To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what targets were set by her Department for the number of inspections carried out by the Environment Agency in each year since 1997; what percentage were met; and if she will make a statement. [93708]
Operational decisions are delegated to the Environment Agency. Although the Agency publishes a number of output and performance statistics, the departmental requirement upon the Agency is that they should assign resources to inspections that address environmental risk.The Agency makes information about its regulatory inspection activity available in its published Corporate Plans. These record the Agency's performance against its internally-generated targets. The Agency has recorded the following statistics for its planned inspections for each year ending 31 March as follows:
| Year | Waste target | Percentage achieved | Percentage industries target | Percentage achieved |
| 1998 | 171,940 | 82 | 3,998 | 80 |
| 1999 | 180,000 | 83 | 4,342 | 76 |
| 2000 | 150,000 | 84 | 4,835 | 79 |
| 2001 | 125,000 | 96 | 4,227 | 70 |
| 2002 | 125,000 | 81 | 4,276 | 84 |