3. The Agency's inspections of waste sites
and activities
13. The Agency spends around £18 million
a year on inspections and related enforcement activities at licensed
waste sites. It carries out this work in accordance with guidance
from the Department, which since 2000 has allowed the Agency to
determine inspection frequencies according to an assessment of
risk at individual sites. The bulk of the Agency's inspection
effort comprises short visual ("routine") inspections
of a site but it also carries out around 60 in-depth audits of
sites a year and plans to increase this number to 600 a year.[14]
14. In 2000-01, major or significant pollution incidents
involving waste occurred at just 218 out of the 7,700 licensed
waste sites, including some sites with multiple incidents (Figure
1). Nevertheless, the Agency planned to carry out some 120,000
inspections of licensed waste sites and activities in the following
year, an average of 15 visits to each licensed site. The Agency
said that high risk sites were visited up to twice a week, equating
to 100 inspections a year. In 2000-01 inspection activity had
led to 227 enforcement notices, the suspension of 15 licences,
31 prosecutions for breach of licence conditions, and, more recently,
the first ever revocation of a waste licence.[15]
Figure 1: Nine waste sites accounted for a third of major
and significant incidents in 2000-01
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 13
15. In the past, the Department and the Agency had
regarded frequent inspections as desirable to provide reassurance
to the public. In recent years, however, the Agency had introduced
a risk based system (OPRA) for targeting inspections on particular
sites and had reduced the total number of inspections being carried
out (Figure 2). OPRA allocated the Agency's available inspection
staff according to the relative risk of sites, but did not determine
the absolute number of inspections required. There was no scientific
basis for current inspection frequencies, therefore, to show,
for example, that eight visits a year was more effective than
the minimum of four required by the Department, even for closed
sites. The Agency agreed that some guidance on inspections was
out of line with the underlying risks currently, but considered
that the OPRA system would allow it to base judgements about the
number of visits required on better information in the future.[16]
Figure 2: Environment Agency inspections of licensed waste
sites 1996-97 to 2001-02
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 27
16. The Agency and the Department accepted that the
current frequency of inspections resulted in too detailed and
excessive regulation for some low risk sites. For example, the
Agency had inspected a small pet cemetery six times a year when
the Home Office has only carried out six inspections of human
cemeteries since 1995. The Agency considered that its inspection
regime had been instrumental in keeping the number of prosecutions
low. The Agency did not monitor, however, how many major and significant
incidents, or breaches of licence conditions, were detected by
routine inspections rather than reported by members of the public.[17]
17. The Agency's routine inspections of licensed
sites are criticised by the industry for being limited in scope
and relying mainly on passive observation. The Agency was introducing
more in-depth inspections of problem sites, using resources released
by reducing the number of routine inspections. These in-depth
inspections included examination of operators' control systems
and a detailed review of the licence. They might include inspection
teams from outside the area to provide a new perspective. In depth
inspections of this kind would enable the Agency to determine
whether it could place more reliance on the operator's own systems
or to work with the operator to reach that point.[18]
18. Some activities currently exempt from licensing
can have a substantial environmental impact, especially if the
exemptions are abused, for example dumping waste on land under
the pretext of constructing agricultural buildings. Currently
the Agency inspects around 7,000 exempt activities out of around
120,000 known operations. The Agency would like to devote more
resources to inspecting exempt sites but considered that it was
limited by the lack of income from fees levied on such sites.
The European waste directive requires that all waste sites be
subject to appropriate periodic inspection irrespective of whether
they are licensed or exempt. As part of its review of exemptions,
the Department was considering a charging mechanism for some exempt
sites, which would allow the Agency to carry out more regular
inspections of those sites.[19]
14 C&AG's Report, paras 8-10, 14, 3.51; Q 30 Back
15
C&AG's Report, paras 3.58; Qq 94, 111 Back
16
Qq 3, 112-113 Back
17
8th Report from the Environment, Transport and Regional
Affairs Committee, Cemeteries (HC 91, Session 2000-01);
Qq 69, 111-113; C&AG's Report, paras 3.57-3.58 Back
18
C&AG's Report, para 3.65; Q 4 Back
19
Article 13 of Council Directive 75/442/EEC as amended by Council
Directive 91/156/EEC of 18 March 1991; Qq 83-85 Back
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