SEPA Compliance Assessment Scheme

1. SEPA Compliance AssessmentScheme

2. Aims and Benefits • Proportionate • Consistent, fair and legally correct • Transparent and accountable • Targeted, efficient and effective • Information already gathered by SEPA • Publication • Enforcement • Charging

3. Implementation • January 2009 • PPC Part A and Part B • January 2010 • Waste Management Licensing (WML) • Controlled Activity Regulations (CAR) – Point Source • January 2011 • Controlled Activity Regulations (CAR) – Water Resources • Radioactive Substances Act (RSA)

4. Scheme distinguishes between conditions that relate directly to the environment and those which relate to management requirements that ensure appropriate environmental protection: Environmental Limit Conditions (ELCs) Environmental Management Conditions (EMCs) The Compliance Matrix

5. Licence conditions • Environmental Limit Conditions (ELC) • Scope ELCs – relating to activity as described in the conditions of licence or the specified geographic boundary • Numeric ELCs – a limit that relates directly to the environment, and which has a single threshold value • Numerical Statistical ELCs – a limit that relates directly to the environment and which is licensed according to a statistical distribution • Process ELCs – factors indirectly controlling emissions including equivalent parameters and technical measures & factors relating to the presence or absence in the environment, where no numerical limit has been set

6. Licence conditions • Environmental Management Conditions (EMC) • Generally descriptive and relate to important attributes of environmental management including: • management, plant/infrastructure and reporting • Attributes will be selected for inclusion in the EMCs assessment if they are specifically referred to in the licence or are required under BAT or BPM • Regime specific guidance indicates which EMC attributes are considered relevant for particular activities or licence complexity • Regime specific guidance for PPC has been developed • Further development of the regime specific guidance for RSA will be undertaken • It is likely there will be different guidance for nuclear and non-nuclear authorisations in RSA – there may be another round of consultation on this guidance in 2010

7. Compliance Matrix Environmental Limit Conditions (ELC) Environmental Management Conditions (EMC)

8. Matrix bands Environmental Limit Conditions (ELC) Environmental Management Conditions (EMC) • Excellent – fully compliant with licence conditions • Good – Not fully compliant with licence conditions and highlights one or two areas for improvement to achieve “excellent” • Broadly compliant – broadly compliant with licence conditions but highlights several areas for improvement • At risk – No breaches of ELCs have been identified but a low management performance indicates a risk of future breaches of ELCs • Poor – Non –compliant or responsible for at least one significant breach • Very poor – Significant non-compliance. Urgent improvement is required across all areas

9. Compliance Assessment Process ENVIRONMENTAL LIMIT CONDITIONS (ELCs) STEP 1: Identify ELCs STEP 2: Assess ELCs Assess compliance with each ELC and assign one of the following to each ELC: no breaches; minor breach; repeated minor breaches, gross breach or significant breach STEP 3: Record environmental events Record any environmental events not already recorded under a specific ELC as ‘minor’ or ‘significant’ breach Assessment of events based upon SEPA’s environmental event classification (to be extended for radioactive substances) STEP 4: Derive overall ELC compliance band The overall ELC assessment is the lowest assessment recorded for any individual ELC

10. Compliance Assessment Process • ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT CONDITIONS (EMCs) • STEP 5: Assess EMC attributes • A standard list of attributes will be used to assess the remaining conditions in the licence – using the regime specific guidance. • Each attribute will be assessed as being compliant, minor non-compliance or major non-compliance • STEP 6: Derive overall EMC compliance band • Derived by counting the number of minor and major non-compliances against attributes • The compliance band will be assessed as either: • high performance – for licences with 5 EMC attributes or less, all attributes must be compliant, for licences with 6-10 attributes there are no major non-compliances and up to 1 minor non-compliance, for licences with more than 10 attributes no major non-compliances and a maximum of 2 EMC attributes are assessed as minor non-compliances

11. Compliance Assessment Process • Low performance – any assessment of major non-compliance under any attribute and/or more than half of the EMCs attributes are assessed as minor non-compliances • Medium performances – all other licences which do not fall into the high or low category • STEP 7: Determine overall compliance band • Determined using compliance matrix, using the overall Environmental Limit Conditions and the Environmental Management Conditions compliance bands

12. ELC Compliance Bands • No breaches: • All ELCs specified in the licence are complied with • Gross breach: • For numerical limits, an exceedance of the licensed limit by x% • For RSA, value of x has yet to be determined • Minor breach – breach of a ELCs which does not constitute a gross breach or a significant breach • Repeated minor breaches – Identifies sites which have repeated minor breaches of the same ELC for each individual parameter at the same emission/discharge point • A repeated minor breach may arise where an absolute limit is breached 4 or more times during the assessment period • Where the license specifies a single numerical limit a look-up table will be used to ensure proportionality • Significant breach – a breach that has caused a major (Category 1) or significant (Category 2) environmental event, or is a breach of a scope ELC or more than one gross breach has occurred • SEPA’s environmental event classification for RSA has still to be developed

13. Implementation • Sites which hold more than one licence will be assessed individually against each licence • Assessment will be undertaken on a calendar year basis • SEPA will be using the generic inspection form for RSA inspections. The completed inspection form will be sent to the operator following the inspection. During the year breaches or non-compliances identified during inspections will be communicated to the licence holder. • The assessment scheme will be applied throughout the calendar year by the inspecting officer (using the electronic compliance assessment “forms”). • SEPA will be carrying out internal audits to ensure consistency.

14. Draft annual assessments will be forwarded to licence holders – licence holders will be requested to contact SEPA regarding any factual errors in the assessment Licence holders should discuss any errors relating to the assessment with the local SEPA officer If agreement cannot be reached, the matter will be escalated to the officer’s line manager If the matter cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of the licence holder, the dispute may be raised under SEPA’s Customer Services Complaints Procedure The assessment result will stand pending the outcome of a complaint, but SEPA will note in the Public Register that the licence holder has disputed the assessment Disputed Assessments

15. Compliance Assessment Scheme Guidance Manual – pdf version available on SEPA’s website Current manual is valid for PPC only Manual will change when other scheme is implemented in other media Further Information