To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Environment Agency is taking to speed up its environmental permitting service.
Answered on
9 June 2022
The Environment Agency (EA) is working through a backlog of work. Where appropriate it is expediting critical cases and those linked to Government priorities such as green growth and infrastructure. The EA is taking significant steps to recover and improve services going forward: actively recruiting more staff and using rolling recruitment campaigns. It has brought in contractors and reassignment of staff from its laboratory service no longer required to support Coronavirus sewage testing.
A rigorous improvement programme is in place to drive efficiency and better responsiveness to business, including the introduction of more specialist teams to deliver complex and high environmental risk work as well as improved advice for applicants. The recent Government Spending Review allocated significant funding to the EA for modernised digital systems. These will improve both the pace of permitting and provide better platforms for its customers to make applications on in future.