Environmental regulation reform requires strategic approach - National Audit Office

• The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and environmental regulators are working to improve how they regulate, balancing the government’s environmental goals with enabling economic growth.
• The regulators – the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE) – have faced challenges including the constraints of the legislative framework they operate within, limited strategic support from Defra, data limitations and outdated IT systems
• The NAO outlines a series of recommendations to ensure a coherent, whole-system approach to maximise the benefits of these reforms.

As Defra and the two largest environmental regulators, the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE), embark on a period of reform they face several challenges, and success will depend on a joined-up, strategic approach, says the National Audit Office (NAO) in a new report.

Over the past two years, Defra and the regulators have increased their focus on improving how they regulate and have set up a series of reform programmes. Three recent major reviews have added momentum for reform.

In total, the three reviews make 149 recommendations to Defra or its arm’s-length bodies. Alongside responding to these recommendations, Defra and its arm’s-length bodies are responsible for more than 3,000 pieces of legislation, leading to complexity for both regulators and regulated businesses.

The NAO’s report, Environmental Regulation, highlights this complexity and the challenges that face Defra and the regulators as they embark on their reforms.

The report says that an overly cautious and risk-averse culture in Defra and the regulators has developed, in part due to the potential for legal challenge, and this has restricted some efforts to innovate and embrace new approaches.

Read the full report: Environmental regulation