The Environment Agency has launched a new consultation on its proposals to change the current permitting compliance monitoring regime.

The Agency regulates permits under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 (EPR), which will also include water abstractions from April 2020.

Periodic compliance assessments for all sites permitted under EPR are carried out to check that the operator is following the conditions of the permit. Any permit non-compliances are categorised and scored according to their level of actual or potential impact on people and the environment.

The consultation sets out proposed changes on the how EA assesses and scores permit compliance to ensure this is carried out in a way that is ”more consistent, clear and proportionate.”

The scores are also one of the metrics used by the Agency to monitor and report on the environmental performance of water and sewerage companies in England which is then published in an Annual Environmental Performance Report. Their performance is determined by using monitoring data to assess permit compliance along with other data such as the number of pollution incidents and delivery of environmental improvement schemes.

The consultation sets out proposals to update the current Compliance Classification Scheme (CCS) guidance - the methodology the EA uses to assess, categorise and score permit compliance.

Last year the Agency held a series of events for regulated businesses so they could review current regulatory approaches and used the feedback to start work on a five-year strategic programme known as Performance Based Regulation (PBR). The changes proposed in the consultation would allow it to take the first major step towards implementing PBR.

The assessment and scoring of permit compliance applies to all regimes regulated under the Environmental Permitting Regulations including water discharge and groundwater activities, as well as abstraction and impoundment from April 2020.

March 2018 saw the launch of the Water Resources Licensing Service, a digital tool allowing abstractors to view their water abstraction or impoundment licences by creating an online account.

Abstractors can also:

• check their licence start and end dates
• check their points and periods of abstraction
• give other people access to view their licence information

According to the Agency, creating an enhanced digital service will reduce regulatory costs by making it quicker and easier to apply for, vary and manage abstraction permits. A digital system will also Holding the abstraction conditions online will also make it easier to trade the right to abstract and quicker and easier for the regulator to check that trades will not damage the environment and then approve them.

In April 2020, when licences are then moved into the new environmental permitting regime, the digital service will automatically update licences into permits. According to the Agency this will be a largely administrative change and abstractors will have equivalent permits on day one of EPR to those licences they had the day before.

The Water Act 2014 enabled abstraction and impoundment licensing to be brought into EPR through secondary legislation.

The Agency has recognised that abstractors may have concerns about the move to EPR and is planning a separate consultation on the proposed detail of the move in 2019.

Click here to access the Consultation on assessing and scoring permit compliance