An environmental watchdog has found that only 64% of waste sites can be confirmed compliant under what it characterises as a ‘flawed’ Environment Agency (EA) inspection regime.
A new report by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) – based on EA inspection records from 2018 to 2022 – found widespread quality failures, with policy guidance not followed in around one third of cases.
Despite the EA consistently hitting its key performance target of 97% site compliance, the OEP concludes the metric is misleading: uninspected sites are automatically logged as fully compliant, meaning the EA can only reliably confirm compliance at around 64% of sites.
The watchdog has laid the report before Parliament and called for better performance indicators, clearer inspection standards, stronger oversight and greater transparency of compliance data.
A spokesperson for the EA said the OEP’s report was based on ‘historic data’, adding that the stronger oversight and clearer outcomes that the OEP is calling for have already been put in place.
‘We are cracking down on persistent poor performers by being more consistent through stronger enforcement, utilising data and intelligence to spot non-compliance earlier, and targeting our officers to where they are needed most,’ they said.
