Natural England - Natural England's regulatory strategy

Natural England's regulatory strategy

How is Natural England approaching the Government regulatory reform agenda?

  • We believe that our customers should be treated with fairness and respect.

  • However, it is inevitable that there will be times when we have to use regulation to address something that is impacting, or could impact, upon the natural environment in some way. For example, a protected area of land might have been deliberately or negligently damaged, or a protected animal might have been disturbed or killed due to a deliberate or negligent act.

  • When we have to use regulation, we have guidance and processes in place to ensure we approach the issue in a balanced, fair and accountable way, following the Hampton Principles, Better Regulation principles and Regulators’ Compliance Code.

  • We will publish the regulatory actions we take and what the outcome was of those actions.

  • The following documents explain our broad approach to regulation:
    - Our Regulatory Strategy pdf document sets out how we will develop and use our regulation.
    - Our Enforcement Strategy pdf document sets out how we will, and are, developing our new approach to enforcement.
    - Our Enforcement Policy sets out our general approach to an enforcement incident and explains to our customers what approaches we will take.

  • We are seeking to reduce the administrative burdens placed upon our customers, such as:
    - the time taken to fill in application forms for licences, grants or schemes
    - the time taken to fill in claim forms or other records
    - the time set aside for a visit from a member of our staff.

What changes have we made to date?

We have simplified some key areas of our work:

  • We have introduced best practice guidance and new general licences to remove the requirement for certain licences. In addition, we’ve introduced some new streamlined licensing processes to reduce both customer and staff administrative burdens.

  • We take a risk-based approach to all wildlife licence applications. In some areas of work this has led to a 20 per cent reduction in visits to applicants.

  • The requirement for customers to fill in Higher Level Stewardship (Environmental Stewardship) claim forms has been removed. This means that in 2008, 3205 customers did not have to fill in a form.

  • We have introduced Entry Level Stewardship online. It is hoped that at least 15,000 customers will take advantage of this service.

What progress have we made?

In March 2009, Natural England was be subject to a Hampton Implementation Review. The review assessed how well regulation was being delivered. The Review team found that:

".. Natural England demonstrates good compliance with the Hampton criteria in many areas, and has made good steps recently to strengthen its regulatory performance which are now bearing fruit."

Natural England accepted all of the findings of the Hampton Implementation Review report pdf document and has a full plan in place to make further improvements in the way we deliver our regulation. In addition, as a result of the Review Natural England has been awarded Civil Sanction powers allowing us to tackle breaches of environmental regulation in a more flexible way than has previously been possible. See also Defra's civil sanctions for environmental offences.