The Office for Environmental Protection can undertake investigations into public authorities’ compliance with environmental law. We may do this in response to a complaint raised with us (via our published complaints procedure), or via a self-initiated investigation. Complaints are an important source of information that can help identify serious failures to comply with the law, or otherwise provide information valuable to wider OEP-led activity. We publish a quarterly summary of our complaints and enquiries, which can be found here.
In deciding whether to investigate a matter, or pursue any other action, we follow the decision-making framework set out in Part 4 of our Enforcement Policy.
We take a proportionate approach to our enforcement activities. This means we will normally aim to resolve non-compliance through co-operation, dialogue, and agreement with public authorities. Where we reach resolution by agreement with public authorities, we will normally make this public unless there are good reasons not to. As a result, much of our work centres on the resolutions we achieve outside of our formal enforcement powers. This is summarised below under ‘Interventions and resolutions’.
Where a satisfactory outcome cannot be reached through these means, we may pursue a formal investigation, and exercise our stricter enforcement powers including, if necessary, through court proceedings. Exceptionally, where urgency requires it, we may take a matter to court outside of our bespoke enforcement functions (see Part 5 of our Enforcement Policy). You can find a summary of our investigations below.