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Philip

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I know very little about how the EA is organized now so I suspect I will probably be way off track but I get the feeling as with any large organizations nowadays they get so bogged down in bureaucracy & administration that they lose track of the underlying objective of why they are there in the first place.

Now perhaps I am naive but “Environment” Agency says to me that most of the employees should be outside in the “Environment” doing things about it. However, I suspect most of the employees at EA sit behind a desk and deal with paper or a computer. Its not their fault, its just the way things are unfortunately nowadays.

I hope I am wrong but take any Public Hotline they have as an example....they probably have several “Incident hotline handlers”..who take it in turns to man the phones to take any calls from the public. A support department who implement & run the hotline system, a finance department to finance the implementation of hot line systems, Legal department of course to ensure the hot line adheres to any legal regulations, a HR department to manage all these dozens of people working in or around the hotline service. Finally, they have just the 1 bloke who actually drives out to take a look at the actual incident or pollution.

....then what does he do ? ...takes a look & says "oh yeah thats a incident alright" ...and then has to log it back into the burocratic monster to start the cleanup process...
 
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sam vimes

sam vimes

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Philip said:
I know very little about how the EA is organized now so I suspect I will probably be way off track but I get the feeling as with any large organizations nowadays they get so bogged down in bureaucracy & administration that they lose track of the underlying objective of why they are there in the first place.

Now perhaps I am naive but “Environment” Agency says to me that most of the employees should be outside in the “Environment” doing things about it. However, I suspect most of the employees at EA sit behind a desk and deal with paper or a computer. Its not their fault, its just the way things are unfortunately nowadays.

I hope I am wrong but take any Public Hotline they have as an example....they probably have several “Pollution hotline handlers”..who take it in turns to man the phones to take any calls from the public. A support department who implement & run the hotline system, a finance department to finance the implementation of hot line systems, Legal department of course to ensure the hot line adheres to any legal regulations, a HR department to manage all these dozens of people working in or around the hotline service. Finally, they have just the 1 bloke who actually drives out to take a look at the actual incident or pollution.
Click to expand...

https://assets.publishing.service.g.../860452/EA_Organisation_Chart_January2020.pdf

God knows exactly where the fisheries side fits, but they don't even get a mention in the high level organisational chart. I assume that they'll be somewhere under the auspices of Operations. However, it's not too difficult to imagine that the fisheries department are well down the pecking order when faced with the Flood & Coastal Risk Management (FCRM) department or the Environment & Business (E&B) department. It's also fairly safe to assume that the FCRM (or E&B) are likely to have quite different agendas to the Fisheries teams. I dare say that they sometimes align, but I've been aware of situations where they definitely don't. The snag is that people see the word "environment" and assume that everything they might do is entirely considerate of and for the benefit of the natural environment. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that it isn't the case. Flood management and prevention has, unsurprisingly, become an increasingly hot topic in recent years. I'm pretty well convinced that riverine fish and anglers are of little consequence in the face of FCRM work. When hordes of house and business owners are hip deep in muddy water, they tend to have a fairly powerful voice, one that politicians take note of. A few fish, whiney anglers and fisheries teams are distinctly small beer.
 
no-one in particular

no-one in particular

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I have only seen two EA officials at work, one is the lock keeper that controls the sluices on one of my stretches and the other was a bloke testing the water for poisons in a little stream I fish that runs next to a council tip, that was only once and about 10 years ago. I assume the people I have seen occasionally clearing banks with a dredger are contractors, same with the warning boards they erect now and then. I have never been asked to show my license in my whole fishing life. I have had a few email responses from them about different things I have taken up. I know they must be active on the ground, they have a fish research facility somewhere I believe and they do come out and check for pollution and such like. It is just that personally I have only ever met the two actual employees actually doing something, seeing as I have been fishing for 50 odd years; that's not a lot. However, I do see their vans with Environment Agency on the sides but I only see them driving along. I cannot recall seeing them doing anything.
I am not saying this is the b all and end all of how the EA works just my own observations over the years.
I think I would like to see them more active on the ground, testing water quality, doing fish checks, stopping the illegal taking of fish, pest control, looking after the flora and fauna etc. etc. I have never seen them doing any of that on the two main rivers I fish in 20 odd years. They are not big important rivers but still important and they have played their part in ruining them more than anything else.. But they wouldn't spend the money, the only initiative they do is volunteer workers but I am against that for all sorts of reasons. What we have is mainly just an administrate body it seems to me, laws, directives, forms, money etc. but then that is most Government; they cost us all a fortune to inflict whatever they want back on us from the comfort of a heated office, a coffee machine and a computer., nice work if you can get it.
 
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steve2

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Just received my reminder for my fishing licence for 2021-2022. So the finance department are still working.
 
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