Sunderland legislation expert says Environment Agency website closure ‘short-sighted’

A Sunderland firm specialising in environmental and safety legislation has branded plans to close the Environment Agency website as ‘shorted-sighted’.

Business and Innovation Centre-based Cedrec’s environment and safety consultant Richard Clarke was commenting on the Environment Agency’s decision to shift its web content to http://www.gov.uk/environment-agency before closing its website later this month (April 8).

Although it has been known for some time that various services and websites were starting to merge onto the Government’s website GOV.UK, the Environment Agency is set to become the latest casualty – a move Cedrec believes will cause problems.

Richard Clarke said: “It’s no great surprise the Environment Agency’s website is stopping, but nonetheless it might be seen as a short sighted move, particularly as it’ll be of concern that the online content of such an important organisation could potentially become diluted and lost amid the problems and confusion of a one-stop site.

“The amount of advice and guidance the Agency provided to businesses was phenomenal, covering areas like your waste duty of care responsibilities to how to comply with your environmental permit. These were often detailed, technical documents, coupled with best practice measures.”

This is now going to change adds Richard: “Actual documents will no longer be available, only stripped down, basic online content. It will be very hard to tell what has been updated or changed.

“We have concerns that the Government has tried to simplify things too much, and that those writing the web pages just don’t have the knowledge or experience required.

“Coupled with Government plans to cut jobs within the Agency by 1,550, it just makes it harder and harder to get meaningful and accurate advice.

“David Cameron made a big statement back in January about getting rid of legislation through the Red Tap Challenge – some 3,000 rules were mentioned, with 380 pages on waste management – this was deliberately misleading.

“We work with legislation every day, and no waste Acts or Regulations are being revoked. What he was referring to was removing guidance. At the same time he proudly announced that by 2015, Defra will have slashed 80,000 pages of their environmental guidance.”

Richard says guidance that environmental managers nationwide use every day to make sense of legislation and their legal requirements could disappear or become too diluted.

He adds: “How can a document that explains how legislation applies be considered Red Tape? And how can scrapping such guidance help businesses deal with their legal obligations?

“We’ve already seen concerns from practitioners over the low standard of information available on GOV.UK and the “Noddy-style” language it uses. The recent advice on the January 2014 waste carrier changes are a good example, it’s just too simplistic that it doesn’t give you the information you need.

He goes on to add that the registers of lower and upper tier waste carriers direct people to different websites, so it’s hardly the one-stop shop for information the Government is promoting, adding: “The very fact that they are archiving existing and current guidance suggests they themselves don’t have that much faith in the new system.”

Cedrec specialises in providing public and private sector organisations with help and advice in understanding, interpreting and complying with environmental and safety legislation. The company offers a range of specialist consultancy and subscriptions services. More at www.cedrec.com

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