The OEP rubbish Environment Agency’s claims that 97% of waste sites are compliant

Over the past decade, the Environment Agency (“EA”) have consistently reported that over 97% of regulated waste operations and installations are compliant; however, the Office for Environmental Protection (“OEP”) rubbish these claims, levying criticisms across multiple elements of the EA’s waste inspection regime, identifying “significant weaknesses” and multiple “lacking” areas.

The OEP is an environmental watchdog, whose mission is to “protect and improve the environment by holding government and other public authorities to account”. 

On 14 May 2026, the OEP released a report reviewing inspections of regulated waste sites carried out by the EA during the period 2018-2022.

The EA set itself a key performance indicator (“KPI”) that 97% of regulated waste operations and installations should be compliant and it reports meeting this target for over a decade. 

What does the report cover?

The report looks into the basis for the EA purportedly meeting its 97% target, as well exploring whether the legal framework surrounding how inspections operate in practice is adhered to. 

Digging beneath the surface, it seems the core of the report sought to uncover whether the 97% KPI was an accurate representation, whilst also investigating whether the EA followed its own guidance as well as the legislative requirements.  

What did the OEP find?

The OEP identified “significant weaknesses” in the EA’s inspection regime, finding that many inspections carried out during the period were of poor quality. In around 1/3 of cases, policy guidance was not followed, which the OEP state points to “systemic issues with the planning and oversight of inspections”. 

1. The 97% KPI reported by the EA is unreliable:

The EA assess performance of regulated waste operations and installations on a scale of A–F (A being the top rating, F being the lowest) based on inspections carried out. 

In 2022, the EA automatically recorded 29% of sites as falling into the highest category, Band A, despite not carrying out a single inspection of those sites that year. 

Additionally, the EA’s KPI requires 97% of sites to be compliant with their permit (‘compliant’ meaning bands A, B or C on the scale). However, the EA’s own definition for Band C is “must improve in order to achieve permit compliance” yet sites falling into this category, where non-compliance has been detected, were still being included as a compliant sites for the purposes of the EA’s KPI. 

These actions, when considered together, risk grossly distorting public perception of regulatory performance and ultimately, misrepresent the true picture. 

The OEP stated that based on these factors, the EA can only be confident that 64% of sites are compliant – a long way off the 97% reported. 

2. Operational guidance is not being followed during site inspections:

Even the figure of 64% of sites being compliant may not be totally reliable, as the EA failed to adhere to the relevant guidance, or there were significant legal/technical errors detected by the OEP. 

These failures to comply with guidance and legal requirements can lead to false reporting of sites being compliant when they are not, it affects the subsistence fee the site will pay (which is assessed based on its categorisation), and fails to ensure improvement in areas where this is required which could lead to harm. 

3. Quality control and quality assurance are lacking:

Formal oversight systems which were previously in place were no longer operating, leading to instances where guidance is not followed. 

New EA officers are monitored during their training period in completing inspection forms, but once their training period is over, they complete the inspection forms independently. Local EA teams can conduct their own quality assurance of officer work after training, but this is not formally required by the EA’s internal processes. 

4. Inspections are not planned and delivered as intended:

Inspections were concentrated on poor performing sites, leaving other sites without the scrutiny expected. The OEP found limited evidence of systemic planning of routine inspections. 

There were transparency issues surrounding planning and governance arrangements, priorities, and how choices were made “with activity often appearing disconnected from a co-ordinated programme”. 

5. Remote inspections are not always used appropriately:

42% of inspections were performed remotely rather than on-site. However, the OEP was unable to locate a plan setting out guidance on the appropriate circumstances for remote inspections to be used. 

6. Inspectors carry out an average of 2 inspections per month:

On average, inspectors were carrying out 2 inspections per month, which may not have been sufficient to deliver the number of inspections the EA envisioned. For example, 29% of sites were uninspected in 2022.

7. Inspection transparency is lacking: 

The EA is under a statutory duty to maintain a public register including all monitoring information about a regulated site, based on inspections carried out, and to ensure it is publicly available for inspection. However, at the start of the OEP’s research, the inspection forms were not available online or at the EA’s offices. 

Encouragingly, the EA since changed its approach and published forms from 18 August 2025 onwards; however, forms pre-dating this remain unpublished and a direct request to the EA is required. 

Additionally, where information is excluded from the public register, a statement must be entered indicating the existence of information; however, the OEP reports that this does not appear to be taking place.

8. Compliance data is not easily accessible: 

There are considerable delays by the EA in publishing compliance data – to illustrate this, data from 2022 was not published until 2024. This fails to incentivise businesses to comply as there is no reward for those prioritising compliance. 

9. Funding is not the main issue:

There is a lack of clarity on how funding for inspection work is being spent as well as a lack of financial data generally, making it difficult to assess whether sufficient resource is being allocated to inspections. The OEP state that increasing budgets along does not automatically translate into improved regulatory effectiveness. 

OEP Recommendations: 

The OEP provided 6 recommendations to the EA: 

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. 

What is the EA’s position?

Given the report was only published in May 2026, at this stage there is no formal response from the EA. However, it should be noted that the report is based on the period 2018-2022, and we anticipate the EA’s position will be that changes have been implemented since then.   

Our expertise

You can read all of our previous articles here and should you have any questions on the topic, you can contact Rod Hunt or Sofia Dahou.