Protecting our Marine Environment - Environmental Protection - 1.2 Resources of Environmental Prote

1.2 Resources of Environmental Protection

Executive summary

• The budget and manpower of Environmental Protection is stretched.
• Environmental Protection frequently reviews and prioritises activity to account for incoming work and to provide the best level of protection possible for the environment.
• Any further activities placed on the section will require further workload rationalisation.
• The high work load is a constraint on officers updating themselves on best practise elsewhere and maintaining Continuing Professional Development (CPD) qualifications for chartered status.
• Despite these constraints Environmental Protection achieves and promotes a high level of environmental protection in the Island.

1. Introduction

Manpower and budget resources in Environmental Protection are extremely stretched - they have not increased over recent years and have not benefited from a recent assessment of the resources, given the expansion of the remit.

Funding for the recent additional initiatives undertaken by Environmental Protection to safeguard the environment, such as the Diffuse Pollution Pilot Project, the profiling of bathing water catchments and administering complex discharge permits has had to be delivered using existing resources.

To tackle this, Environmental Protection:

1. review expenditure and priority areas
2. review and rationalise activities (for example monitoring programs) to ensure that value for money is attained
3. utilise States of Jersey internship student to undertake required projects
4. look for lower cost solutions, such as involving and mobilising the industry (for example oil distributors and plumbers, farmers)
5. prioritise resources toward longer term objective of education around pollution prevention.

2. Budget

The breakdown of the 2010 budget is given in Table 1. Expenditure on manpower represents the major cost item (approx 80% of the total budget).

Total costs incurred for the regulation of the Waste Management (Jersey) Law 2005 and the Water Resources (Jersey) Law 2007 are covered through the license fees charged.

Table 1 Breakdown into service areas of 2010 budget for Environmental

Protection

2010  Fees  Manpower Operating  

budget (income) budget Agricultural inspection 277,147

-admin, training, vehicle etc 19,640 -pesticide compliance 23,150 -NPTC courses  (4,000) 4,000 Sub total 319,937  (4000) 277,147 46,790

Water Pollution 413,786

-admin, training, equipment etc  11,950

- pollution control (inc. 2  (2,000)  16,400

vehicles)

- pollution prevention 1,500

- monitoring (inc. vehicle)  47,850

Sub total 489,486 (2,000) 413,786  77,700 Water Resources 64,454

- implementation (110,000) 34,300

Sub total (11,246) (110,000) 64,454 34,300 Waste Management 67,024

- implementation (inc. vehicle) (96,900)  45,300

Sub total 15,424 (96,900) 67,024  45,300 Total 813,601 (212,900) 822,411 204,090

3. Manpower

The Environmental Protection team presently comprises as follows:

Structure of Environmental Protection Team Assistant Director- Environmental Protection

Head of Water Resources Head of Waste Regulation Head of Agricultural Inspection

Hydrogeologist Environmental Protection Officers x4   Agricultural Inspectors x 4

Environmental

Protection Technician

Submission made by Environmental Protection to the Environment Scrutiny Panel's review on 3 Protecting Our Marine Environment - Monitoring and Regulation of Coastal Waters'

The staff with in the section are highly qualified and trained in order to cover the wide remit of environmental protection in Jersey.

New officers require extensive training to achieve this level (approx 3-4 years). Most officers have achieved full chartered status (Chartered Institute for Water and Environmental Management, CIWEM or the Chartered Institute for Waste Management, CIWM) with the remaining training and updating competencies to achieve this goal.

Staff are able to work between sections thus providing flexibility during times of high work load.

4. Equipment

1. Vehicles

1. Two Peugeots on lease (one vehicle for monitoring)
2. Kia
3. Landrover (used as emergency pollution response vehicle)

All vehicles, apart for the emergency landrover are made available for use by the Environment Division.

2. Oil control/ monitoring equipment

1. Emergency trailer (carrying large oil booms, sand bags etc)
2. Various pollution control equipment, including oil booms, absorbent mats, oil collection containers, monitoring bottle and equipment.

A stock take of the above occurs once a year.

Jersey Harbours have an array of pollution control equipment (especially large oil booms). Environmental Protection have agreed and signed a MOU with Jersey Harbours that enables both departments to:

1. Exchange stock take lists, so that they are aware of what is available
2. Share pollution control resources should a large pollution incident occur.

3. Other equipment

Environmental Protection have all resources required to undertake an investigation into a pollution offence, including:

1. Police notebooks
2. Evidence bags
3. Triple deck recorder for interview under caution
4. Transcribing tape recorders

5. Constraints

The budget for Environmental Protection is presently fully accounted for and needs to be closely monitored to prevent potential overspends. Any additional work would require additional funding or existing activities to be stopped.

Only one officer is available to administer the Waste Management (Jersey) Law 2005. The work and remit is extensive and necessitates issuing waste management licenses in order to derive the license income. The under resourcing in the is area has led to a reduced forecast in income leading to budget reallocation from other expenditure lines within Environmental Protection.

Current workloads are preventing officers from keeping abreast of developments elsewhere and indeed CPD requirements to maintain Chartered status (as required by the job description). This is particularly the case as officers are required to work at professional levels in all of the Environmental Protection areas (unlike the UK Environmental Agency where officers specialise in one area). Environmental Protection have tried to counter these problems by officers spending time at the Environmental Agency. This has heightened information exchange and enabled Environmental Protection to maintain best practise.

The duty rota puts additional unscheduled pressure on daily workloads of officers, who may be required to attend pollution incidents at short notice, at any time.