Supplementary memorandum from the Environmental
Services Agency (ESA)
A. A FRAMEWORK
FOR LAW
AND ORDER
Implementation of higher environmental standards
should not automatically result in an increase in criminal activity.
However, chaotic implementation of EU Law—as we are experiencing
with the Landfill Directive—is making it easier for criminals
to operate whilst creating more difficult trading conditions for
regulated companies. Awareness amongst waste producers of changes
to the legal framework is low and we do not believe that the law
is being applied consistently and proportionately.
B. PRIORITY ACTION:
FINES OR
DETECTION?
We believe the scale and nature of sentences
provide sufficient scope to the Courts. We are aware of no instance
where the availability of an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment
for a term not exceeding five years in the Crown Court, as provided
in a number of statutes concerned with environmental protection,
including the Environmental Protection Act 1990, would have been
inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the crime.
However, for there to be a proper deterrent,
criminals need to believe that there is a significant risk of
detection, prosecution and conviction. Tough penalties are already
in place: an infrastructure capable of detecting and successfully
prosecuting environmental criminals is not.
ESA believes that the Environment Agency lacks
adequate resources in a number of areas.
Technical/Experience
The Environment Agency pays low salaries which
makes it difficult to recruit and retain officers possessing the
skill and experience successfully to investigate and prosecute
environmental offences.
IT
The Environment Agency has no real-time data
on waste and resource flows which makes it easier for wastes such
as hazardous liquid waste, banned from landfill from 16 July 2002,
to "disappear". ESA understands that £15-20 million
would be needed to fund the real-time waste capture system we
believe to be a basic regulatory requirement.
Financial
The Environment Agency needs additional resources
effectively to detect and prosecute illegal waste management activity.
The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science's report (A Problem-Oriented
Approach to Fly-Tipping, July 2004) noted that the Agency's detective
resources "are limited". For example, in London in 2002,
the Agency had 11 investigators dealing with 442 incidents of
fly-tipping amounting to a workload of 40 crimes per investigator.
By contrast, the Metropolitan Police has 128,000 officers dealing
with 1,080,741 crimes in London in 2002-03 amounting to a workload
of eight crimes per officer.
At the same time the Agency has proposed to
increase charges to responsible operators by up to 450%. The proposed
increases come at a time when our Members have seen little real
improvement in regulatory services delivered by the Environment
Agency. For example, only 20% of the 250 PPC permit applications
that have been submitted have been processed: the Agency's target
was 80%. Our Members are also already investing significant sums
in internal management and control systems to improve environmental
performance.
The provision of additional resources to the
Environment Agency is not the only solution: the Government and
the Agency must also explore ways to use resources more efficiently
and to develop more effective ways of detecting and prosecuting
environmental crimes.
ESA believes that Agency should work more closely
with other enforcement agencies like the police and HM Customs
and Excise. We also agree with the Jill Dando Institute of Crime
Science that the Environment Agency, with many scientists at its
disposal, should make greater use of forensic science in tracking
offenders.
As highlighted in our written evidence, the
Environment Agency should place a greater reliance on operators'
management systems. The next generation of environmental improvement
will not be achieved by adding another costly layer of prescription
to regulation of industrial process but will be delivered by making
more use of operators' own management systems to meet carefully
designed environmental outcomes.
ESA is keen to work with the Environment Agency
in developing a "sector plan" and believe that this,
combined with the Agency's own work on the future of regulation,
provides an excellent opportunity to modernise and strengthen
environmental regulation.
C. ESA'S CODE
OF CONDUCT
We can confirm that no director of an ESA Member
was convicted in a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency
in 2003-04.
November 2004
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