England's Environment Agency scored waste sites it never inspected as fully compliant
In a review presented to Parliament in May 2026, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found that the Environment Agency's headline claim, told to Parliament in 2024, that 97% of regulated waste operations and installations were compliant was unreliable: the 29% of sites it did not inspect in 2022 were automatically recorded in the top compliance band, and sites with detected non-compliance were also counted as compliant. The OEP said the agency could be confident only about 64% of sites, found significant legal or technical errors or poor adherence to guidance in about a quarter of inspections examined, and saw no evidence that serious non-compliance had been fixed in about 63% of the follow-up inspection forms it assessed. Defra's formal response, published 15 September 2026, said the department and the Environment Agency accept the OEP's recommendations.
A key issue with the key performance indicator reporting is that the 29% of sites (2022) not inspected by the Environment Agency are automatically recorded as being in the highest compliance band (Band 'A').
Defra has now published a formal response to the report, as required by law, which says that the department and the EA accept the recommendations we made.
Contacted and made an on-record admission — exact wording not on record.
No outcome recorded yet.