Exclusive:Scotland's environment watchdog accused over 'failing to ensure' laws are met

Scotland’s post-Brexit environmental watchdog has been accused of “failing to ensure” laws are complied with and “significant and unreasonable delays” in handling complaints.

Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) was established to ensure environmental laws and standards are adhered to in Scotland - as a replacement for the EU’s scrutiny and enforcement role following Brexit.

Read more: Why SNP has further delayed flagship climate change strategy amid 'broken promise' accusation

But the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) has issued a warning over the body’s operation.

Last year, the ERCS forced the Scottish Government to commit to publishing  a climate assessment of its £26 billion infrastructure plan after a campaign with the Good Law Project.

Environmental Standards Scotland investigates concerns environmental law is being broken. Photo credit: John Giles/PA Wire

Now in a stark report, the ERCS has set out its recommendations it claims would provide ESS with better transparency and accountability and be more effective in its role.

The report claims that “ESS is failing to ensure that environmental laws are complied with”, adding that ERCS “has seen few improvements in compliance with environmental laws as a result of making representations”.

The document points to “significant and unreasonable delays in handling representations” and an “unwillingness to exercise statutory enforcement powers”.

It adds: “ESS has instead relied exclusively on the use of informal resolution proceedings. Informal resolution is effectively negotiation with public authorities, without the use of ESS’s statutory powers.

“ERCS considers that ESS’s decision-making is often poor and ESS often fails to engage with the legal issues that lie at the heart of several representations. This restricts ESS’s ability to effectively address policy and legal issues raised in representations and has led to unsatisfactory outcomes.”

ERCS has recommended that ESS introduces “reasonable and specific timescales for the handling of representations at all stages” and should “review and improve any internal processes which may be contributing to delays in handling representations as a matter of urgency”.

Ben Christman, legal director of ERCS, said: “ESS is a watchdog that whimpers when it should bark - and refuses to bite.

“We are concerned that ESS is not effective at enforcing environmental laws. Public bodies in Scotland are not being properly held to account for breaking environmental laws as a result.

Ben Christman legal director at the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland

“Whilst we hope our report will encourage reflection and improvements within ESS, we are concerned that ESS has refused to accept any of the main problems identified in our report.”

Shivali Fifield, ERCS chief officer, said: “Despite our repeated attempts to sound the alarm on everything from sewage to carbon emissions, ESS has failed to live up to expectations. If action has been taken at all, it has often been too little, too late.

“If we are to turn the tide on the climate and nature emergencies, we need an enforceable right to a healthy environment to oblige duty bearers to comply with the law and to provide effective remedies when they do not.”

“Now more than ever we need proper scrutiny of the government, and effective mechanisms to hold public bodies and polluters to account.” 

A spokesperson for  ESS said: “We have met with the ERCS to discuss their report and have responded to them in full, setting out clearly, in writing, why we disagree with their analysis. 

“We will continue to work with the ERCS on the most important environmental issues - as we do with all our stakeholders - while ensuring our independence as Scotland’s environmental governance body.”