Corporate report

Environment Agency customer service commitment

Updated 16 April 2026

Applies to England

Environment Agency customer commitment

What you can expect from the Environment Agency

The Environment Agency will:

• provide an efficient and high quality service
• be helpful, polite and respectful
• make it easy for you to do business with them

Their promise

You can trust the Environment Agency to:

• make it easy for you to contact them
• understand and meet your needs
• listen to your feedback and tell you what they have done

What they expect from you

The Environment Agency want you to:

• contact them if you are unhappy and want to complain
• respect their staff – they won’t tolerate threatening, abusive or violent behaviour
• tell them what you think about their service so they can improve

Contacting the Environment Agency

The Environment Agency wants to make it easy for you to contact them. You can do this by email, post, telephone, online or through social media.

Let them know if you:

• need to talk to someone and English is not your first language
• have a hearing impairment
• require a large print format or Braille

They have access to services that can help.

Contact the Environment Agency.

What you can expect from the Environment Agency

They:

• offer a professional service to everyone they work with
• are committed to improving the service you receive

They aim to:

• get it right first time and on time – provide an efficient and high quality service
• provide the right information – make the information clear and accessible
• work professionally – their staff will always be professional
• have a good attitude – they will listen to your ideas
• get the right results – make sure they give you what you need

What they expect from you

The Environment Agency want you to:

• contact them if you are unhappy and want to complain
• respect their staff – they won’t tolerate threatening, abusive or violent behaviour
• tell them what you think about their service so they can improve

If your behaviour becomes unacceptable or unreasonable, we will explain what is happening and may restrict contact or end the service. Refer to how we manage unacceptable and unreasonable customer behaviour.

Environment Agency service standards

They want to give you the best service they can. Their service standards tell you how long it will take them to respond.

They aim to:

• acknowledge your general enquiry or complaint within 3 working days where possible and tell you when you will receive a response – the timing of which will depend on the complexity of the enquiry or complaint
• reply to Freedom of Information and Environment Information Regulation requests within 20 working days
• issue flood warnings as early as possible and within the published timescales
• respond to major incidents as quickly as possible and within the published timescales
• process permits as quickly as possible and within the statutory timescales

Sometimes we may need longer to respond, for example if:

• there is an incident
• you are asking for complex information
• we need to involve a third party

If we are unable to respond within these timescales we will let you know.

You can also find out more about their services, standards and charters on these pages:

• Boating – registering your boat
• Environmental permitting – making an application
• Farming and land management – find out more
• Fishing – buying a licence
• Flooding – being prepared
• Freedom of information (FOI) request
• Personal information charter
• River Medway: customer charter
• Harbour of Rye: customer charter
• River Thames: customer charter

Responding to environmental incidents

For environmental incidents the Environment Agency:

• need to prioritise their activities on incidents that cause serious and significant risk
• are unable to respond to every environmental incident reported to them
• may in some cases, after assessing the risk, decide that no further action will be taken
• will use the information provided to build a picture of environmental threats – to enable targeted compliance, regulation and enforcement
• will continue to regulate activities with an environmental permit so they can prevent damage to the environment
• will not provide feedback to individual reports of environmental incidents

Deciding what action to take

The information you provide to the Environment Agency’s advisors is logged onto their system. They combine this incident information with other data. This helps them to assess how serious the incident could be. Some of the factors that determine how they manage the incident are:

• scale of the harm to the environment or people
• duration
• number of times it has occurred

Complaints, commendations and appeals

The Environment Agency want you to tell them what you think so they can understand more about what’s important to you and how you want to work with them. If they do not get it right they want you to tell them how they could do better.

See their complaints procedure.

Managing unacceptable and unreasonable customer behaviour

We’re here to protect people, places and the environment. To do that well, our employees need to feel safe and respected. Most of our customers engage with us constructively, but when they don’t we will act to protect our staff and keep our services fair for everyone. We treat everyone with professionalism, fairness and respect - and we expect the same in return. 

Threatening, abusive or violent behaviour puts people at risk and undermines our ability to do our job. We will not tolerate it. When we talk about unacceptable behaviour, we mean actions that create real risks to health, safety, resources or fairness – whether it happens once or repeatedly. 

Unacceptable behaviour

Unacceptable behaviour is any action or language – written, verbal or online – that intimidates, threatens, abuses or harms our people or our property. We take it seriously because the safety of our employees matters. 

Examples include:

• violence or threats of violence – any physical assault or threat that puts someone in fear of harm
• threatening behaviour – words or actions that endanger employees, others, or property
• disrupting our work – attempts to stop our operations, derail decisions or cause harm
• damage to property – deliberately damaging Environment Agency property, or property belonging to our employees, contractors or volunteers
• inflammatory or discriminatory remarks – racist, xenophobic or discriminatory comments, or unfounded allegations
• abusive behaviour – words or actions that harass, intimidate or cause distress

How we respond to unacceptable behaviour

When behaviour puts people at risk, we act quickly and decisively. Our priority is to safeguard our employees so they can continue their vital work. 

We will: 

• review what happened and take steps to protect our staff
• record the incident and report it to a manager
• restrict or limit access to our services if needed
• in serious cases, involve the police

Unreasonable behaviour 

Unreasonable behaviour stops us providing a fair, efficient service. It places excessive pressure on employees and diverts resources from those who genuinely need our help. 

Examples include: 

• persisting after matters are closed – carrying on with complaints or demands after all formal processes are complete
• damaging reputations – making statements or taking actions aimed at harming the organisation or our employees
• insisting on irrelevant issues – pushing us to act on matters outside our responsibilities
• ignoring procedures or respect – refusing to follow established processes or showing disrespect to staff
• excessive contact – overwhelming our resources with repeated contact or unnecessary detail
• false or incomplete information – withholding key facts or providing misleading information
• targeting employees with complaints – making complaints about staff who are actively trying to help

How we respond to unreasonable behaviour 

We take unreasonable behaviour seriously because it affects our ability to protect communities and the environment. 

We will: 

• record what happened and alert a manager. We will explain our restricted contact policy and ask the customer to change their behaviour
• if it continues, impose restrictions, inform the customer and explain how they can appeal
• allow one appeal within a set period with the manager’s decision being final
• if the appeal is successful, normal contact will resume. If not, restrictions stay in place for an agreed period and may be extended if behaviour continues