Today (1 July) the Interim Office for Environmental Protection has commenced business, ahead of the OEP being formally established later this year once the Environment Bill becomes law.
The interim body is steered by the Chair, Dame Glenys Stacey, and Chief Executive, Natalie Prosser, together with other Board Members announced last month.
Dame Glenys said:
“This is such a welcome development, taking the OEP from the bare Bill provisions and making it real. It is a significant step in the creation of a new and powerful independent environmental regulator, able to hold the government and public bodies to account with real authority.
As the new Interim Office for Environmental Protection, we will be able to:
- Produce and publish an independent assessment of progress in relation to the implementation of the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan
- Begin to develop the Office for Environmental Protection’s strategy including its enforcement strategy and approach
- Give advice to ministers on areas of environmental law and respond to relevant consultations from government
- Determine approaches for how the Office for Environment Protection will form and operate, and take decisions on operational matters to get the full organisation up and running.
- Receive complaints from members of the public about failures of public authorities to comply with environmental law. We will be able to do some preliminary checking work, but we cannot formally investigate any complaint until we have our statutory powers
Our board holds its first meeting on 1 July in Worcester, where our headquarters will be based. Our work as Interim OEP has begun.
Explore the pages of our website and find out more about what we do.
