The ESA welcomed publication of the Corry review earlier this week, which makes a raft of recommendations for overhauling Defra’ regulatory landscape to better tackle waste and environmental crime while supporting growth and innovation across regulated industries. 

The review examined whether Defra’s regulatory landscape (the regulators and regulations) was fit for purpose in driving both economic growth and nature recovery. It explored the extent to which Defra’s regulators are equipped to drive economic growth, secure private sector investment and protect the environment, and also reviewed the customer and stakeholder experience of regulation, including the impact on those who are regulated. Finally, it looked at the efficiency of regulation, in particular whether the current regulatory landscape involves any duplication and/or contradiction, and whether there are opportunities to make improvements.

In the foreword to the Independent Review of Defra’s Regulatory Landscape, Dan Corry concludes that the UK’s regulatory system is not working as well as it should to support either nature recovery or economic growth. As a result, the report focuses on five themes for improvements, with recommendations supporting each. 

The five strategic themes put forward in the report, supported by 29 recommendations, are:

• Focus on outcomes, scale and proportionality, with constrained discretion
• Untangle and tidy ‘green tape’ to ensure process-light and adaptive regulation
• Deploy a fair and consistent ‘thin green line’ on regulatory compliance, with trusted partners earning autonomy
• Unlock the flow of private sector green finance to support nature restoration whilst better targeting public sector finance
• Shift regulators to be more digital, more real-time and more innovative with partners

Responding to the report, Head of Regulation at the ESA, Sam Corp, said: “As Dan Corry said in his foreword, the current system of environmental regulation is not working as it should, largely due to resource constraints and a lack of consistent political direction over the past decade. 

ESA had the opportunity to feed into the Corry Review and we are delighted that many of our key recommendations are reflected in the final report. The review recognised the vital role that an efficient environmental permitting service will play in helping to deliver the government’s growth, net zero and circular economy agendas. 

It recommends an acceleration of reform to environmental permitting regulations so that regulators are provided more flexibility to take sensible, risk-based decisions to help speed up the permitting process. The review also highlights the importance of consistent monitoring and enforcement for stamping down on waste crime and persistent non-compliance, which undermines the legitimate sector , and highlights a point ESA made in our submission, which is that that most of the Environment Agency’s attention is focused on legitimate operators, with fewer resources available to tackle poor practice and blatant criminality– the very activities likely to be causing the most environmental harm and damaging legitimate operators. 

We’re also pleased the report recognises the importance of digital transformation, particularly in speeding up the permit application process, and that the EA will have to adopt more flexibility around salaries if it wants to attract and retain the right people needed to fight waste crime and support legitimate industry.”