Today (14th May 2026) the Office of Environmental Protection (OEP) published a report sharing findings of a detailed review of Environment Agency (EA) inspections of waste operations and installations in England from 2018 to 2022. The report identifies significant weaknesses in the effectiveness, consistency and oversight of the regime and calls for the compliance system to be reviewed and redesigned, better performance indicators, improved quality assurance measures and greater transparency. The report also recognises measures being taken by the EA to start addressing the issues raised.

You can find the full report here: A Review of Environment Agency Inspections in the Waste Operations and Installations Sector in England.

Building on the work of a 2025 report which identified a lack of sufficient scrutiny into the oversight of environmental inspections, this review sought to assess the implementation of environmental law in England specifically in relation to waste operations and installations inspections, which are regulated by the EA.

The review notes that the waste sector forms one of the largest regulated environmental sectors in England, with approximately 14,000 permits and the number of permits increasing by 87% from 2005 to 2023. As the regulator, the EA consistently reports that 97% of these permitted waste installations and operations are compliant (defined by falling within the top three compliance bands). The OEP shared that one core purpose of this review was to understand the basis for this figure. The report also examines how the legal framework for environmental inspections operates in practice, including the extent to which inspections support the identification and resolution of serious non‑compliance and how risk‑based regulation is planned, delivered, and monitored by the EA.

To conduct the review, the OEP considered the quality and effectiveness of inspections at permitted sites — exploring factors such as the adequacy of on-site and remote inspections at well-performing sites, how serious non-compliance is dealt with at poorly performing sites, and testing whether inspectors consistently followed the EA’s own operational guidance, which reflects legal requirements as well as their own and the Government’s standards and objectives.

Overall, the review identified significant weaknesses in the effectiveness, consistency and oversight of the regime and calls for the compliance system to be reviewed and redesigned, better performance indicators, improved quality assurance measures and greater transparency. The also report found that 97% of sites cannot be accurately described as ‘compliant’ as sites that do not undergo inspections (29% of all sites) are recognised as ‘Band A’ by default, and sites in ‘Band C’ are considered compliant.

The report makes six key recommendations to the EA, stating that the EA should…

1. Develop and implement more effective key performance indicators.
2. Review the design of its compliance system to ensure that it enables effective inspection planning and delivery, and it can achieve its intended outcomes.
3. Publish its objectives and
   standards for planning and evaluating its compliance activity.
4. Improve how it can make its inspections more focused on delivering environmental outcomes.
5. Strengthen and maintain internal quality assurance and quality control.
6. Improve the transparency, timeliness, and accessibility of compliance information