Corporate report

Whistleblowing about environmental malpractice: annual report 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023

Updated 15 February 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

The Environment Agency is designated as a prescribed person for whistleblowing. Workers can contact the Environment Agency about:

• acts or omissions which have an actual or potential impact on the environment
• the management or regulation of the environment

This includes those relating to:  

• flooding
• pollution
• abstraction  of water
• the flow of rivers
• inland fisheries and migratory salmon or trout

Under the Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) Regulations 2017, commonly known as ‘whistleblowing’, we must act on any third party disclosures made to us about environmental malpractice. These regulations also require us to produce an annual report on whistleblowing disclosures received by us.

This report covers the reporting period of 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

How we receive reports

The Environment Agency can receive reports in a variety of ways, by:

• phone to our customer contact centre
• the dedicated incident communication centre hotline
• email
• post
• social media
• direct contact with officers

Reports are often about matters that are already subject to investigation or inspection at regulated facilities. However, not all reports contain sufficient information for us to be able to determine that they are from a whistleblower rather than an ordinary incident reporter such as a member of the public. Reports may also have insufficient data for us to action and be anonymous so we cannot always provide feedback or recheck the details. In rare cases we may be limited in the action we can take if it may breach the duty of care we owe to the confidentiality of the reporter. All reports are treated confidentially.

Number of disclosures

In this reporting period, the Environment Agency received 15 disclosures which were identified as potentially whistleblowing matters on initial assessment. Two of those, on further assessment, were identified as being from employees reporting matters in accordance with their employers’ permit conditions. They were therefore not qualifying disclosures and were dealt with as incident reports.

Of the 13 remaining reports, 9 were with regards to alleged breaches of waste related permit conditions:

• 2 in regard to illegal waste deposits and burning of waste
• 1 in regard to water pollution
• 1 in regard to illegal discharge of liquid waste

All 13 reports were logged, assessed and, where verified, passed to the relevant area operational teams to consider and follow up as necessary. This was in accordance with our policies on incident categorisation and attendance.

Of the 9  permit breaches, 3 were anonymous and not sufficiently detailed to be investigated or considered as a qualifying disclosure. The remaining 6 permit breaches were passed to the relevant operational field teams, who assessed them based on the potential risk to the environment and nature of the allegation.

One of the permitted sites was promptly inspected by regulatory teams due to the seriousness of the allegation. However, no evidence was found that substantiated the allegation. Of the remainder, in some instances there was similarly no evidence of the particular alleged wrongdoing when the premises were inspected.  For these instances site notes were still logged and they will be subject of ongoing assessment. Three of the sites were already subject to regulatory intervention by local teams. The additional information was added to what had already been gathered in order to assist the investigations. One of those is subject to formal enforcement action which had already been initiated before the disclosure was received.

With regard to the reports of illegal waste activity and the 2 reports on water pollution or discharge of liquid waste, these did not result in enforcement activity being required. For some of these cases, it was difficult to verify reported information due to the anonymous nature of the disclosure.

The impact on the Environment Agency

In summary, the disclosures made to us have, in combination with those made by ordinary members of the public, enabled us to better understand and respond to environmental incidents. In particular this was in the regulation of major industry, waste and dealing with water quality issues. These disclosures have assisted in addressing our key objectives of:

• protecting and improving water, land and biodiversity
• improving the way we work as a regulator to protect people and the environment

They have also resulted in our ongoing review and modification of the systems and approaches we have developed when dealing with people who make qualifying disclosures to us as a prescribed person.

When to report environmental malpractice

We are listed as a ‘prescribed person’ in the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 2014 – this means that you can contact us directly about environmental malpractice.

You should report environmental malpractice to us if it affects the environment or the management or regulation of the environment.

Find out more about what the Environment Agency is responsible for.

Find out about other ways you can report whistleblowing.

Contact the Environment Agency

General enquiries

National Customer Contact Centre
PO Box 544
Rotherham
S60 1BY

Email enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Telephone 03708 506 506 Telephone from outside the UK +44 (0) 114 282 5312 Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm GMT).

Environment incident hotline

Open 24-hours:

0800 80 70 60