The Environment Agency exceeded its target for water company inspections during the last financial year and is due to further ramp up its regulatory work with the sector over the coming year, MPs have been told.
EA chief executive Philip Duffy said the increased scrutiny regime that England and Wales’s 10 water and sewage companies are being placed under is underpinned by 440 new officials paid for under an industry-sponsored scheme.
Duffy’s figures came in response to a request for data from parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into reforming the water sector. The highly controversial topic of sewage overflows is one strand of the panel’s work.
Chief exec Duffy said the Environment Agency had conducted 11,474 investigations since 2015, with 58 resulting in prosecutions. He said 2024-25 had seen the launch of more than 4,500 investigations – beating its target for the year by 13%. He added that the 2025-26 target for investigations is 10,000.
“As expected, the increase in inspections is helping us uncover more instances of non-compliance,” Duffy said. “Of the 4,536 inspections completed in 2024-25, we identified 1,072 minor breaches and 97 cases of significant non-compliance.
“We are following up on all these breaches; the serious ones are being considered for enforcement, and most of the minor breaches are being rectified through local operational action.”
He said the step-change in regulatory work had been funded with the assistance of the Water Industry Transformation Programme and the recent uplift in charges to water and sewage companies. Duffy said that the headcount expansion is set to continue.
“The Environment Agency has greatly expanded the number of staff dedicated to regulating the water industry with 440 new posts, including regulatory officers, data analysts, and enforcement specialists,” he said. “We will be recruiting even more enforcement staff in the coming year.”
Duffy added that the agency is also using new data and digital tools to target regulatory activity. The work includes inspections and audits to identify offences and their root cause – and preventative action such as compliance notices, civil sanctions, and prosecutions.
Data provided to MPs showed Anglian Water Services was the subject of the highest number of prosecutions of any of the 10 water and sewage companies, with 16 cases completed since 2015.
Severn Trent Water received the most warning letters over the same period as part of the EA’s enforcement processes: 1,439. The figure is more than three times that of any other water and sewage company.