Part 2 - Whistleblower returns

A question I am frequently asked is why did I return to work at the Environment Agency, given the risks? The answer is simply that I considered it my public duty. The public had paid me, and trusted me, to protect them and the environment for many years, and I know a lot of frontline officers who will agree that that sense of responsibility doesn’t leave you easily.

Environment Agency current leadership team - the people paid to run the regulator with high standards of integrity and professionalism.

I was also very lucky to be supported through this period by an ex-colleague, Helen Nightingale, and this was invaluable to my capacity to keep doing this work.

In January 2024 I suffered a detached retina, which left me partially sighted and suffering from double vision, so the Occupational Health Department restricted my duties and told me I qualified for disability at work protection.

This was now under the new Agency leadership, as the new CEO, Philip Duffy, replaced Sir James Bevan in July 2023. I hoped my treatment at work might

improve, and I accepted there would be a bedding-in period for the new boss, but nothing changed.

No one approached me to listen to my concerns as a whistleblower or discuss how things could change for the better. The approach seemed to be to double down on the stance taken by the previous leadership. Essentially, they

still wanted the water industry wrongdoing to go unreported and remain covered up.

To give an insight into the culture under the new Agency leadership, my regular recoveries from eye surgery would be interrupted by random threats of disciplinary action and periods of unlawful suspension.

Sometimes I was unfit to take part in scheduled tribunal hearings, which would often prompt an offer from the Agency for me to withdraw my claim against it.

I felt that the threat made by Sir James Bevan that anyone speaking out would be treated severely was being carried out,, but now under the rule of the new boss - so nothing had changed

While I was being treated like this, I learned that the Agency’s Chairman, Alan

Lovell, was having dinner with water company bosses to discuss how to manage the publicity around the sewage scandal.

I was unwelcome while exposing the truth, while the people responsible for widespread criminal pollution by their companies were wining and dining with one of the key leaders of their regulator, one of my senior bosses.

Whistlblower treated as pariah, while bosses of criminal polluters wined and dined with Chairman of regulator.. Guardian - EA Chairman dinner with water bosses - link at end

The claim that has been made in the media, since Channel 4's Dirty Business, that things are different now, does not match the evidence.

Discharges of untreated sewage have reached record levels for both number and duration. The number of serious incidents reported

against the water industry has risen from 235 in 2021 to 2810 in 2024.

SOURCE Environmental Information Regulations request - EIR2026.01646 - end of blog

Even worse, the incident attendance rate for these incidents has fallen from 42% in 2021 to 20% in 2024. The number of serious incidents reported against water companies that have been downgraded has risen from 87% in 2021 to 98% in 2024. Some 2239 of these were not attended and so were downgraded on water company evidence alone. The polluter that could be fined £millions for serious pollution decides how serious the pollution is.

SOURCE Environmental Information Regulations request - EIR2026.01646 - end of blog

The Agency still has the same processes in place that were implemented by Sir James Bevan, to allow water companies to bypass regulation. The Incident Triage Project is still in force, where water company incidents are ‘silently passed’, meaning that no Agency officer is informed of them.

Water companies can still self-report incidents late (sometimes days late) when they want to control evidence gathering and prevent any meaningful investigation until the worst evidence has been washed away. For example, if they were discharging sewage for a number of hours, they could ring it into the Agency after the discharge had stopped and the impact had cleared, so any Agency sampling would not show an accurate picture of the pollution.

Wait until the pollution stops and then call it in for the Environment Agency to sample. meanwhile the polution may be miles downstream.

It is that simple for water companies to hide the evidence and the Agency’s procedures are designed so that they help and encourage this behaviour.

Between 2022 and 2025 over 2000 incidents were reported at least 24 hours later than when they were first observed.

SOURCE Environmental Information Regulations request - EIR2026/15208 - end of blog

In 2024, United Utilities (UU) reported 123 incidents the day after they happened or even longer afterwards.

