§ Norman BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what targets were set by her Department for the number of inspections carried out by the Environment Agency in each year since 1997; what percentage were met; and if she will make a statement. [93708]
§ Mr. MeacherOperational decisions are delegated to the Environment Agency. Although the Agency publishes a number of output and performance statistics, the departmental requirement upon the Agency is that they should assign resources to inspections that address environmental risk.
The Agency makes information about its regulatory inspection activity available in its published Corporate Plans. These record the Agency's performance against its internally-generated targets. The Agency has recorded the following statistics for its planned inspections for each year ending 31 March as follows:
Year Waste target Percentage achieved Percentage industries target Percentage achieved 1998 171,940 82 3,998 80 1999 180,000 83 4,342 76 2000 150,000 84 4,835 79 2001 125,000 96 4,227 70 2002 125,000 81 4,276 84 The Agency only sets targets for inspecting waste and process industries. Other inspections are not "planned" and therefore do not have targets set for them.