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  • Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme

Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme

Importance of compliance verification

We expect all authorisation holders to comply with their environmental obligations. 

Our compliance verification work checks whether authorisation holders do so and, where necessary, enables us to take action to protect the environment and people. 

We verify compliance through site visits and inspections, investigating events and incidents, sampling discharges and through assessment of authorisation holder data.

Publicly accessible compliance information is important for all stakeholders, including authorisation holders - particularly those that trade on their good environmental performance.

Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme

We are developing a new approach to compliance assessment – Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme, which will replace the Compliance Assessment Scheme that operated until the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme aims to be broader than simply whether or not an authorisation holder is compliant, non-compliant or major non-compliant. It will aim to articulate the compliance picture more accurately by considering a wider range of relevant factors, such as:

  • the length of time in non-compliance;
  • the severity of the non-compliance;
  • its impact on people and the environment;
  • how the authorisation holder responded to rectify a non-compliance.

The objective is to promote high levels of compliance and to make authorisation holders remedy non-compliance as quickly and as effectively as possible. It will also allow for continuous reporting rather than relying on year-end reporting.

This will be consistent, proportionate and transparent and build on the views we heard from stakeholders when we consulted in 2015 and 2017.

Engagement and consultation

We recognise that developing, consulting on and then bringing forward the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme approach will take time. 

While our aim is to have it in place as soon as possible, it is important to get it right so that authorisation holders, stakeholders and the public have confidence in the process.

While this work is being progressed, we will continue to undertake compliance verification checks as normal so that we can continue to protect the environment and communities and target our regulatory effort. We will communicate the outcome of this work directly to authorisation holders.

In our communications, we will inform authorisation holders whether they are compliant or non-compliant. We will also indicate whether the non-compliance would fall within a draft definition of major non-compliance which we had previously consulted on and have updated. This would be intended to help authorisation holders gain experience of how this definition could apply. The definition of major non-compliance would continue to be draft until after consultation in 2024.   

This basic compliance information is not the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme and should not be compared with our old Compliance Assessment Scheme.

We will require action from authorisation holders to ensure compliance is swiftly recovered. Where necessary, we will take enforcement action in accordance with our Enforcement Policy. 

Compliance verification information we collect over 2023-2024 will be used to inform our proposals for the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme. Our current thinking is that our Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme will have three categories: Good, Acceptable or Unacceptable.

In 2024 we will consult on our proposals prior to implementation. Prior to the consultation, we will engage with key sectors to discuss our proposals.

Benefits

For the environment and communities:

  • It provides authorisation holders with an incentive to tackle issues swiftly and to return to compliance as quickly as possible.
  • It enables compliance information to be updated continuously, rather than reported at the end of the year, thereby improving transparency.

For authorisation holders:

  • It will articulate an authorisation holder’s compliance picture more accurately by considering a wider range of relevant factors, including how they respond to rectify issues.
  • It will benefit authorisation holders who value the importance of remaining compliant and who take swift action to address non-compliance.
  • It will continue to ensure SEPA quickly provides its view of compliance following verification work and gives clarity on what is expected.

For SEPA:

  • Updated major non-compliance criteria will enable us to be confident we are focusing our regulatory effort on those authorisation holders with the most significant non-compliance.
  • It provides a more accurate compliance picture, enabling us to take the most appropriate action – including, where necessary, enforcement – to rectify compliance issues.

We expect all authorisation holders to comply with their environmental obligations. 

We will continue to verify compliance through site visits and inspections, investigating events and incidents, sampling discharges and through assessment of authorisation holder data.

We will communicate the outcome of this work directly to authorisation holders, advising them of our view about their compliance. Where necessary, we will take enforcement action in accordance with our Enforcement Policy. 

Compliance verification information we collect over 2023-2024 will be used to inform our proposals for Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme.

Through 2023-2024, we will continue to undertake compliance verification through inspections, by assessing authorisation holder data, responding to community concerns, investigating environmental events, gathering evidence and, where necessary, by taking enforcement action. We do this so that we can continue to protect the environment and communities and target our regulatory effort.

We will communicate the outcome of this work directly to authorisation holders, advising them of SEPA’s view about their compliance. Where necessary, we will take enforcement action in accordance with our Enforcement Policy. 

Compliance verification information we collect over 2023-2024 will be used to inform our proposals for Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme.

The following compliance verification information will be collected 2023-2025. This evolves the approach SEPA has adopted since 2020:

  • The date compliance verification work was undertaken.
  • The type of compliance verification work we undertook e.g. site inspection (announced or unannounced), assessment of authorisation holder submissions.
  • The compliance category assigned as a result of the verification – compliant, non-compliant, major non-compliant (assessed against draft criteria).
  • Where necessary, the high-level reason for non-compliance.
  • Where necessary, whether authorisation holder has an agreed improvement plan in place with us (only applicable to major non-compliant authorisations).
  • The date the authorisation holder rectified the issue as verified by us (only applicable to non-compliant authorisations).