SOURCE Environmental Information Regulations request - NR398680 - end of blog

UU also had the most instances and longest duration of discharges of untreated sewage in 2024 yet the Agency leadership awarded them the highest rating of four stars that year.

It does not take a genius to realise that avoiding detection in this way would have allowed them to gain more stars and stars mean more money from the economic regulator, Ofwat.

The motivation to cheat is clear and the Agency is making cheating easy.

In response to a Parliamentary Question about why there had not been an analysis of incident response when assessing what methods would hold water companies to account, the Secretary of State replied that – “The EA already operates a robust, risk- based system to respond to pollution incidents,” presumably without knowing the truth about how it encourages cheating.

It also steps far away from the evidence-based organisation that the Agency is claimed to be: Under Sir James Bevan the Agency reassured the public, and politicians, that everything was fine by using a performance indicator for kilometres of river ‘enhanced’. This replaced the reliable data previously provided by our in-river monitoring network and swapped it for something entirely subjective and easy to simply make up.

Environment Agency officers were asked how many kilometres of river they thought they enhanced that month. They could answer anything, 10, 20, 50 or more, even if the river itself remained the same poor water quality as before. Former CEO Sir James Bevan had used this measure to inform parliamentary hearings and claim fictional success.

To come right up to date and show how nothing has really changed, I believe the latest smokescreen to deceive the public is the target of undertaking 10,000 inspections of water company assets.

This looks good on paper and spends a lot of money, but does not threaten the water industry's ability to profit from pollution, and this is why.

Between 2006 and 2010, when water quality was arguably at its highest, the

Agency undertook a few hundred planned inspections a year of water company assets. This was because all the other arms of regulation were working as they should.

So why would the new Agency leadership decide to use its money to expand this to thousands and ignore what had been effective before?

Instead of putting this money into ending self-monitoring (companies marking their own homework), attending all serious incidents or increasing prosecutions, they chose the lowest form of regulation, basic inspections that usually result in advice or demands that are often ignored.

Rather than investigate criminal activity as it was happening, the Agency leadership decided to have staff examine signage and data sheets.

Historic discharges of untreated sewage in dry periods can now be designated as 'minor breaches', whilst serious real-time criminal acts remain unreported, unattended and unevidenced.

To me, the 10,000 inspection target looks like a joint PR exercise by the Agency and the water industry, and it is effectively an admission that the water industry can no longer be regulated.

The white flag has been waved. The criminality is far too great, the profits too substantial, and the finances and incentives too intertwined for things to ever go back to the way they were. It appears the best the Agency and the Government are hoping for is to manage public perception of the issue and distract them with hollow successes. It seems it will always be business as usual regarding sewage dumping and covering it up.

The latest proposals for yet more changes to regulation, the governments new Vision for Water, White Paper gives them the platform for this to continue.

That is why, in my opinion, the only answer is public ownership with a water industry free from profit-making as an incentive to manipulate and collude with the regulator and a regulator free from the incentives to succumb to control, capture and corruption.

References

Guardian - EA Chairman dinner with water bosses https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/01/watchdogs-and-water-bosses-had-dinner-at-private-london-club-to-discuss-future

EIR2026.01646

FOI - EIR2026.01646 - Downgrading of serious incidents.xlsx

Download XLSX • 44KB

For the 235 and 2810 figures, add the results in tabs Q3, Q4, Q7 and Q8. It comes to 2767, and for the rest it is the number of official water company serious incidents for 2024 that don't feature in tabs Q3 and Q4, so were reported as serious and remained serious.

For the attendance percentage, it is Q3 plus Q7, divided by the combined total in Q4 and Q8.

For downgrades, it is Q7 plus Q8 as a percentage of the total reported, which is 235 in 2021 and 2810 in 2024.

EIR2026/15208

UTF-8EIR2026_15208 Water company incidents date observed and reported.xlsx

Download XLSX • 631KB

NR398680

NR398680_UU_Dates_Times_Noticed.xlsx

Download XLSX • 85KB