Each year the Board considers how the EPA has reduced risks to human health and prevented environmental degradation.
Performance assessment summary
The Board regularly monitors the EPA’s performance and publicly reports the outcomes in the annual report, on the EPA website and to Parliament. The Board supports the EPA’s shift towards becoming a world class regulator. This helps the EPA further reduce risks to human health and prevent environmental degradation.
The Board acknowledges the EPA has progressed significant corporate initiatives to support these objectives. The EPA Strategic Plan 2021–24, delivered in July 2021, commits to the key attributes of world class regulation:
- learning mindset
- outcomes-focused
- responsive and adaptive
- purpose and people-centred
- service-oriented.
The EPA Executive has worked with the Board to make climate change a focus for 2021–24, along with ecologically sustainable development, waste, legacy and emerging contaminants and water quality.
Key corporate initiatives include the EPA’s Workforce Strategy, which considers capability and future-building, a revised Risk Framework, which is regularly audited by the EPA Audit and Risk Committee, and the EPA’s significant Digital Transformation Strategy.
The EPA’s regulatory efforts have delivered positive impacts and tangible outcomes in the financial year to June 2021. These include how well it has responded to health and environmental incidents, consulted with industry and local government, and taken a lead in responding to environmental issues following natural disasters.
Examples include:
- protecting communities, waterways and the aquatic environment from pollution following severe storms and flooding in March 2021
- enhancing native timber forest protection, with a significant focus on recovery after the 2019–20 bushfires
- helping communities directly by reducing the risks from legacy contamination from past industrial activities, such as lead and asbestos
- managing programs and incentives to reduce the harmful impacts of waste, fight littering and waste crimes, and support a circular economy.
This statement also provides an overview of the EPA’s performance compared to regulators in other Australian jurisdictions. Section B provides examples of EPA programs aimed at regulating key industry sectors to reduce risks to human health and prevent environmental degradation.

Near Bellingen, NSW. Photo: iStock
The EPA’s progress since 2019–20
In its previous statement in 2019–20, the Board made several recommendations to improve both the EPA’s performance and that of the industries it regulates. The Board reports good progress on these recommendations.
Commencement | Under way | Established | Delivered | |
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Progress on the Board’s previous recommendations from EPA Board Regulatory Assurance Statement 2019–20 | Program is under development | Program has commenced and is working towards outcomes | Program is achieving results | Program sees results towards achieving environmental outcomes |
Establish an approach to formally review and compare initiatives, systems and approaches taken by environmental regulators in other jurisdictions that could improve the EPA’s regulatory performance.
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Continue to improve the application and use of data collected by the EPA for trend analysis, development of priorities and risk-based compliance campaigns by progressing its Regulatory Strategy and Digital Transformation Strategy.
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The EPA’s Digital Transformation Strategy 2021–24, data strategy, draft approaches to science and science partnership services promote adoption of intelligent, efficient and effective digital tools. In 2020–21 the way data is applied and used were improved by:
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Take regulatory action (including prosecutions) when appropriate and apply the proposed update to public interest considerations in the EPA Prosecution Guidelines.
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Support the reset of forestry regulatory practice, including actions to improve regulatory consistency and coherence for stakeholder engagement, and enhance regulatory capacity, oversight, technology use and education.
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In 2020–21 the EPA created two additional teams to enhance its regulatory capacity across regional NSW, with increased focus on native forestry compliance, noting that non-compliance with native forestry regulations was a persistent issue that placed considerable demand on the EPA’s resources.
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Advise all environment protection licensees to consider the impacts of natural disasters in their pollution incident response management plans.
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The EPA provides critical information and early warnings to prepare for emergencies, including storms and floods.
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Encourage industry through targeted awareness and education programs aimed at industry sectors
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The EPA consulted extensively with industry stakeholders and increased its engagement with them in response to its Stakeholder Survey findings. In 2020–21 it took actions that included establishing:
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Comparing the EPA’s performance to that of regulators in other jurisdictions
International approaches to agile regulation
The EPA participated in a World Economic Forum project, collaborating with other regulators to find new ways of adapting to the fast pace of technological and digital change. It undertook a self-assessment using the forum’s characteristics of an agile regulator and collaborated with other international regulators to talk through shared challenges.
The EPA aligned with its peer regulators in having shared strengths of being proportionate, fair, open and outcomes-focused. It showed potential improvement in the areas of coordination, responsiveness, proactiveness and being experimental.
The EPA and its peer agencies identified opportunities for growth through innovation and international collaboration.
The forum’s findings shaped the context for the EPA’s new strategic plan. They further enhanced a commitment to innovation and partnerships to respond to environmental challenges. This is reflected in the EPA Strategic Plan 2021–24.
Jurisdictional networks and communities of practice
The EPA’s connection with other agencies helps it share knowledge with these agencies and learn from them. This now forms a continual improvement process, and is fundamental in working towards world class regulation. The Board is satisfied the level of environment protection achieved by the EPA compares favourably with that in other Australian jurisdictions.
It is also keen for the EPA to strive towards leading the work in climate change, as set out in its strategic plan.
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As a member of the Heads of Australian and New Zealand EPAs (HEPA), the EPA works with environmental regulators across jurisdictions to prevent harm, influence policy and practice, share scientific expertise and drive strategic interventions in environmental issues. Participation by the NSW EPA Chair and CEO in HEPA allows the Board to keep up-to-date with the regulatory approaches taken by environmental regulators across Australia. It allows EPA staff to work with their counterparts in other agencies to improve environmental regulation. |
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The Australian and New Zealand School of Government’s National Regulators Community of Practice is an active network of public sector regulators who are keen to learn from each other. They come from all levels of government in Australia and Aotearoa–New Zealand and are from every regulatory sector, professional background, role and level of seniority. The EPA’s membership supports a learning mindset, building capabilities and connections. |
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Many EPA staff participate in the professional network for environmental regulators across Australasia, the Australasian Environmental Law Enforcement and Regulator’s neTwork (AELERT), partnering with jurisdictional regulators to collaborate, and share ideas and learnings. |