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Chief Executive’s Report

Summary

Board Report Number: SEPA 04/23

This paper highlights areas of environmental achievement and concern, enforcement action and major partnership activities as well as detail on Corporate activity since the Board meeting in November 2022.

Introduction

My first quarter in post as CEO (Chief Executive Officer) has represented an interesting, varied, and challenging period! Central to my reflections on this period remains the passion, energy, and enthusiasm of our people; and of everyone I have met at SEPA, together with the reflections of customers and stakeholders on the professionalism and competency of staff, which we will see further reflected in the MSP Survey results presented to the Board today.

Key components of the organisational reset work commenced prior to Christmas, have included the renaming of the Agency Management Team to Corporate Leadership Team (CLT), a title more reflective of the key role undertaken by the team within the organisation. A reset of the Internal Communications Strategy and a review of the Governance Framework both aligning to reduce the meetings culture cited by so many staff and refocus attention back onto appropriate decision making in the right place and the right time within the organisation, starting the journey towards the re-empowerment of teams and individuals throughout the organisation.

Development of the 2023-2024 Annual Operating Plan (AOP) is well underway with a series of CLT workshops assisting in the realignment of the AOP to the Scottish Government Objectives and outcomes, recognising SEPA’s delivery for Scotland over the past 12 months, and that which we will undertake in the next 12 months. The AOP, published by the end of this current financial year, will act as a bridging document to the next three-year Corporate Plan due in 2024. A launch of the new SEPA branding will be undertaken as part of this AOP publication.

Delivering the next steps in our Future of Work programme including the Interim Hybrid working policy and developing an Estates Strategy for SEPA, working with wider partners will assist us in delivering Scottish Government objectives ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of our resource use and ensure it fits well with delivering Regenerative SEPA. I have had the privilege over the last quarter to meet many more staff, stakeholders and partners seeing and hearing first-hand the phenomenal work delivered by our people, making a difference, delivering for Scotland. I delivered the keynote address at Scotland’s Local Environmental Quality Seminar hosted by Keep Scotland Beautiful in January 2023 on Tackling the Litter Emergency: Innovation, Collaboration and Change.

Across the last quarter we have seen the impacts and effects of Climate Change and the multiple responses by the teams to the flood events across November and December 2022. Diligently and professionally performing the flood risk warning duty for Scotland and working closely with partners across Scotland to ensure the safety and resilience of communities.

In December I met the Minister for Environment & Land Reform with the Chair, and shared the current delivery, challenges and opportunities facing the Agency. Whilst naturally initially my time has been focused internally on the Agency, since the turn of the year I’ve taken the opportunity to commence meetings with industry, key stakeholders and partners including Scottish Water, Nature Scot, The Environment Agency, SCDI, The Coal Authority, Salmon Scotland and the Irish Environment Protection Agency, together with developing an understanding of some of our key projects including The Leven, Riverwoods and the Grangemouth Hub and our Water Environment fund (WEF) partnership project delivery.

Moving forward, we will focus on One SEPA Modernisation to bring clarity and continuity to the variety of work being undertaken by colleagues across the organisation to reset and refocus SEPA on delivery.

Regulation

Permitting (Lead CLT member - Lin Bunten)

Emergency Controlled Activities Regulation Authorisation

The recent flooding in the Scottish Borders resulted in several enquiries regarding emergency authorisation under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities)(Scotland) Regulations 2011 for engineering works to address damage to infrastructure.

The bridge which carries the A702 trunk road was severely damaged by flooding and structural engineers from BEAR Scotland – the road maintenance and management firm – closed the road.

Urgent repair works were required to ensure the structural integrity of the A702 viaduct over the West Water near West Linton. We worked with BEAR Scotland to allow work to be undertaken quickly, with a written authorisation issued.

Illegal Activity (Lead CLT member - Lin Bunten)

At the start of this financial year, we had registered a total of 285 illegal activities for prioritisation and tracking. Since April, we have registered a further 58 sites from notifications received from the public and information from partner agencies.