  • Major non-compliance represents what we consider the more significant type of non-compliance.
  • A major non-compliance could constitute a condition breach or multiple lower-level condition breaches.
  • We have previously consulted on a draft definition of major non-compliance. An updated version of this is what we are using.
  • In the first instance, recording what we consider to be major non-compliance allows us to prioritise our regulatory effort and target our resource effectively.
  • The draft description will be tested over the year through communication with authorisation holders and subject to ongoing engagement with those we regulate.
  • When we undertake our consultation in 2024, we will propose a definition of major non-compliance which takes on board the feedback we receive over the year.

The Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme aims to be broader than simply whether or not an authorisation holder is compliant. It will aim to articulate the compliance picture more accurately by considering a wider range of relevant factors, including:

  • the length of time in non-compliance
  • the severity of the non-compliance
  • its impact on people and the environment
  • how the authorisation holder responded to rectify a non-compliance

We propose – when taking into account both the basic compliant, non-compliant and major non-compliant information together with these broader factors - to rate an authorisation holder’s environmental performance as Good, Acceptable or Unacceptable. This proposal will be set out in the 2024 consultation.
We recognise that in some instances an authorisation holder’s environmental performance may be acceptable or even good, even when some non-compliance is recorded.

We will communicate to authorisation holders the outcome of any compliance verification work swiftly.

The outcome will be categorised in the following way:

  • Compliant;
  • Non-compliant or
  • Major non-compliant (based on draft criteria which have been further developed following consultation in 2017)

It is important to note that this is not an overall assessment or comparable with a historic CAS score, but a simple articulation that at the point in time of undertaking the compliance verification work an authorisation holder has conditions that are categorised as compliant, non-compliant or major non-compliant.

Authorisation holders will be given the opportunity to discuss this categorisation with us.

It is also important to note that this is not the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme. This will not be introduced until after the 2024 consultation.

Where we undertake certain types of compliance verification activity (e.g. review of reports, data returns or discharge sampling), in general, we will only make contact with authorisation holders where our assessment highlights non-compliance.

In cases where we attend a site, we will communicate the outcome verbally on the day of the inspection and will follow-up in writing within 10 days.

In cases where we assess data the non-compliance will commence from the date the non-compliance was first identified (noting this could be prior to when an authorisation holder submits the data to us). It will end on the date the authorisation holder provide evidence confirming compliance was recovered. The onus is on authorisation holders to maintain active oversight of compliance and swiftly recover compliance. Therefore, where compliance has already been recovered, evidence of compliance recovery should be submitted at the same time as the data submission. 

Authorisation holders will be given the opportunity to discuss the outcome of our compliance verification work with us.

As we are no longer operating our Compliance Assessment Scheme and have not yet implemented Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme, we are not operating an appeal process as we did under CAS. A formal appeal process will be developed and consulted upon in 2024. 

Not necessarily. The onus is on authorisation holders to rectify the issue swiftly and demonstrate compliance to SEPA using appropriate evidence e.g. monitoring information, video, photographs, remote tour.

We will review the evidence provided and only where necessary will we re-visit the site before providing confirmation of your compliance category.

If an authorisation holder is compliant, we will record the date they recovered compliance as the date they submitted the evidence (not the date when we reviewed this evidence).

We expect all authorisation holders to continue to take all necessary steps to comply with their environmental obligations.

If any non-compliance is identified, then we expect authorisation holders to take all steps necessary to recover compliance as quickly as possible.

  • From Spring/Summer 2023 – We will continue to collect information about compliance through our normal compliance verification procedures. We will log authorisations as compliant, non-compliant and major non-compliant to enable us to prioritise our regulatory effort and to develop our proposals. We will communicate compliance information directly to authorisation holders.
  • From Spring/Summer 2023 – We will engage key sectors to explain our intended approach and invite them to be part of its trialling and development prior to consultation.
  • 2024/2025 – We will formally consult on proposals for the introduction of the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme.
  • 2025 (indicative) 2025/25 (indicative) – We will introduce the Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme.

We expect to commence publication of information as part of our Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme approach after we have consulted in 2025. We do not intend to proactively publish compliance information associated with these proposals prior to that. In the interim, we will communicate directly with authorisation holders and will make clear whether they are compliant or non-compliant. We will also indicate whether the non-compliance would fall within a draft definition of major non-compliance which we had previously consulted on and have updated.