How to improve relations between land managers and Defra regulators

At the CLA we spend a lot of time looking at how relations between our members and regulatory bodies could be improved. As part of this work, we recently fed into a review of Defra regulators led by the economist Dan Corry, which has had its findings published this week. We highlighted the issues members face with complex regulation, slow responses, and risk-averse approaches.

The review is largely aimed at Defra itself, with 29 recommendations – some of which quite technical in nature – spanning some 65 pages. While not all recommendations are directly relevant to land managers, there are some that address issues the CLA has been raising for some time.

The key message is that the current environmental regulatory system does not work for nature or for economic growth. Instead, it creates blockages in the system with high costs for the public without enhancing nature. The report published this week recognised the complexity of navigating the 3,000 Defra regulations, many of which overlap – a problem CLA members will be familiar with.

The report also argues that the risk-averse operation of Defra’s regulators is inhibiting growth, and suggests instead that they should have clear outcomes to achieve with flexibility and discretion (within the law) to reach those outcomes.

However, the report notes that it is rare for development to be stopped by environmental regulation alone. The review recommends streamlining and modernising regulations in order to align them more in-line with UK environmental targets.

The report is centred around five areas of improvement:

• Focus on outcomes, scale, and proportionality, with constrained discretion
• Untangle and tidy ‘green tape’ to ensure process-light and adaptive regulation
• Deploy a fair and consistent ‘thin green line’ on regulatory compliance, with trusted partners earning autonomy
• Unlock the flow of private sector green finance to support nature restoration whilst better targeting public sector finance
• Shift regulators to be more digital, more real-time and more innovative with partners

The review is very welcome and highlights many of the problems with regulators and the rulings that affect members. There is a focus on the operation of regulators and how they are organised to delivery their duties. These will, if implemented correctly, change how Natural England and the Environment Agency operate which should result in a more positive experience over time.

The prospect of an improved regulatory processes and simplification of guidance will be helpful to reduce costs and aid compliance. This is likely to apply to some of the regulation around water, habitats, pollution and Environmental Permitting. This work has already started, and the CLA is involved in the process.

Another interesting area is around trusted partner status for organisations that will be afforded more autonomy in the work they do. This could be very helpful, for example in allowing greater freedom to deliver outcomes in protected sites, but it all depends on how it is implemented and what kind of organisations might be eligible for trusted partner status.

A major focus of the review is on unlocking private sector finance for nature and carbon, something the CLA is very supportive of. We are particularly pleased to see the proposal for a Nature Market Accelerator to look at governance and standardised process, and a rapid review of how to remove barriers to nature-based solutions such as planning permissions and licensing. We know that this latter point is a problem in some projects that create wetlands, for example.

Another positive is a recommendation for the government to be clearer on what it will fund, to enable simpler blended finance and stacking on the same piece of land. However, the CLA is concerned by the recommendation to simplify the compliance markets such as biodiversity net gain and nutrient neutrality, including aggregating credits. Our worry is that this that may change the current market, which is still finding its feet.

The report also recommends that regulators use more digital platforms to improve processes and encourage a greater use of data and analysis for more remote monitoring and risk based inspections. This has pros and cons; while more efficient analysis is welcome to expedite decisions, models are not infallible and should be supported with ground truthing.

We were very disappointed not to see specific recommendations on protected sites which is an area where CLA members have a lot of challenges in dealing with Natural England.

Defra will need to consider which recommendations they prioritise, and whether or not to implement them. It has already begun rolling out some suggestions, including appointing a lead regulator for major projects which involve multiple stakeholders, and publishing new strategic policy statements for all - mandating constrained discretion.

The CLA will use the review as an opportunity to push for a less risk-averse approach to decisions and continue to work with regulators to improve member interactions.