We have concluded investigation and enforcement at 38 sites. Of the sites registered at the start of the year, 53 had been identified as high priority. High priority is determined by assessment of levels of environmental, social, and economic impact as well as involvement of organised crime groups.

In the Quarter 3 Performance Report, we reported that investigation and enforcement at had been completed at 10 of the high priority sites. Since the end of Quarter 3, another has been completed, bringing the total to 11. Enforcement at these sites included fixed monetary penalties, a report submitted to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, and several aspects of partnership working with local authorities.

Most of the prioritised sites are large scale and of a complex nature. The enforcement completed so far this year has tackled several types of environmental harm including disposal of waste by burial and burning as well as large scale deposit of waste.

First Variable Monetary Penalty issued (Lead CLT member - Lin Bunten)

We served our first Variable Monetary Penalty on 10 October 2022. This was issued to Paterson’s of Greenoakhill Ltd for a breach of its environmental permit for its landfill site in Glasgow. This breach resulted in offensive odour that affected local communities for eight days in June 2021.

The company was served with a civil penalty of £6,200 and was also required to pay £1,156.35 of our costs.

As a result of further odour issues at the site, the company’s Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit was partially suspended on 25 January 2023. This means the operator cannot accept any more non-hazardous waste for landfill on to the site until they have assessed, identified, and implemented all necessary measures to ensure that its waste operations are carried out without offensive odours being detectable beyond its site boundary. The rest of the operations at the site are unaffected.

Odour from the landfill site has had an impact on the local community for many years and we have used a range of enforcement powers to try and tackle this. Since 24 December 2022, we have received around 800 complaints in relation to this site. We have been working with the operator to address issues and secure compliance.

Throughout December 2022 and January 2023, we carried out reactive and proactive odour assessments to determine the scale of the impact on the community and gather evidence. The operator has been carrying out several actions relating to landfill gas infrastructure and has been meeting regularly.

We remain committed to finding a resolution and officers will continue to carry out assessments in the affected areas.

Civil Penalties (Lead CLT member - Lin Bunten)

As well as Scotland’s first Variable Monetary Penalty, we served 13 Fixed Monetary Penalties with a combined total of £6,000 and accepted three Enforcement Undertakings during 2022.

The penalties were served for offences including burning controlled waste, failing to attend an interview with SEPA officers, and failing to provide us with copies of documents requested in a notice.

A full list of penalties we have imposed can be found our website.

Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme – producer registration digital service goes live (Lead CLT member – David Harley)

Registration for Scotland’s landmark Deposit Return Scheme is now open. The scheme is a first for the UK and puts Scotland on a path to a more circular economy by incentivising the return of bottles and cans and improving the quantity and quality of materials collected. By 2025 it will capture 90% of all drink containers included in the scheme, which is expected to provide two billion drink containers a year for recycling.

The scheme applies to drinks sold in single-use containers between 50ml and 3 litres and made from plastics, glass, aluminium, and steel. All businesses making or importing these products for sale in Scotland are required to register with us before 1 March 2023, either directly or through the scheme administrator, Circularity Scotland.

As the regulator of the scheme, we are responsible for the registration service, which opened on 1 January 2023. The service allows for both direct registrants and those registering through the scheme administrator. A contingency registration service has also been made available to ensure business continuity and resilience, which meets equality and accessibility standards.

Garrell Burn project Highly Commended at Nature of Scotland Awards (Lead CLT Member – David Harley)

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) 11th Nature of Scotland Awards were held on 17 November 2022, and 'Breathing life into our wetland: Garrell Burn restoration' was highly commended in the Nature and Climate Action category. The project was described as an "ambitious restoration scheme transforming the river and wetland habitats providing a lifeline for valued populations of fish, birds, amphibians and invertebrates.”

North Lanarkshire Council led the works in partnership with SEPA and the Scottish Government, through the Water Environment Fund.

