allows government to see in good time the extent to which the law and its implementation are sufficiently effective. There is strength and value here, in applying a consistent, systematic, and timely approach to evaluation, and in publishing the outcome. For government to stay on course to meet its ambitions for the environment, it must keep abreast of how the law is working.
The report suggested legal requirements to produce PIRs are “too often” missed without explanation, “leaving the public, Parliament and others in the dark”.
The OEP called on Defra to set time-bound delivery plans for publishing all outstanding and upcoming PIR reports of environmental laws, prioritising those for which the department has not published a report yet. It identified a need to improve transparency around the processes and decision making of reports that are delayed or upcoming. This, the OEP said, was important to ensure parliament can scrutinise plans effectively and ensure accountability.
Furthermore, the report recommended reviews are published ahead of decisions being made that relate to the law being reviewed. It also underlined that the PIRs should take account of any environmental implications especially where departments’ policies may overlap.
In November the OEP recommended government extend the date to review EU laws pertaining to the environment that regulations are currently based upon. It said attempting to overhaul hundreds of environmental laws by the end of 2023 risked creating new uncertainties and burdens by rushing.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.