We hear you at the Hub
A new central system called the Hub is at the heart of the EPA’s improved service to resolve incoming requests and issues.
The Hub helps the EPA deal with issues on a priority basis
The new agile way of working drew considerable attention and support from licensees and local council staff who attended our Roadshows around the state in February and March this year.
“The message from our stakeholders requesting timely and consistent responses was loud and clear,” Hub Manager Peter Bloem said.
“The Hub helps direct the efforts of our regulatory teams to the areas of the greatest benefit, provides guidance on difficult issues and enables us to adjust to changing priorities.
“That means that if someone is away, there is always another officer available to take on a case, even if they are not from the same area - plus, it also means that our officers with specific areas of expertise will now have an opportunity to do more mentoring and training of other staff, so we are working to grow that capability across a wider team.
“Our team at the Hub consists of a group of experienced operations staff who ensure we will improve decision making, collaboration and reduce the element of risk.
“Another advantage is about creating a greater level of consistency across different parts of the state, as the Hub allows us to see new patterns around emerging issues and to develop co-ordinated and consistent responses.”
The Hub also triages call-outs to incidents and manages the EPA’s response in emergencies such helping with water sampling and debris clean-up during the recent floods.
“We endeavour to respond quickly with regulatory advice and troubleshoot as a team on more challenging issues, irrespective of where an officer is located,” Peter added.
“Over the past six months the Hub has triaged and resolved up to 800 enquiries each month.
If you want to know more about the Hub and how it works, take a look at our Hub explained fact sheet
Snapshot of the EPA’s business activity
- The EPA has 308 operational staff working in regulation, conducting inspections and responding to incidents across NSW.
- The EPA regulates around 2,080 premises based licenses around NSW under the Risk Based Licensing System.
- The EPA receives close to 600 reports a month via the Environment Line. These include reports of pollution from the public, industry self-reports of pollution and reports from emergency services.
- During the recent NSW flood response, the EPA responded to 378 reports of flood related incidents in a single week during March.
How the Hub can help you
If you are a licensee we can help you
- Assess a new licence, vary or surrender a current licence
- Review an Annual Return
- Undertake risk-based licensing functions
For general enquiries
The Environment Line is your central contact point for incident reports and licensing enquiries 131 555 or info@epa.nsw.gov.au. Report incidents to the same number including after-hours.
Also see the EPA’s Regulatory Action Table