The work reconnects the urban river with a wetland floodplain, provides climate resilience for Dumbreck Marsh nature reserve at Kilsyth. The project also provided new and improved access opportunities for local communities including some of the most deprived zones in Scotland. It has also boosted local wildlife and biodiversity with habitat creation and allowed wild fish migration through the installation of two fish passes.

Earlier this year we shared an update on the project when it was confirmed that salmon had returned to the Garrell Burn for the first time in 100 years.

Bathing Waters Update (Lead CLT Member - David Pirie)

The 2022 bathing water classifications, released in November 2022, showed 98% of our 87 designated bathing waters passed the environmental standards. These included Ayr (South Beach), which maintained its ‘good’ status following significant improvements over many years, and Dhoon Bay where management plans improved water quality. Last year we also had the highest ever number of ‘excellent’ Scottish bathing waters.

Projects to improve water quality are now showing sustained improvements across Scotland. Since 2015, when tighter standards first came into force, 15 bathing waters have improved their classification from 'poor' to 'sufficient' or better. Projects are in development for the two ‘poor’ Fife beaches to improve water quality.

Improving Urban Waters Routemap (Lead CLT Member – David Harley)

The Route Map for Improving Urban Waters (published in December 2021), set out aspirations, commitments, and timelines for improving the monitoring, reporting of overflow spill events and for reducing impacts on water quality through improved source control and asset enhancement.

The Route Map requires partnership working between Scottish Water and us to deliver against the identified commitments. Over the last year, progress has been made in identifying unsatisfactory intermittent discharges (UIDs), establishing improvement plans, prioritising monitoring and reporting, and reducing spills.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) (Lead CLT Member – David Harley)

The Scottish Parliament approved the Fourth National Planning Framework on 11 January 2023. It is expected to be adopted on early February. The framework sets out the Scottish Government’s approach to planning and development to help achieve net-zero, nature-positive places that are designed to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

We have engaged with the Scottish Government throughout the development of the Framework and much of our advice on the flooding and other policies has been incorporated into the revised draft, which is very positive and reflects the credibility of our advice.

The Framework sets a direction that is not ‘business as usual’ but a bolder and more ambitious plan that is a turning point for planning in Scotland. It recognises the need to work in new ways with a collaborative, place-based approach (person centred and bottom-up approach) at the core if we are to successfully address the climate and nature crises. The associated delivery programme aims to create the conditions under which place-based collaboration can underpin the implementation of the National Planning Framework’s vision for 2045.

Compliance Verification Tool (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

We have developed a data visualisation tool to aid the assessment and verification of licence compliance with analysed parameters and associated discharge conditions.

The main focus of the tool is for aqueous discharges regulated under the Controlled Activities (Scotland) Regulations 2011 and the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2012 as well as for analytical data we produce.

It will enable us to identify any sites that are at risk of breaching or have breached licence conditions more easily and help them prioritise and target their regulatory action. The tool will be rolled out over the coming weeks through internal training sessions.

Flooding

Copernicus Emergency Management Service and International Disasters Charter activation 2022 (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

Copernicus is an EU programme which aims to develop European information services based on satellite Earth Observation. Their Emergency Management Service is used in the management of natural or manmade disasters by providing maps, time-series data, and other relevant information. These are created using satellite, in-situ, and model data.

On 18 November 2022, we initiated the very first deployment of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. This provided us with rapid mapping services during a flood event in Scotland. The service is activated by the UK Cabinet Office in disaster situations where danger to life is present or significant economic or environmental damage is expected. The Charter constitutes a network of 17 international space members and includes 270 satellites. In the event of a disaster, emergency service requests are sent to Charter members who then, if applicable, task their satellites to acquire data over the disaster zone.

For this flood event, we engaged with and received data from the following agencies collectively during the peak flood period and several days following the event.

