Three Year Corporate Plan April 2005

This is SEPA’s tenth year but it is the first time we have produced a Corporate Plan covering a three year period. We have moved to a three year cycle so we can plan our activities and our resources in an integrated way. We have taken a forward looking approach driven by a number of factors including policy priorities, environmental and legislative trends, the resources available and our experience, skills and knowledge of the environment.

As our Chairman says in his foreword to this report, we operate very firmly in the context of sustainable development. We provide Scottish Ministers with expert, independent environmental advice and we are the advocate for Scotland’s environment. We work alongside those who champion the economic and social aspects of sustainable development to inform balanced decision and policy making.

Over the past couple of years we have been working on a corporate vision for SEPA and have consulted with a number of partners to develop an environmental vision for Scotland. The environmental vision looks to the future and the type of environment Scotland could and should have in the 2020s. We hope it will inform thinking about the future direction.

Our corporate vision encapsulates our role in contributing to a prosperous, sustainable Scotland - being an excellent environmental regulator and a recognised and influential authority on the environment. Our first steps are embedded in this three year plan. With a focus on being an excellent regulator we will deploy our resources in the short-term on effective regulation, customer service and promoting efficiency. In the medium-term, we will further invest in securing our position as a recognised and influential authority on the environment. SEPA’s new corporate management team, which started work in July 2004, is aligned with the Agency board and with the Scottish Executive in leading SEPA forward to that end.

We have recently reviewed and changed our organisational structure. That process was informed by staff, management and board views, and by input from the Scottish Executive and its Policy and Financial Management Review process, including stakeholder views. As a result we have a more responsive and flexible organisation which is able to continue both to work “smarter” and to explore and deliver effective and innovative approaches to regulation.

Over the next three years we will improve our service and enhance, use and share our knowledge. We will work with business and industry, government, partner organisations in the environmental, social and economic sectors and people across Scotland to progress the Outcomes that are set out in this document. We will use to best effect the tools available to us including regulation, information and education, environmental economics, the planning system and expert advice.

Scotland is facing a number of environmental challenges, but we recognise climate change as the biggest threat to the global and Scottish environment and will continue to offer informed opinion and advice on this subject. In 2006 we will be publishing a major ‘State of Scotland’s Environment’ Report which will provide an informative and invaluable overview of environmental trends, impacts and the overall the quality of our environment.

Above all, throughout the period of this report we will deliver on our vision of a protected and improving environment as the basis for a vibrant, prosperous Scotland.