A respected environment: protected, informed and engaged communities

To protect communities we protect human health through regulation and uphold the principles of environmental justice. To inform communities we focus on proactively providing and promoting easily accessible good quality information on the environment. To engage communities we focus on raising awareness of the information SEPA holds and making it meaningful and easily understood.

SEPA will:

• monitor radioactive substances in the environment to ensure the public are protected;

• operate the Scottish part of the radioactive incident monitoring network system and have a role in nuclear emergency response;

• respond to at least 95% of environmental incidents within 24 hours;

• fulfil our role in emergency planning;

• strive to achieve mandatory EC standards at the 60 designated bathing waters monitored under the Bathing Water Directive and investigate all failures;

• operate and continually improve a public information service giving advance notice of possible flood risk and practical information on how to be prepared for and cope with flooding;

• work in partnership towards sustainable flood management;

• produce clear information on Scotland’s environment and raise awareness of environmental issues and the actions people can take to improve the environment;

• publish a State of the Environment report in 2006;

• promote best environmental practice among all key players in the Scottish environment and engage communities in initiatives to improve the environment;

• work at the strategic level with local authorities, where appropriate, to promote partnership working in community planning;

• manage SEPA’s own internal environmental performance, set targets and report annually; and

• seek certification to ISO14001 for all our sites and activities during 2005.

Summary of SEPA’s outcome and targets:

* The dose limits are set out in Article 13 of the (96/29/Euratom) Basic Safety Standards (subject to the exclusions set out in Article 6(4))

† Compliance targets: Control of Pollution Act 94% (increasing to 95% and transferring to Controlled Activities Regulations in 2006); Integrated Pollution Control, Air Pollution Control and Pollution Prevention and Control (Part Bs) 92%; and Waste Management Licences 90%

§ Effective service is deemed as: 95% uptime of SEPA Communications Centre (increasing to 97% by 2008/09); 95% uptime of Hydrology flood warning infrastructure; Increase awareness of Floodline from people living in flood risk areas; and 95% availability of SEPA Floodline website.

¶ Stablise waste arisings and increase recycling and composting in line with the targets outlined in the waste outcome. Information on NetRegs is in the economic outcome. Actions to reduce the impact on climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases are outlined in the air outcome.

‡ Specific biodiversity plans/groups are the Scottish biodiversity strategy, UK and local biodiversity action plans, conservation of mesotrophic lakes and local recording centres. 

The following chart illustrates SEPA’s past performance and future goals.

Protected communities

SEPA’s goal is to increase the number of designated bathing waters which achieve the mandatory EC standards.

Bathing waters which achieve mandatory EC standards

Protected communities

SEPA protects human health by protecting the environment, meeting our human health commitments within legislation and monitoring radioactive substances. Regulation is our key tool and if operators do not comply with licence conditions, we will take appropriate enforcement action. We will carry out environmental improvement plans over the next three years, including plans aimed at achieving the bathing waters target. We will maintain our 24-hour pollution and incident reporting hotline and ensure that at least 95% of complaints are responded to within 24 hours. We will also support the Scottish Executive in responding to environmental emergencies and prepare for the introduction of the Civil Contingencies Act.

SEPA regulates radioactive substances to ensure that exposures to ionising radiation from the disposal of radioactive waste are kept as low as reasonably achievable, taking into account economic and social factors. We carry out a comprehensive environmental monitoring programme and in conjunction with the Food Standards Agency, Environment Agency and Environment and Heritage Service Northern Ireland, we will produce the annual report, Radioactivity in Food and the Environment, on public exposures to man-made radioactivity. We also gather information on levels of radioactivity in produced water from relevant offshore operations. SEPA operates the Scottish part of the Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network system and has a role in nuclear emergency response. We are an advisor to the Scottish Executive on radioactive substances in the environment and we will input to the development of legislation, implementation of the Energy Act 2004 and the further transposition of the Basic Safety Standards Directive.

Informed communities

To ensure that the public are informed about the environment and can participate in decisions, our aim is to provide and promote easily accessible good quality information on the environment in line with the Access to Information requirements. We aim to raise awareness of environmental issues and the actions people can take to improve the environment. As part of this we will produce state of the environment reports and expand the Scottish pollutant release inventory that maps pollutant emissions affecting land, air and water across Scotland. The inventory maps approximately 170 substances and we expect it to cover 1000 sites. In 2007/08 we will fulfil our EU reporting requirements through the inventory – namely the pollutant release transfer register, waste data, Water Framework Directive and Large Combustion Plant Directive reporting. To continually improve our service, we will monitor and evaluate public awareness of, and satisfaction with, our information.

A vital part of our information service is to give the public advance notice of flood risk and practical information on how to be prepared for and cope with flooding. In anticipation of significantly more flooding in future decades due to climate change, we are increasing the number of flood warning schemes and producing second generation flood risk maps which will be available online. To adapt to our changing climate, we are updating the SEPA/Planning Authority flooding protocol and working in partnership towards sustainable flood management.

The 41 biodiversity actions under the Scottish biodiversity strategy and local and UK biodiversity action plans aim, amongst other things, to raise awareness of biodiversity issues, disseminate information and provide advice to habitat owners.

Engaged communities

SEPA will focus on raising awareness of the information it holds and making it meaningful and easily understandable. Through this we aim to promote best environmental practice among all key players in the Scottish environment and engage communities in decisions about and initiatives to improve the environment. Current initiatives tackling pollution are OilCare, Yellowfish and flytipping campaigns. We promote best practice to minimise waste, while encouraging recycling and composting. SEPA is working with other parties, for example Communities Scotland, to develop longer term environmental scenarios with particular reference to climate change and strategies to adapt to living in a changing climate.

SEPA will engage with the Scottish biodiversity strategy, local biodiversity action plans and local recording centres to progress the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity. The biodiversity actions which aim to engage communities include linking to community planning, promoting opportunities for appreciating species and working with others to progress common aims.

The Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 sets the legislative framework for delivering the Water Framework Directive requirements for river basin management planning. SEPA is determined to deliver this important new planning process in a participatory manner which fully involves stakeholders in the decisionmaking process. During 2005/06 we will publish the strategy which will determine how basin planning will work. We expect that a form of sub-basin planning will be rolled out during 2006/07. Sub-basin planning will allow stakeholders to contribute toward the development of a shared view of the improvements which can be delivered by the key dates 2015, 2021 and 2027.

Internal environmental performance

We are working to improve our own environmental performance by reducing our impact on the environment. Key targets include: reducing energy use; reducing business travel; and conserving biodiversity through our land management and purchasing of goods. SEPA's performance against these targets is reported in our annual internal environment report, Eview, which is available on our website.

We have set ourselves a target of certificating our environmental management system to the ISO 14001: 2004 standard for all sites and activities during 2005. This provides an independently audited system focussed on continual improvement of our environmental performance. The certification will improve our efficiency and performance, further demonstrating that our activities result in an improvement in Scotland's environment and maintaining our credibility as an environmentally aware organisation.