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Assessing compliance

The Environment Agency works with good performers so they continue to deliver effective environmental protection and improvement, but takes action against unacceptable performance.

We use a 'risk-based' approach to target our resources at poor performers and illegal operators who pose the highest risk to the environment.

A key element of our modern regulation approach is Operational Risk Appraisal (Opra), a tool which lets us objectively assess the risks from an activity.

The assessment provides a risk-rating, or profile, which we use as part of our compliance assessment process. The Opra profile for an activity also determines how much we charge businesses for regulating an activity.

For more information about Opra, please read this web page:

Among the tools which fit together to make up our compliance assessment process are Opra, Compliance Assessment Plans (CAPs) and our Compliance Classification Scheme (CCS).

We also use 'Operator Monitoring Assessment' (OMA) for auditing the quality of self-monitoring undertaken by the operators of installations permitted under the Environmental Permitting Regulations.