• European Space Agency (ESA)
• United States Geographical Survey (USGS)
• Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
• Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
• National Institute for Space Research (INPE)
• Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)
• The State Space Corporation (ROSCOSMOS)
• German Aerospace Center (DLR)
• The Argentine Space Agency (CONAE)

With the assistance of our Sustainable Growth Agreement partners at the University of Stirling, we successfully created maps showing the extent of the flooding - at centimetre resolution in some cases - for several regions in northeast Scotland. Working closely with colleagues, our aim is to better understand how we can make full use of this rich information to effectively describe the magnitude and impact of the flood event in Scotland and how we can optimise the process for future flood disasters and activations.

Flood Warning service stakeholder workshop 8 December 2022. (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

On 8 December, in collaboration with the Met Office and Scottish Government, we held an engagement event in Dundee’s Caird Hall for key emergency responder partners and customers.

The purpose was to report on progress of our Flood Warning Development Framework, update and get active feedback on areas like our Future Flood Incident Messaging Service, the Scottish Flood Forecast, and the future of regional Flood Alerts. We also discussed other topics raised in the Emergency Responders Survey including questions on our forecasting and flood warning products and services.

The presentations and interactive sessions with the organisations represented were received well and gave us excellent service development insight from professional customers in key organisations including:

• Scottish Fire & Rescue;
• Police Scotland;
• The Scottish Government;
• Scottish Water;
• Local Authorities Resilience Group Scotland;
• Scottish Ambulance Service
• HM Coastguard
• Neighbourhood Watch Scotland;
• The BBC Scotland Weather Team;
• Network Rail; and
• Traffic Scotland.

Flood event – 29-31 December 2022 (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

On 30 December 2022, several parts of southern and western Scotland were affected by flooding, the most significant of which was from the River Nith in the Dumfries area.

Around 15 – 20mm of rainfall fell on 28 and 29 December 2022, which meant that the ground was saturated before the main pulse of rain arrived in just a 12-hour period from midnight to midday on 30 December 2022.

We had flagged the likelihood of flooding to responder partners well in advance, through the Flood Guidance Statement on 28 December. We then raised the rating to an amber risk, and highlighted this in the 29 December flood guidance statement. We had 10 regional Flood Alerts and 33 local Flood Warnings in force over the event period, including a Severe Flood Warning for Whitesands in Dumfries, issued in consultation with local resilience partners.

Throughout the event, we were in regular contact with partners and attended multiple Local Resilience Partnership meetings in Ayrshire, the Borders, East Lothian, and Dumfries & Galloway. We used these to provide the best current and predicted water level information as possible to aid partner response.

Our hydrometry gauging saw several records broken on 30 December with the highest flow/levels on record around the Nith catchment at Drumlanrig, Capenoch, Fiddlers Ford, Greensands, and Whitesands.

Concerns in the Borders saw us issue flood warnings along much of the length of the Tweed and Teviot. There was particular concern around Hawick and Peebles, where potential evacuations were being considered by emergency responders. We also actively monitored other areas in central Scotland including the River Devon, where a caravan park near Tillicoultry was at risk.

The most significant known impacts were around Whitesands and other parts of Dumfries, but impacts were also seen from surface water to transport infrastructure (e.g., A8 Greenock, A78 Inverkip, A77 Ayrshire, M9 Stirlingshire) across central and southern Scotland with rail routes also being seriously affected by flooding (including closure of main and regional lines north and south of the Clyde at Bowling in West Dunbartonshire, Helensburgh, Bishopton and Wemyss Bay).

Maintaining Gauging Stations (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

During recent flood events, the engineering upgrades undertaken in recent years have enable us to capture additional high flow gauging data. This helps us in making future decisions around flood warning and flood risk management.

Work has begun to establish a long-term plan for the design and maintenance of our future Hydrometric Network. We expect to complete this during the 2023-2024 financial year. Planning is well underway for capital works during 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.

New social media content developed to better communicate flooding information (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

We have successfully developed new flooding content for a range of flooding topics to be used on our social media channels, including our new Twitter channel @SEPAFlood. This will help us to communicate flooding issues effectively all year round and continually raise aware of flooding to the public.

Scottish Flood Forecast Launch – Wednesday 8 February (Lead CLT member - David Pirie)

The Scottish Flood Forecast was officially launched by SEPA and the Met Office on Wednesday 8 February 2023 at the Ben Cleuch Centre in Tillicoultry.

