Dr Jo Nettleton, Chief Regulator at the Environment Agency who took up the role in April 2024, is warning that without continued investment and transformation for the Environment Agency, "further improvements to the customer experience will be limited."

The warning comes in the first-ever Environment Agency Chief Regulator’s report which replaces the Regulating for People, the Environment and Growth reports from previous years.

The report, which reviews activities regulated by the Environment Agency (EA) in 2023-24 (supported by a separate evidence annex) is organised in three parts:

• Part 1 – 2023 business performance overview
• Part 2 – Our performance: regulation 2023-24
• Part 3 – Forward look and challenges

Setting the context, the report says Environment Agency has four priorities for regulation:

• supporting sustainable economic growth and innovation while protecting and improving our environment
• our regulatory team
• regulating effectively
• transforming our regulation for the future

Commenting on water sector and regulatory activities, Dr.Nettleton says:

“We know from our evidence, where water company investment and improvements are made, good environmental outcomes have been achieved. We have seen large reductions in these pollutants discharged to rivers from sewage treatment works.

“However, previous and current performance of the water industry is not good enough. We have a part to play and acknowledge where we can make further improvements too. We are transforming the way we regulate the water industry. I look forward to seeing the improvement that our transformation programme and our increased compliance and enforcement work can deliver in 2025.”

The report states:

“Improving and protecting the quality of rivers, coasts, estuaries and groundwater is complex. There are no simple solutions to deliver the change overnight and no sector can do it alone. There are multiple pressures on England’s inland and coastal waters: 36% of water bodies are affected by wastewater, 40% by farming, 18% by towns, cities and transport, and 3% by abandoned metal mines. Regulation, investment and transparency have all led to improvements in water quality – we know these are effective levers to tackle the issues, but more must be done across all sources.”

Dr. Nettleton acknowledges in the reoprt that EA permitting work has been “under considerable capacity pressure” which has “affected the timeliness” of EA services, especially in complex areas of regulation.

Water industry transformation

The report says that the recent focus on water industry performance has highlighted the need for change and that for too long, “industry culture has been focused on fixing failure, not on ensuring the long-term resilience of our water infrastructure.”

Dr. Nettleton comments:

“Cleaning up England’s waters is not just about water companies, it includes agriculture, industry, roads and urban pollution too. Taking a comprehensive approach to protecting the water environment provides valuable strategic oversight of the whole water system. The catchment approach does this by better integrating water, nature and flood planning. It targets action where it will deliver the greatest impact for water quality, flood management, and nature recovery.”

According to the report, the Agency has already used EDM evidence to drive £1.1 billion of water company investment which will drive 800 investigations and nearly 800 improvements to storm overflows by 2025.

"The additional information on storm overflow discharges from the new monitoring and reporting requirements in the plan will improve our ability to enforce unlawful storm overflow discharges and permit breaches", the Chief Regulator says, “EDM gives us much more information on where and when storm overflow discharges are occurring, which is enabling us to take quicker action to improve them.”

Forward look and challenges

Looking further ahead, Dr. Nettleton coments:

“The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and water pollution, air quality, waste management and climate change are still challenges. … Much of our regulatory framework dates from the last century.

The Environment Agency alone cannot meet these challenges. I believe changes to legislation are also needed to make the regulatory framework simpler, more coherent, flexible and agile.”

In addition to updated legislation, the Chief Regulator says she wants to see the Environment Agency “deliver a better experience for those we regulate. This will require sufficient funding and investment at both policy and implementation levels…..

“More stable and consistent funding will enable continued support for our transformation to a digitally delivered regulatory service.”

However, she goes on to warn:

“Without continued investment and transformation, further improvements to the customer experience will be limited.”

Click here to access the Environment Agency Chief Regulator’s report 2023-24 online