At the launch event, we had the Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform, speakers from SEPA, the Met Office, and the Tillicoultry, Devonside and Coalsnaughton Flood Group. We invited local flood groups, Clackmannanshire Council representatives and local councillors. We also invited media to attend the launch and issued a press release on behalf of SEPA and the Met Office on the day.

The Scottish Flood Forecast is the biggest change to our Flood Warning Service since it began issuing direct messaging in 2011. It provides the public with the earliest indication possible of when and where flooding is expected over the next three days, and whether the source is from rivers, surface water or the sea.

We have listened to customers, to ensure that we are creating a product which will help them prepare for flooding at the earliest opportunity. Communities across Scotland will be able to act sooner to protect themselves from flooding.

Campbeltown Flood Protection Scheme (Lead CLT member – Lin Bunten)

Argyll & Bute Council is undertaking flood prevention works that will remove surface water from the combined sewer in Campbeltown.

This will reduce combined sewer overflow frequencies and volumes, reduce flooding for residents and reduce the volume of wastewater requiring pumped transfer to the storm tanks at the town’s sewage treatment works.

It will not only lead to considerable environmental improvements but also cost savings in electricity and a reduction in related carbon emissions.

The project is due to be completed in the summer of 2023 and we expect there will be an application from Scottish Water to vary the existing authorisation at Campbeltown sewage treatment works to align with our guidance.

Organisation

Finance (Lead CLT Member: Angela Milloy)

Our Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22 were approved by Audit Committee and Board in late November and laid before Scottish Parliament in December 2022. We will publish the document on our website soon.

We are working on the 2023-2024 budget preparations and will update the Audit Committee and Board on this work in during February 2023.

Pay Offer 2022-2023

UNISON advised us on 20 January 2023 that, following a ballot of members, the formal pay offer was rejected. Across the coming weeks, we are committed to further discussion with our trade union partner.

Procurement (Lead CLT Member: Angela Milloy)

We are finalising the Procurement Pipeline for the next two financial years (2023-2024 – 2024-2025). There is a significant increase in the body of Regulated Procurement – this relates to contracts over £50,000.

Procurement will actively participate in the assessment of requests for capital expenditure, in order that agreed inclusions are captured in the Pipeline. This follows an expected completion of the 2022/23 Procurement Pipeline of approximately 70%, with the balance either potentially no longer required or deferred to the subsequent financial year.

Charging (Lead CLT Member: Angela Milloy)

The invoicing run for 2022-2023 was issued at the beginning of August and outstanding debt is being pursued.

The current service provision for taking online payments and Special Waste Consignment Notes will end in January 2023.

We are planning several charging scheme consultations for 2023. This includes activities which will come into the Environmental Authorisation (Scotland) Regulations 2018 in 2024.

Future of Work (Lead CLT Member: Jennifer Russell)

We continue to make progress with the re-opening of our buildings. Nineteen buildings are now open. This includes Ayr, Elgin, Glasgow, Kirkwall, and Lerwick, which all re-opened between November 2022 and January 2023. This will give more staff the option of hybrid working.

Public access to these offices is still restricted to arranged access only. We are on schedule to re-open all our buildings - except for Stirling and Fraserburgh offices - by early February 2023.

We published our hybrid working policy and supporting information for staff in November 2022.

UKAS Accreditation (Lead CLT Member - David Pirie)

ISO 17205 is an international standard which demonstrates competence carrying out laboratory and field tests and calibrations, including sampling.

We maintained our accreditation to this standard following our routine annual surveillance visit from UKAS - the UK National Accreditation Body - in May 2022.

We have now also been successful in extending our scope of accreditation so that it includes landfill gas analysis in our Aberdeen laboratory (as well as at the Angus Smith Building), and Emamectin and Metals analysis at our Angus Smith Building laboratory.

The full list of our accredited activities can be found on our schedule of accreditation on the UKAS website.